World Footy News

Any of us who've had a go at learning Chinese might have come across the very popular ChinesePod, a regular Podcast featuring lessons in spoken Mandarin with subscribers the world over.

ChinesePod featured a lesson this week on Aussie Rules (or more specifically on a conversation between two Chinese watching a Collingwood game on TV, one of whom likes the game more than the other), available here.

Although the lesson doesn't have a whole lot of specific footy-related vocab, it brings up a bit of a translation question regarding how to say "footy" in Chinese, the folks at CPod called it "Australian-style Olive Ball", whereas the Beijing Bombers and Shanghai Tigers use the translation "Australian-style Foot Ball".

That probably looks a bit bizarre to English-speaking readers, but the explanation is that in Chinese, the word "Olive Ball" refers to rugby, or by extension to anything else with an olive-shaped ball, including American football. Chinese tends to name sports this way, with Badminton called "Feather Ball", Tennis called "Net Ball" and Baseball called "Stick Ball" (which makes you wonder what they call the completely different sports "netball" or "stickball").

This question comes up time to time... In at least a couple of other places around the world there were long discussions on what to call the game in the local language that didn't sound like a league of Australians playing Soccer, not to mention the confusion created if you try to translate the word "rules" into the name.

The good folks of the BJ Bombers and Shanghai Tigers have both been on the CPod message board to set the record straight. Bring on IC08, and the Red Demons can decide for themselves what to call it!