催（促） cuī(cù) : to urge

bié cuī tā tài jǐn 别催她太紧: don't push her too hard

Ways to remember cuī (the pronunciation):
Cui Jian (崔健, cuī jiàn) is a famous Chinese rocker that I first read about when I used the Interchange series of ESL books in Costa Rica (he was lauded, along with Caetano Veloso and Bonnie Raitt, as a "fusion" artist who mixed genres). This cui is just a surname, not a word with a meaning; however, as my wife well knows (whose last name is pronounced just like the word for monkey), if you pronounced the word out of context no one could tell the difference.
True to his surname's pronunciation, then, Cui's way of singing is extremely "urgent".

Synonyms for 催:
强迫 qiǎngpò: compel, force
说服 shuōfú: to persuade, convince
劝说 quànshuō: to convince





cui also sounds like

山谷 shāngǔ: valley

山谷 shāngǔ: valley

这个山谷真美丽.
This valley is very beautiful.

First Post

This blog is meant to be an aid to myself to keep learning new Chinese words and phrases. My level is fairly advanced (I lived in China for two years, and my wife is Chinese), but there is a whole heap of stuff that I don't know.

I'll try to post a few things every day--new words, phrases, and cultural topics.