One of my favorite "Daily Mandarin" classes was when one of my students was practicing conversational Chinese. He wanted to say a normal, everyday sentence, which was:

"Mom went to walk the dog."

In Chinese the correct way to say this would have been:

"妈妈去遛狗了 (Māma qù liùgǒu le)."

BUT he mixed up the words! He got "遛狗 (liùgǒu)" and "走狗 (zǒugǒu)" switched around and instead said:

"妈妈去走狗了(Māma qù zǒugǒu le)."

In Chinese, "走 (zǒu)" means "to walk." "狗 (gǒu)" means "dog." Many of my students will put those characters side by side and think they are saying the correct thing. Not true! In fact, when you put those characters next to one another you get an entirely different meaning:

"走狗 (zǒugǒu)" means lackey, hired thug.

So just imagine my surprise when I heard my student actually say:

"妈妈(mom) 去(go to) 走狗(hired thug) 了(le)."

Not going to lie, I had a hard time containing my laughter.

走狗 (zǒuɡǒu)
走 (zǒu): v. go; walk.
狗 (ɡǒu): n. dog.

走狗 (zǒuɡǒu) n. originally means hound, a running dog. Later, it's used to refer to a hired thug; or a person who is hired to harm other people. It appears more in...Read more

So, what would have been the correct way to say this sentence? If you want to say "walk a dog" in Chinese, you should actually use this character combination:

遛狗 (liùgǒu): v. walk the dog.
遛 (liù): v. walk by leading a domestic animal; to stroll.

Common Structure:
Subject + 遛狗+去(了).
Or
Subject + 去 + 遛狗(了).
Note: The particle "了 (le)" is to express the completion of an action which goes directly after the verb.

Check some examples of "遛狗 (liùgǒu)" in a...Read More