by Scott Dreyer | Dec 7, 2017 | Vocabulary | 0 comments

一年中的每个季节都有一些我们通常只在那个季节使用的词。 例如，有些词我们通常只在冬天使用。 一些示例是 SLED、SKI 和 SLEIGH。

Q. What is the difference between “sledding” and “skiing”? Are they the same in Chinese?   — Kevin from Yangzhou, China

A. Great question! This is one of those tricky areas, where Chinese has one word for something, but English has two or more. Other examples include shade/shadow; expect/look forward to (see item #16); and look/watch/see/read (see item #1).

Each season of the year has certain words we normally only use during that season. For example, there are certain words we usually only use during the winter. Some examples are SLED, SKI, and SLEIGH.

Sledding and skiing are both translated as 滑雪 (Huáxuě) in Chinese. They are similar in that, yes, you are going down a snowy hill for fun. However, there are some big differences.

SKIING is where you stand on two slats, or boards, called skis and go down a hill or mountain. (Well, I had a remarkable British friend in Taiwan, Jim, who had only one leg, and thus skied on one ski in Colorado.) Skiing can be just for fun, but it can also be a serious, competitive sport; it is a famous event in the Winter Olympics. Because you usually ski a long distance down a mountain, people usually ski at a ski resort, where you go down a set course and ride a chairlift back up again. Since skiing is done at a resort and requires specialized equipment and lift tickets, it is an expensive sport. Also, since skiing is usually fast and ski slopes are crowded, skiing can be dangerous, sometimes fatal, as in the sad case of a member of the famous Kennedy family. 

Since skiing requires extended cold weather and steep mountains, popular skiing areas in the US are New England, Northern California, Colorado, and Utah. Even though West Virginia and western Virginia are in the Southern US, they have pretty high mountains and some ski resorts here too, like Wintergreen Resort.

Cross-country skiing is an exercise also done on skis, but in this case, you usually ski through the woods, not down a commercial slope. Since you have to climb hills in addition to skiing down, it is excellent exercise. Since there are no lift tickets, this is a cheaper sport than downhill skiing.

Water-skiing is a hot weather sport, where you stand on two skis (one if you’re especially skilled) and a boat pulls you across a lake or flat river.

SKIING

SLEDDING is where you sit on a sled; it’s usually made of plastic, but some are made of wood and have metal runners, or blades. Unlike skiing, which is a competitive sport, sledding is usually done just for fun, and the only competition is seeing who can go down the hill fastest or go the farthest. Normally children go sledding, but sometimes parents go along for fun too. When I was a kid, I loved to go sledding on hills near our home in Roanoke, Virginia, and as parents, my wife and I enjoyed taking our kids sledding at a park near our home. We often sledded too, to get in the fun! (To see what else we do in the US on Snow Days, read this blog post.)

Normally you sled down a small hill and walk back up, so there is no chairlift. Other than buying the sled, there are no other expenses.

In Alaska and Canada, dog sledding is a serious sport where a team of dogs carries the leader and gear over large distances. The Iditarod is an epic race  that covers 1,049 miles (1688 km), which honors Alaska’s status as the 49th U.S. state.

Another winter sport is snowboarding. (Chinese: 单板滑雪). This is like skiing, but it is done on one board, not two skis.

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A SLEIGH is a vehicle that is on runners (blades) and is pulled by horses. Children in the US look for Santa and his sleigh filled with toys on Christmas Eve. In Santa’s case, his sleigh is pulled by reindeer. Santa’s sleigh is a popular Christmas decoration.

To make things more confusing, both nouns SLEIGH and SLED have the SAME Chinese translation, 雪橇 (Xuěqiāo), but they are actually different things. A sleigh is larger, can usually hold several people, and requires a large animal to pull it, while a sled is smaller, usually holds just one or two people, and only moves when it goes down a hill.

To learn more about how we celebrate Christmas in the USA, read this blog post.  To read the Christmas story and see where this famous holiday comes from, read this post.

So there you have it! Skiing and Sledding are the same in Chinese, but are different in English, and SLED and SLEIGH are also the same in Chinese, but different in English.

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