Chinese civilization stretches back at least to the 3rd millennium BC. It is the source of many of the world’s great inventions, including paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing, not to mention china (porcelain) itself. But maybe the greatest contribution that the country and its language have made to the Western world is tea. The drink is first mentioned in English in 1655. The Chinese connection first found in US English in the early 20th century。

中华文明可以至少追溯到公元前300万年。它是世界上许多伟大发明的源头，例如造纸术，指南针，火药和（hé）印刷术（shù）。更不用说（shuō）还有瓷器本身（shēn）。但（dàn）是对中西方语言（yán）文化交流作出最大贡献（xiàn）的是茶。茶最早（zǎo）在1655年引（yǐn）入英国，而英语和汉（hàn）语的关联（lián），最早也是在20世纪初的（de）美（měi）式英语中被发现。

People drinking something stronger than tea might say chin-chin, or ‘cheers!’ This is a mangled pronunciation of qing qing, a Chinese greeting. Another ‘doubled’ word is chop-chop, or ‘quickly’. Chop here is a pidgin Chinese rendition of Chinese kuaì ‘quick, nimble’, and is also found in chopstick。

人们在（zài）喝比茶更浓的饮品时可能会说“chin chin”或者（zhě）“干杯”!这是模仿中国“请请”的发音（yīn）。另外一个双（shuāng）音节词则是（shì）”chop-chop”，意（yì）为“快快”。这里的chop基于“筷（kuài）子”的（de）“筷”的发音，是对（duì）中式发音（yīn）“快”的模仿。

Our range of savoury relishes was extended when traders introduced us to ketchup at the end of the 17th century. The name may come from Chinese ‘tomato juice’。

在17世纪（jì）末番茄酱（jiàng）被引入之后，菜肴的风味有了延展。这个名字可能和汉语中（zhōng）的“番茄汁”相（xiàng）关。

Contact with imperial China in the early 19th century introduced Westerners to the Chinese custom of kowtowing—kneeling down and touching the forehead on the ground in worship or submission. The word means literally ‘to knock the head’。

19世纪初期，西方（fāng）人开（kāi）始了解了封建（jiàn）王朝叩头的礼节——双膝跪地，前额轻触地面以显示尊敬（jìng）或降服之意。这个词字面（miàn）意思就是“头和地面相碰”。

Ginseng is a plant whose root is credited with various health-giving and medicinal properties. Its Chinese name, rénshén, literally means ‘man root’, a reference to the root’s forked shape, which supposedly resembles a person。

Ginseng是一种（zhǒng）植物的根茎，被认（rèn）为可以促进健（jiàn）康并有（yǒu）药用价值。它的中文名字“人参”的意思是“人的根”，因（yīn）其形状酷似人形而得名。

Gung-ho, meaning ‘unthinkingly enthusiastic and eager, especially about fighting’, dates from the Second World War. It is from Chinese gōnghé ‘to work together’, and was adopted as a slogan by the US Marines fighting in the Pacific under General Evans Carlson (1896–1947). He organized ‘Gung-ho’ meetings to discuss problems and explain orders to promote cooperation。

Gung-ho，意味不加思考的热情和冲动，尤为好（hǎo）斗。它的起（qǐ）源可追溯至二战。原形为汉语（yǔ）中的“共和”，即一起工作，并在埃文斯（sī）卡尔森将军 (1896–1947)领导（dǎo）的太平洋海战中被引入（rù）作为口号。他组织召开“共和”会议来研讨问题（tí），促进合作。

Increasing interest in our living spaces in the 1990s led to the popularity of feng shui, the ancient Chinese system of designing buildings and arranging objects in rooms to achieve a positive flow of energy and so bring happiness or good luck. It goes back a long way in English, and even had an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1797.

对于生存环（huán）境的愈发（fā）好奇使得（dé）在20世纪90年代，“风水”一词被引入，它指的是中国古代建筑及安排房间内物品摆放以达到（dào）能量均衡，从而带来幸福安康的一种方式。该词早在1797年就被收入（rù）大不列颠百科全书。

Not all our Chinese words are ancient, though. China’s first manned space flight in 2003 gave us taikonaut, a Chinese astronaut—taikong means ‘outer space’。

然而（ér）也不是所有的中文都源自古代（dài）。2003年（nián），中国对太空领域的第一次载人探索使得新词taikonaut诞生，意味中国（guó）宇航员(taikong即（jí）为太空)。