{"id":24461,"date":"2026-02-04T16:05:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=24461"},"modified":"2026-02-05T21:11:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T21:11:46","slug":"little-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=24461","title":{"rendered":"Little Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Mandarin Chinese, one word for a child or children is <strong>\u5c0f\u670b\u53cb<\/strong> (xi\u01ceop\u00e9ngy\u01d2u), which means literally &#8216;little friend&#8217;. It&#8217;s generally used by adults to address children.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/omniglot\/55036345172\/in\/album-72177720331413200\" title=\"Mia &amp; Isla\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55036345172_45c6de715d_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"Mia &amp; Isla\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<em>My god-daughters, Isla &#038; Mia<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The other day when talking about my experiences in China, I translated <strong>\u5c0f\u670b\u53cb<\/strong> from Chinese into French as <strong>petits amis<\/strong>, which means boyfriends. I was talking about children, and didn&#8217;t realise I&#8217;d said something unusual until my friends looked at me strangely, and asked if that&#8217;s what I really meant. I assured them I was talking about <strong>enfants<\/strong> (children) and not <strong>petits amis<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>Other ways to refer to children in Mandarin include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u5b69\u5b50<\/strong> (h\u00e1i\u200bzi) = child<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u5c0f\u5b69\u5b50<\/strong> (xi\u01ceo h\u00e1i\u200bzi) = (small) child<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u513f\u7ae5<\/strong> (\u00e9rt\u00f3ng) = child(ren)<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u5b69\u7ae5<\/strong> (h\u00e1it\u00f3ng) = child<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u5c0f\u513f<\/strong> (xi\u01ceo\u200b&#8217;\u00e9r) = young child<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u5c11\u513f<\/strong> (sh\u00e0o\u200b&#8217;\u00e9r) = child<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u5a03\u5a03<\/strong> (w\u00e1wa) = baby, small child, doll<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdbg.net\/chinese\/dictionary?page=worddict&#038;email=&#038;wdrst=0&#038;wdqb=child\">https:\/\/www.mdbg.net\/chinese\/dictionary<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Words for older sister &#8211; <strong>\u59b9\u59b9<\/strong> (m\u00e8imei), younger sister &#8211; <strong>\u59d0\u59d0<\/strong> (ji\u011b\u200bjie), older brother &#8211; <strong>\u54e5\u54e5<\/strong> (g\u0113\u200bge) and younger brother &#8211; <strong>\u5f1f\u5f1f<\/strong> (d\u00ecdi) &#8211; can also be used to refer to children in Mandarin. <\/p>\n<p>Other ways to refer to a child in French include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>bambin<\/strong> = toddler<\/li>\n<li><strong>bout de chou, bout d&#8217;chou, boutchou<\/strong> = sweet little thing, little one, little tot<\/li>\n<li><strong>ch\u00e9rubin<\/strong> = cherub<\/li>\n<li><strong>fils<\/strong> = son<\/li>\n<li><strong>fille<\/strong> = daughter<\/li>\n<li><strong>galopin<\/strong> = urchin, scamp, brat, ragamuffin<\/li>\n<li><strong>gamin<\/strong> = kid, street urchin, street kid (<em>dated<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>marmot<\/strong> = kid, brat<\/li>\n<li><strong>minot<\/strong> = kid, lad<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/fr.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/enfant#fr\">https:\/\/fr.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/enfant#fr<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Have you mistranslated terms like I did?<\/p>\n<p>Are there interesting words for child(ren) you know in French or other languages?<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5001128073855040\"\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- Blog horizontal --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:block\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5001128073855040\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"1685480124\"\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Mandarin Chinese, one word for a child or children is \u5c0f\u670b\u53cb (xi\u01ceop\u00e9ngy\u01d2u), which means literally &#8216;little friend&#8217;. It&#8217;s generally used by adults to address children. My god-daughters, Isla &#038; Mia The other day when talking about my experiences in China, I translated \u5c0f\u670b\u53cb from Chinese into French as petits amis, which means boyfriends. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,104,111,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese","category-english","category-french","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24461"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24470,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24461\/revisions\/24470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}