We have been running some character guessing games on Twitter for a few weeks now, and even if it saddens me, I understand that most of you don't read everything we post there.

So, here are some of the challenges. Follow our Twitter account for more!

https://twitter.com/SkritterHQ

See if you can figure out what (Chinese) character can form words with all four characters in the sets below:

Set #1: 店, 鬼, 吧 and 白
Set #2: 星, 头, 马 and 麻
Set #3: 些, 起, 下 and 唯
Set #4: 你, 吃, 像 and 美
Set #5: 心, 幻, 家 and 梦

Scroll down for the answers, but we of course encourage you to think long and hard before peeking!


























Answers:

Set #1: 酒店, 酒鬼, 酒吧 and 白酒
Set #2: 木星, 木头, 木马 and 麻木
Set #3: 一些, 一起, 一下 and 唯一
Set #4: 你好, 好吃, 好像 and 美好
Set #5: 想心, 幻想, 想家 and 梦想

The last one actually has a second solution: 境, many bonus points to @hanpingchinese for finding the extra solution!

What about 球 for the second set?

Nice one! Tons of bonus points to you as well, then, well done! :)

Yay! :)
I'll use the points as jokers and grade characters as "correct" although I didn't really remember them. ;)

Silly question, but I had to look up 木球. Is it a commonly known alternative to 保龄球? I mostly lived in mainland China, but have never heard that one!

Honestly, I'm not sure myself...
球 was meant to be an alternative solution - instead of 木, not to be actually combined with it.
But it's still an interesting question, so maybe someone knows!

The Key dictionary in pleco gives "cricket (the game or the ball itself)" for 木球. And MoE dict gives:
"一種融合高爾夫、搥球的球類運動。木球直徑為十點五公分，以紅木或柚製成。球門由兩支木酒瓶組成，中間並懸吊一隻可旋轉的木酒杯。比賽時以形似T形的木製球桿擊球，木球必須擊中木酒杯，穿過兩支木酒瓶後才算進洞。以打出最低桿數者獲勝。木球場一般標準為六洞。"

木球 can be either cricket or woodball. The MOE dict is describing about woodball which was invented in Taiwan.

A much more obvious answer. 木球 simply means wooden ball, just like 铁球 is iron ball and 胶球 is plastic ball.

@pts, good point! One problem I have when reading Chinese is I don't take things as literal as often as I should and try to think of a good direct translation. Now that I think about it I have no idea why I drew a parallel between 木球 and bowling haha.

@Josh: I think you misunderstood what s/he meant. 木 wasn't part of the characters you should combine, it was the answer. S/he provided 球 as an alternative answer, so you don't need to combine it with 球 (even though you can, as people have said)

A new post is up with all the challenges since this thread was started:

http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=1640592406