207 Hospital

Hospital is usually a place that we want to avoid in life, but if you do need to go there, it’s important to know how to say the word. Josh from Transition, needs to go to the hospital regularly at the moment, but it is for a positive reason because his wife is pregnant! After congratulations from ShaoLan, she goes on to describe different kinds of doctors and treatments, including the difference between western medical treatment and traditional Chinese medical treatment, both of which are commonly available and often practiced in a complementary fashion in Asia.

The Chinese word for hospital is 醫院/医院, where the first character 醫/医 is made up of a groaning patient and alcohol and means “to treat” or “to heal” and then 院 which means “place” or “courtyard.” The area where groaning patients are healed is the hospital, 醫院/医院!