Love Our China: A Patriotic speech

Welp, you can’t get more forcefully patriotic than this. This transcript of a student’s classroom speech reads like a political call-to-action and includes rousing images of bloody soldiers, strong Chinese athletes and Chinese workers throwing off the yoke of imperialist might. This might be upper intermediate level reading, but I’m classifying it as advanced, as the sentence structure really isn’t very straightforward, and there are quite a few new words.
Simplified Chinese Practice Texts - Patriotic Chinese Communist SpeechThere’s a saying in the third paragraph that makes no sense in English, only in Chinese. The saying is: ‘国家国家，有国才有家’. This translates to “Country, country, have country, then home.” Doesn’t mean much, does it? But we must examine the structure of the sentence to see that this is actually a play on words. The word for “country” is 国家. 国, by itself, means “country” or “kingdom”. 家, by itself, means “home” or “family”. Put them together, and you get the complete, proper word for “country”. So the author is first saying the word “country” twice (国家国家), then the second part means “the word country is made up first of the character for country, THEN then character for ‘home’”, in other words, “you must have a country before you can have a home or family”. This seems to also insinuate that “country should come before family”.
If you remember no other word in this whole essay, remember this one: 祖国 zǔ guó. Look at it: 祖国 祖国 祖国 祖国. It means “motherland”, and once you know it, you will see it everywher.
Another interesting word here is 帝国主义者, which means “imperialist”. If you ever have plans to use your Chinese skills to read old Maoist textbooks, you’d better remember that one as well. It also contains a useful grammar point: 主义者 is equivalent to the English suffix “ist”, as in “imperial-ist”. 主义, without 者, is equivalent to the “ism”. So 帝国主义 is “imperialism”. This can be applied to other words, such as 女权主义者 (feminist) and 女权主义 (feminism), and 理想主义者 (idealist) and 理想主义 (idealism).
The title of this speech is: 爱我中华
You can find the original here
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祖国 – zǔ guó – Motherland
詹天佑 – zhān tiān yòu – Railroad engineer who constructed the first Chinese railroad built without foreign assistance
钱学森 – qián xué sēn – Engineer, considered the father of Chinese rocketry
爱祖国 (also 爱国) – ài zǔ guó – Love the motherland, a patriot
待遇 – dài yù – Treatment, pay, wages
前程 – qián chéng – Future career prospects
帝国主义者 – dì guó zhǔ yì zhě – Imperialist
回击 – huí jī – Counterattack
战场 – zhàn chǎng – Battlefield
抛 – pāo – Toss, throw away, abandon
边疆 – biān jiāng – Borders, borderlands
硝烟 – xiāo yān – Gun smoke
尸横遍野 – shī héng biàn yě – Corpses strewn over a plain
荧屏 – yíng píng – TV screen
健儿 – jiàn ér – Meaning both ‘top athlete’ and ‘heroic warrior’
夺得 – duó dé – Seize by force
冠军 – guàn jūn – Champion
争光 – zhēng guāng – Win a prize, win an honor
武装 – wǔ zhuāng – To arm (someone)
报效 – bào xiào – Return a kindness by doing a service
敬爱的老师，亲爱的同学们: 大家好！
今天我演讲的题目是“爱我中华“
有两句话“生我者父母，养我者祖国．“ “国家国家，有国才有家．“ 我爱我的祖国，胜过爱我的一切！
每当阅读起爱国书籍，看到詹天佑，钱学森等这样爱祖国的人，放弃好的待遇，放弃好的前程，就是给那些瞧不起中国的帝国主义者一个有力的回击，他们用行动大声的说:“ 祖国，我爱您！“
每当看起爱国电影，看着英雄战士上战场为祖国，抛头颅，撒热血保卫边疆．一次次硝烟过去，战场上尸横遍野，那些快要死了的战士好象在说: “ 祖国，你永远在我心中！“
每当在荧屏上中国的奥运健儿 在比赛中夺得冠军时他们总是露着灿烂的笑容，身为祖国儿女的他们感到无比的自豪．升国旗时，他们流出滚滚热泪，望着五星红旗，心中在呼唤: “ 祖国，我为您争光了！“
我们不能像勇士那样血撒战场，不能像伟人一样建设祖国．．．．．．我们现在应该好好学习，用智慧和知识武装自己长大以后报效祖国，大家要像周总理那样，为中华之崛起而读书！做一个有志向的人.
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Respected teacher, dear classmates, hello!
The topic of my speech today is “Love Our China”.
There are two sayings, “My mother and father birthed me, my country raised me.” And “Country, country, you must have a country before you have a home.” I love my motherland, it surpasses everything that I love!
On every patriotic work, we see Zhan TianYou, Qian XueSen, and similar patriots, who gave up good pay, gave up good career prospects, to forcefully fight back against the imperialists who looked down on China. They used their actions to say loudly, “Motherland, I love you!”
In every patriotic movie, we see heroic soldiers who lost their heads and sprinkled their blood on the battlefields for their motherland to defend our borders, and when the gun smoke cleared, the battlefields were littered with corpses. It’s as if those soldiers who were about to die said, “Motherland, you are forever in my heart!”
Every Chinese Olympic athlete on the TV screen who seizes the championship in a competition is always smiling brilliantly, as sons and daughters of the motherland, they feel matchless pride. When our flag is raised, hot tears roll down their cheeks as they gaze at the five-starred red flag, in their hearts they are shouting: “Motherland, I won this honor for you!”
We can’t cast our blood on the battlefield like those warriors, we can’t build the motherland as the great men did… right now we must study well, use our wisdom and knowledge to arm ourselves so that after we grow up we can return with our service the kindness our motherland has done us, we should be like Premier Zhou [Zhou EnLai], read books so that China may rise up! Be an ambitious person.