Grandma’s Crazy Phrasebook #6: Buck Teeth
March 9th, 2009 | View Comments
“I have bulging teeth.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve never even used this phrase in English. But in the event that you want to learn how to say it in Chinese or Japanese, here we go:
我有兔寶寶門牙.
Wo2 you3 tu4 bao3 bao1 men2 ya2.
私の前歯は大きいです。
Watashi no maeba wa ōkii desu.
The Chinese phrase is more suggestive, literally “I have rabbit-like front teeth.” 我有 = “I have”, 兔寶寶 = “rabbit” or “cutesy little precious rabbit” (兔 by itself is sufficient for “rabbit”; the 寶寶 part is literally “precious precious” and is symptomatic of the Chinese need to a) nickname everything, and b) repeat words), 門牙 = “front teeth”.
The Japanese phrase is very literal: “My front teeth are big.” 私 = “I/me”, の = possessive marker, 前歯 = “front teeth” (though 歯 by itself is pronounced ha (は) instead of ba (ば), は = subject marker, 大きいです = “are big”.
Yvonne posted this on March 9th, 2009 @ 12:00pm in Chinese, Grandma's Crazy Phrasebook, Japanese | Permalink to "Grandma’s Crazy Phrasebook #6: Buck Teeth"
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American-born Taiwanese girl who married a Japanese guy. And who forgot about six years' of Spanish grammar and most of the vocab.
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