"Ты когда-нибудь был в Китае?"

Translation: Have you ever been to China?

[JewishPolyglot]

How did the Russian word for China come to be Китай?

[Gwenci]

TL;DR: from the name Khitan, a Mongolian tribe which once ruled Northern China; got to Russian from Mandarin via a Turkic language.

Китай: From Old East Slavic Китай ‎(Kitaй), from a Turkic source; compare Kazakh Қытай ‎(Qıtay), Kyrgyz Кытай ‎(Kıtay), Uzbek Xitoy, Turkmen Hytaý; from Old Turkic Qïtaǰ “Khitan”, from Mandarin 契丹 ‎(Qìdān, “Khitan”), the Chinese name of a Mongolian tribe who ruled Manchuria from 907–1115 CE.

Cognate with Spanish Catay and English Cathay.

[JewishPolyglot]

Wow thanks! Have a lingot for that detailed explanation

[Gwenci]

That's from Wiktionary. :)

[ZIMINO]

Почему 中国 называют China ...

[MagmaLedle21]

It originally came from a Sanskrit name for China, which was borrowed through Persian, Portuguese, and eventually into English.

[bricejohnson2003]

I put down ,"Have you ever visited China" and got it wrong. Is there something I missed?

[ryandward]

I wouldn't expect it to work, to be honest, while the meaning is the same, you're using words that are totally different.

[sofa4ka]

I agree. "Был" (was/have been) is not the same as "посетил" (visited).

[Caversham]

Have you ever visited China? - accepted today 17/04/16

[jeanmenezesjjk]

It should not be accepted

[sohlt]

You've never been to China? Should this be accepted?

[micmicbunny]

No

[Justin993842]

To use never would be "ты никогда не был в Китае?". Never being "никогда не + Verb". The sentence directly translates closer to "You ever been to China?" so I can see where you were going with that

[Bill545771]

Would it be wrong to translate this as "Were you in China sometime?"?

[Justin993842]

Yes, while you technically have all the words translated correctly, I don't believe that sentence is grammatically correct.

[Kmgr84ce]

Whats the difference between когда нибудь and был ли?