Chinese words with no English equivalent

[tanhql]

what about 朕? as in the chinese emperors' way of saying 'I'?

[skylee]

what about 朕? as in the chinese emperors' way of saying 'I'?

How about "we"? Take a look -> http://cdict.giga.net.tw/?q=we

The plural style is also in use among kings and other sovereigns, and is said to have been begun by King John of England.

[Lu]

What about shifu, shifu 师傅? I know it can be translated as "master" in english, but who says master to the taxidriver? And "mr", well there is actually another word for that:

The translation should be like something in between: a man who has the skills.

When I lived in Beijing, we called the doorwomen of our dorm shifu. Or at least that's what it sounded like...

[zhenhui]

How about 顺便?

like 你去超级市场时顺便帮我买西瓜。

I suppose you can say "buy me a watermelon on your way to the supermarket"

or "while you are at the supermarket, buy me a watermelon"

既然你已经在那里了，就顺便帮我把东西交给他吧。

"Help me pass the things to him since you are already there."

Despite the translations for the sentences, i still find it hard to find an appropriate English word for 顺便 ...

[tanhql]

what about 加油？what'll be the translation? add oil? work harder?

[Lu]

How about mafan? Hassle doesn't quite cover it.

[eric_hk]

Many words and concepts that came from ancient chinese religion as well as Confucius thinking are hard to translate. 9 out of ten chinese can't tell the exact meaning of a great portion of them. (so am i)

Examples are:

道

大同, 小康

Anyone know the meaning of these?

[heifeng]

How would any of you generally translate 素质 in terms of people? It seems a bit difficult to describe...

[skylee]

Did you mean 氣質 instead of 素質 (quality)?

[heifeng]

no, it's more like what you would see here (randomly searched google for some examples)

我们很多方面受制于低素质人口比重大这样一个国情。中国人素质确实低，比如，中国人 很多没有独立人格，奴性，窝里斗，虚伪，两面派，明与暗、说与做、表与里完全不一...

我也不认为中国人的素质都很低。 但有时，群体的愚昧和冷漠，让人心寒。......

there's always alot of talk about 中国人&素质......

I guess you could say 'class' as oppose to quality, but that doesn't quite seem right either...It jus always seems strange to think of it in terms of English for me

[skylee]

Isn't that quality?

[gato]

Maybe 素质低 can be translated as "low character."

[HashiriKata]

Due to the fact that Chinese and English are 2 separate languages with separate cultural and historical developments, I take it that words with no equivalents between the two are the norm rather than the other way round (and therefore, listing of words with no equivalents will probably guarantee a job-for-life for someone ).

Even with words that we can come up with equivalents, these equivalents will again need to change, depending on the context where the words in question are found. The more confident we feel about an equivalent we've found regardless of context, the more we should suspect our ability to translate between languages. In the spirit of what I've just said, is "quality" an equivalent of 素质 or not? Of course, it is and it isn't, since "quality" will be the best choice for 素质 in one case but in another, another word may be better qualified

[Lu]

How about

-nandao 难道

-shunbian 顺便

-suibian 随便

I know exactely what they mean, often use them, but when I want to translate it (to Dutch, haven't tried to English) I think and think can't think of a word that really covers it.

[atitarev]

Another one: 劳驾 / 勞駕 láojià

[tanhql]

真不愧是组长，一下子就把事情办妥。

真不愧是 don't have a direct translation.

[Gulao]

I always thought of 随便 as having a sort of 'whatever' meaning. For example:

随便坐 - whatever seating

Either that, or relaxed. It doesn't have a one to one definition, but it has its equivalents.

The one that I don't like is 弄. I just can't seem to figure out how to explain this one. For instance, a coworker at a Chinese Language Camp I worked at said, in response to an order to attend to some duty, "但是这个[表]还没弄好了。" I understood perfectly well that the sheet was incomplete, as that is precisely what he said. However, the word, 弄 itself has so many various connotations that no English words can really approximate, in my opinion.

[pattifranklin]

"辛苦你" is sometimes hard to translate into idiomatic English.

Going the other way around - during the clinton administration and even about 6 months ago, China had a hard time translating the word "engagement"-- America should increase Chinese engagement-- did they mean military engagement, wedding engagement etc. just FYI.

[Qiuyue]

What about lihai， 厉害， can mean everything from diligent to terrible and severe I think

[geraldc]

There's a couple of words that I've never really known how to translate back. Most of them refer to food, e.g there are terms that people use to refer to a certain taste that occurs in things like lamb/mutton, when people explain why they don't like it etc. I think the term is "seen" in Cantonese, I have no idea what it is in English.