Random new word of the day

[DavyJonesLocker]

 

On 3/29/2019 at 12:32 AM, murrayjames said:

 

Interesting! Your post is my first encounter with the Chinese character 泔. Its the 5880th most frequently used character, according to 现代汉语单字频率列表

 

Mind you that list is from March 2004, 15 years ago. With the explosion of the internet, social media and on-line communication, coupled with natural changes in languages,  I wonder how a new frequency list would stack up. 

[889]

膀爺

 

Not new, but I'd never heard of it till it showed up in the news recently:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/06/chinese-citys-ban-on-beijing-bikinis-leaves-men-hot-under-collar

 

 

[Tomsima]

I feel like such a measure will surely just lead to an increase in old men walking around in revealing string vests instead...

[889]

Wifebeater is easy enough to translate as 无袖汗衫. But you lose so much in translation.

 

https://www.facebook.com/translatedbytonytsou/photos/每日一字花惹發-completely-random-word-of-the-day今天要為大家介紹的字是wife-beater-nwife-beater也可以去/446942868760123/

[TheBigZaboon]

And the best, and most telling, part is the logo on the 'wife-beater'...

 

Kek, kek, kek...

 

TBZ

[Tomsima]

I've started watching Taiwan news in the last few days and I've noticed they use Japanese words I've never heard used before on the mainland. Todays was 気持ち, or 'kimochi', which was used to represent '心情' in the subtitled phrase '還是你投票就心情' (or what was actually said: '還是你投票就気持ち' , although I believe here the meaning is closer to '心情很開心，舒服'

[Publius]

The Japanese phrase is actually 気持ちいい kimochi ii (the last three vowels are fused together to produce a long i--) which means 'feels good'. It is used on the mainland, but only in certain context and definitely not on television (“日本爱情动作片”，咳咳，你懂的 ?)

 

[roddy]

Can't believe I've gone... ah man, twenty years? Where'd they go?... without seeing this one

小拇指 - little finger. 

[roddy]

I got one! 囤積病

I don't have pinyinput installed on my new laptop yet (Huawei, so if anyone from the Chinese government wants to do that for me..) so here's the pinyin in my new size based romanisation scheme:

tunjibing

 

Spoiler

hoarding, as in the compulsive disorder

 

[imron]

5 hours ago, roddy said:

tunjibing

As incredible as this is, I hope it never takes off

[roddy]

I see the competition is scared. 

[道艺]

Not as interesting as the words you guys provided, but at my school meeting last week, a few of the teachers presented 流程图 for their formative assessment process. It's was a fun aha moment for me as the 单字 are pretty intuitive, so I'll leave it to you guys. 

[Lu]

拼图 pīntú jigsaw puzzle

間歇泉 jiànxiēquán geyser

 

I'm going to interpret at a wedding (yay for fun gigs) and the couple sent me the parents' speeches in advance (before I even asked! yay for great clients). Now preparing the groom's parents' speech. The groom did some fun stuff and I'm learning new words. (I'm sure the bride did fun stuff too but her parents' speech is a bit more formal. Yay for cultural differences where everyone loves their children in their own way.)

[Lu]

发小 fàxiǎo childhood friend, friend you have known all your life and who has seen you grow up

 

Souce: that same wedding, where the best man was the groom's 发小 and the Chinese bride's family referred to him not by his name but by that title: 发小 is going to give a speech now, 发小 suggests we go to the park to take pictures. Apparently it's a dialect word, though I'm not sure if it's Dongbei or just Beijing or where.

[murrayjames]

3 hours ago, Lu said:

Apparently it's a dialect word, though I'm not sure if it's Dongbei or just Beijing or where.

 

Great word. FWIW I’ve heard 发小 used in Chengdu and Shanghai.

[Michaelyus]

According to this Baidu article, 发小 is from 北京话, which chimes with my experience (i.e. I've never heard this word).
 

[DavyJonesLocker]

I hear 发小儿 here in Beijing, few of my friends use it from time to time. I get the impression that it's used by females more than males. FWIW I just did a search on my wechat (chats and moments) and quite a few occurrences (all by females) .

 

I seem to have great trouble with the erhua ending. Same with 杏儿。 

[Tomsima]

丘八

Old slang word for 兵, a play on the structure of the character itself, thought it was pretty interesting. Came up in 生死线, a really good 抗日 in my opinion 

[889]

Not too new a word, but you'll find it in some recent news reports:

 

杯葛 "boycott"

 

[Tomsima]

This word came up in the very first sight interpretation we had to perform in front of the rest of the class last year. The girl next to me was a top mainland university chinese graduate, and did not know this word, much to the amusement of the students from Taiwan