diàn zǐ yóu jiàn
你收到我的电子邮件了吗？
nǐ shōudào wǒ de diànzǐ yóujiàn le ma?
Did you receive my email?
我给你发了一封电子邮件。
wǒ gěi nǐ fāle yī fēng diànzǐ yóujiàn.
I sent you an email.
请把你的电子邮件地址发给我。
qǐng bǎ nǐ de diànzǐ yóujiàn dìzhǐ fā gěi wǒ.
Please send me your email address.
电邮 (diàn yóu)
邮件 (yóu jiàn)
纸质邮件 (zhǐzhì yóujiàn)
paper mail
信件 (xìnjiàn)
letter
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The Chinese word for "email" is 电子邮件 (diànzǐ yóujiàn), which literally means "electronic mail". The word is composed of three characters: 电子 (diànzǐ), meaning "electronic"; 邮件 (yóujiàn), meaning "mail"; and 箱 (xiāng), meaning "box". The term "email" was first coined in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer at BBN Technologies. Tomlinson was working on a project to develop a network that would allow users to send messages to each other over long distances. He needed a way to address these messages, so he came up with the idea of using the "@" symbol to separate the user's name from the name of the computer they were using. The first email was sent on October 26, 1971, from Tomlinson's computer to himself. The message simply said, "TEST".
