Chinese character for "good luck"?

November 30, 2005 3:34 PM

Can anyone steer me to an image of a Chinese character suitable for expressing "Good Luck!" (as in, good luck on your exams)?
posted by Wolfdog to society & culture (10 comments total)

好运道 is 'Good Luck' in Mandarin.
posted by daviss at 3:49 PM on November 30, 2005

Maybe one listed here? would work. (the first one maybe?) Or steal a dragon tile from a mahjong set?
posted by neda at 3:50 PM on November 30, 2005

Yah, I'd like a little more than maybe - I did the requisite google image search but I wanted to hear from someone who's confident about the connotations.
You know, like [q: Native Chinese, frequently wishes Good Luck to people with upcoming exams.]
posted by Wolfdog at 3:55 PM on November 30, 2005

加油 isn't good luck but means "Do a good job!" and I think people actually say it.
posted by thirteenkiller at 4:38 PM on November 30, 2005

祝你好运 is the generic, and quite literal phrase for 'wish you good luck'.

Wishing somebody '金榜提名' means wishing somebody getting the top grades. It's a very traditional phrase, and might get you points for 'cute'. An image here.

Wishing somebody '所向披靡' means wishing somebody 'rule!' But this is getting too close to my particular taste.
posted by of strange foe at 6:43 PM on November 30, 2005

make them two eggs and a sausage, signifying "100" .. seriously. that is, if you're in a breakfast-makin' position.
posted by kcm at 6:44 PM on November 30, 2005

It is so freaking awesome that Mozilla properly renders those chinese characters. And that I can use Ctrl-plus to blow them up and get a closer look ...
posted by intermod at 7:34 PM on November 30, 2005

很好！
posted by kcm at 7:46 PM on November 30, 2005

Thirteenkiller is right - that's the standard phrase Chinese people use for "good luck" in an exam-taking sense. kcm's means "very good", and the rest so far are a bit more formal and/or esoteric.
posted by casarkos at 8:01 PM on November 30, 2005

Thanks, all. And thanks, Matt, for getting unicode working so this thread was possible.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:19 AM on December 1, 2005