I was riding home with Xiao Liu today and chatting in Chinese as usual. Lately, we’ve been looking for and counting good-looking Chinese girls on the street. Today though, a red warning came on the light of the Buick. Xiao Liu pointed it out to me and, despite the short time that the words were illuminated between flashes, I was able to make-out “Low Coolant”.

“Zhe shi shen mo?”, asked Xiao Liu. Or something like that. He was asking me what it meant. So, I thought to myself, “How do I tell him that he needs to top off the coolant?” Well, a good challenge anyway.

“Uh…uh…ni de chi che…mei you leng…”

A pretty lousy first attempt. Translation: “Your car lacks cold.”

But, the second time around, I nailed it. I recalled the words for “have to” and “add” and, well, what could I say for “liquid”? Here’s what I came up with:

“Ni yao jia chi che leng de shui.”

“Oh oh oh!! OK OK OK!!! <thumbs up> Hao hao!”

Translation: “You have to add cold water to your car.”