10 Hot Chinese Words in May 五月热门词汇

The biggest event in May 2008 is the Sichuan earthquake. To help you learn the hot Chinese words and expressions, ChineseHour Blog carefully seleced the most popular Chinese words for each month for your Chinese learning:

地震 dìzhèn, earthquake

A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County of southwest China’s Sichuan Province at 2:28 pm Monday, May 12. The epicenter of the quake was located 31.0 degrees north latitude and 103.4 degrees east longitude.

抗震救灾 kàngzhèn jiùzāi, earthquake relief

众志成城 zhòngzhì chéngchéng.
Unity is strength. (Unity and strength.)

捐款 juānkuǎn, donations

一方有难, 八方支援。

Yī fāng yǒu nán, bā fāng zhīyuán.

When disaster strikes, help comes from all sides.

The Chinese saying “When disaster strikes, help comes from all sides” ( Disaster at one direction and support from eight directions) is holding true as Chinese people across the world come together to provide relief for the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan Province this week. The central government allocated another 1.17 billion yuan ($167 million) to the relief fund for quake-hit areas on Friday. This brought the disaster relief fund from the central budget to 3.41 billion yuan. Public donations in both cash and goods to the quake-hit areas rose to 3.175 billion yuan as of 4 pm Friday, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

时间就是生命。Time is life.

Shíjiān jiùshì shēngmìng.

 ”Time is life,” Premier Wen Jiabao urged rescuers. China’s central government has ordered to mobilize 50 more military helicopters to airlift the critically injured residents from the mountain-logged rural areas, also epicenter of the killer earthquake which struck southwestern Sichuan Province on Monday. The newest death toll has risen to 14,866 people, and the situation is getting urgent and grim to save more trapped alive under the debris, as the time since the earthquake ticks towards 72 hours.

通货膨胀 tōnghuò péngzhàng, inflation

Consumer inflation in China rebounded to the highest level in 11 years in April, as food prices continued to surge, prompting an immediate announcement of a hike in the bank reserve ratio by 0.5 percentage point.

两岸直航 liǎngàn zhíháng, direct cross-Strait flights

KMT reveals timetable for direct cross-Strait flights. The Kuomintang, which will become the ruling party in Taiwan after Ma Ying-jeou is sworn in on May 20, wants to bring in more mainland tourists, make the yuan convertible and implement a plan for more direct weekend chartered flights across the Taiwan Strait starting in July, the Taipei-based Commercial Times reported. 

手足口病shǒu-zú-kǒu bìng, hand-foot-mouth disease
The number of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) cases reported in China this year has risen to 11,905 by Monday, resulting in 26 deaths, according to Xinhua counting of local official figures.

热带风暴 rèdài fēngbào, cyclone

Myanmar raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22,500 with a further 41,000 missing, nearly all of them from a massive storm surge that swept into the vast Irrawaddy delta. China is sending 1 million US dollars worth of aid to cyclone-devastated Myanmar, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Tuesday.