China's Pandalike Hanging Train May Change Our Cities

This September, engineers and designers in the Chinese city of Chengdu, Sichuan province successfully tested the first battery-powered suspended urban railway 空铁 (kōngtiě). This November, the "hanging" train was actually put into use! The train carries 120 passengers and can travel at a top speed of 60kph. The hanging train line is said to cost just 1/5th to 1/8th of the cost of typical underground subway trains. What has developers most excited about this hanging train is that it runs entirely on lithium battery power!

Many are hailing this as a potentially huge chance to change how people can travel around cities, as well as a good step forward for our environment. Chinese netizens are also enjoying the playful design of the train, which resembles the face of a panda bear.

Click "Read more" to know some other good features of the train.

So what do we call this new urban train? You can refer to this kind of transportation as "空铁 (kōngtiě)" Just as this train is new, the word 空铁 (kōngtiě) is new as well!

空 (kōng), an adjective meaning "empty, hollow or air." Paired with:
铁 (tiě) a noun meaning "iron," we get:
空铁 (kōngtiě) suspension railway/air rail.

Míngtiān wǒ yào chéng kōngtiě qù shàngbān.
明天 我 要 乘 空铁 去 上班。
Tomorrow, I will take the suspension railway to work.

Although "空铁 (kōngtiě)" is a new word, the way we can use it in a sentence still follows other ways we describe using transportation in Chinese. When we need to inform someone of how we will take transportation, we use this sentence structure...Read more

By 2017, Chinese citizens will become the world's largest group of filmgoers worldwide. Each year, since the films "Lost in Thailand" in 2015 and later "The Mermaid in 2016," Chinese films are breaking box office records each year in China! However, Chinese blockbusters have had a difficult time finding success with American audiences due to the language difficulties.

Since the "Kung Fu Panda" series of animated films have delighted American audiences with its depiction of Chinese culture, there has been a growing interest in American and Chinese filmmakers joining forces and creating movies that may appeal to both Chinese and American audiences, thus increasing visibility and profits. We are now seeing a new era of cooperation between Chinese and American filmmakers. In Chinese, we say that the filmmakers will "合拍 (hépāi) co-produce" an upcoming movie called "The Great Wall."

Currently filming in China and set to be released in 2017, the most expensive film ever made in China will be "The Great Wall," a historical fantasy led by Matt Damon and including a team of Chinese and American cast and production. The film is already grabbing news headlines for its...Read more

"The Great Wall" shì yī bù èrlíngyīliù nián měiguó hé zhōngguó hépāi de diànyǐng.
"The Great Wall" 是 一 部 2016 年 美国 和 中国 合拍 的 电影。
"The Great Wall" is a film which was co-produced between the United States and China in 2016.

Qiáozhì de bùzi zǒng shì hé yīnyuè bù hépāi.
乔治 的 步子 总 是 和 音乐 不 合拍。
George always marches out of step with the music.

Tā de xiǎngfǎ yǔ wǒ de bù hépāi.
他 的 想法 与 我 的 不 合拍。
His ideas do not square with mine.

1. An example of a 合拍 (hépāi) movie between China and the United States is:

A. Kung Fu Panda
B. The Great Wall
C. The Mermaid
See Answer