ChaYe means Tea not Cha

Jim,

Cha ye = tea leaves Cha = the tea in liquid form

That's because the company that you refer to does not sell tea in liquid form. The produce and supply customers with the leaves.

Cha is still the universal term used for tea, but only in the context of drinking it. He cha (yum cha in cantonese) = drinking tea

If it's cha ye on the menu, most likely the restaurant/lounge/etc is serving you with the tea leaves...not an already-brewed tea.

My 2 cents.

Phyll

I think Phyll is largely right, although I think what you can say is that while Cha refers to both the dry and wet versions of the thing, Chaye can ONLY mean the dry leaves. You never drink Chaye. You drink Cha. You can brew, however, both Cha or Chaye.

So in company names, it makes sense because they deal in tea leaves. Also, don't confuse Tea Leaves with Tea Company/Industry, which is also pronounced Chaye.

MarshalN

In addition to Phyll's point about Cha Ye referring to the leaves as opposed to the beverage, there's also another word Ye having nothing to do with leaves. When it's used in the name of a tea company, Cha Ye more or less means "tea company", not "tea leaves".

/Lew

Lew,

I'll respond to you. You,et al,say it is a different Ye. Plug this string into Google to see the companies that use ChaYe in their name:

茶叶公司

It means Cha(Ye) GongSi or Tea(Leaf) Company. The Ye second character means leaf and is 'silent'. If the use were limited I would agree it has an alternate meaning like industry or dry leaf as suggested. One of my dictionaries says ChaYe means tea as the first translation, and tea leaves as the second. Chinese meaning is taken from the usage so I don't see why ChaYe would be required in a company name versus Cha or even on a menu.

Jim

Never heard of a Chinese character used silently (of course, you say, it's silent! So how can you hear it? :)

No, I said that *in addition* to Ye as Leaf there's also Ye as Company.

Sure, but look here as well:

&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=%E8%8C%B6%E4%B8%9A%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

/Lew

In India, Hindi speakers (north India) use Chaye for both leaves and the brew. Bengali speakers (Eastern India) say Cha instead of Chaye for the same thing.

I always thought that these meant the same th> "Space Cowboy" writes:

&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=%E8%8C%B6%E4%B8%9A%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

You are taking this too literally. It really is just a case of different usage in different languages. You won't translate somebody's names as "XYZ Tea Leaves Company", you'd give them a more appropriate name in the language that you're translating to, in this case English, and call it "XYZ Tea Company".

Convention has it that when used in "XYZ company", the compound Chaye is more often used than just Cha. That is not to say, however, that Chaye, and not Cha, is tea. Both are tea, and they have different usages that do not overlap. You simply cannot call the drink "chaye", for that is incorrect in Chinese and you will be laughed at if you say so to any native speaker if you say something like "wo xihuan he chaye" (I like to drink tea [leaves]). It's just wrong. In English there's no distinction between tea the liquid and tea the solid, but in Chinese that is expressed through the terms Cha and Chaye.

MarshalN

MarshalN,

So in ChinGlish is it 'I buy cha' or 'I buy chaye' Or 'I went to the cha shoppe' or 'I went to the chaye shoppe'. I'm trying to flush out the particular usage more than anything else. If ChaYe is the term to use for Tea when not drinking it is darn close to what I said.

xiexie, Jim

PS Is anyone using the Google PinYin IME? Yesterday they apologized for using another Chinese search engine character set and promised to cease and desist. It also opened up some security hole for Vista which was patched. Their character lookup is simply based on the character frequency in their Web index. I'm writing one based on the

500 most commonly used characters in Chinese. I wished I could get Google to give me a dump like that without me using some list.

茶叶 tea leaves 茶业 tea company

Using Chinglish would be more confusing.

A Chinese storekeeper will say in mandarin "xienshen, yao mai chaye, ma?" (mr., would you like to buy some tea (leaves)?). To which you'll respond "xe, wo yau mai chaye." (yes, I'd like to buy some tea (leaves).) Of course, this sounds like a bookish response, as an adult you'd be more likely to say something like "yes, what's good here?" or dive straight into the particulars. However, if you said "...yao mai cha." (without using ye), the storekeeper will understand, too, but if they are also in the business of selling canned tea beverages, then those will be included in the possibilty.

Then the storekeeper will probably ask you "xienshen, ni xihuan he seme cha?" (mr., what kind of tea do you like to drink?). To which you could say "wo xihuan he pu'er cha" (I like drinking pu'er tea)...again bookish answer. In real, just say "pu'er" and you'll be understood.

Thanks for the examples. I can use ChaYe to mean tea(leaves) if I'm not talking about Cha the drink. I know you are really using the disyllabic dictionary word ChaYe for tealeaves which is why I said leaves is silent not in any Chinese sense but in Western meaning. I'm still not sure if it is cha or chaye shangdian. I'm bookish enough to know to answer the ma interrogatory with a simple mai.

Jim

I think I've said this twice already, but I'll say it again.

Cha can mean both the leaves and the drink. Chaye can only mean the leaves and not the drink.

You can just say "Wo yao mai cha". People will know you want tea leaves, because if you want to buy a cup of tea or whatever, you will say it in a different way. Chaye is not required as an answer.

Actually, the proper answer, if it's positive, is to say "yao" or just an "en", not "mai".

MarshalN

I keep forgetting Yao is also a transitive verb. You say you can't go wrong with Cha but there apparently is more to Chaye than reading tea leaves. It get it's own disyllabic entry in the dictionary otherwise you just butt the two characters in a sentence and use the literal meaning in context. If one of my dictionaries didn't say the first translation was tea I'd go with Cha everytime. Either that or make companies drop the second character in their name and go with Lew's suggestion.

Jim

with Lew's suggestion.

Good luck! :) I won't sign the petition, though.

Phyll

Nobody answered my question if it was Cha or ChaYe shoppe. According to Google by a 3 to 1 vote it is ChaYe ShangDian. Commercially ChaYe is used over Cha. It remains to be seen how ChaYe is used in conversation. I'll find those with Google when I get around to it. I don't want to be told as a laowai to only use Cha. My local tea shoppe actually has the word TeaLeaves in the name run by a British expatriate.

Jim

with Lew's suggestion.