From now on, when in China, please refer to American football as "Mei shi gan lan qiu." Or its translation: "American-style olive-shaped ball." To make things even more confusing, it could also mean "American-style rugby."
The NFL is struggling with the nomenclature associated with American football as they try to expand in China.
We'll, of course, turn this into a 'fun' language learning project: Use Wikipedia's handy "In Other Languages" toolbar to explore what American football is called in other languages. (ELHAM)
July 3, 2007