Lu Posted January 7, 2015 at 04:46 PM Report Posted January 7, 2015 at 04:46 PM 成也萧何，败也萧何 chéng yě Xiāo Hé, bài yě Xiāo Hé '[Liu Bang] won thanks to Xiao He, and he loses also because of Xiao He', meaning 'succes and failure are both caused by the same factor'. Found this in the book I'm translating, where one of the characters has been 提拔'd by the mayor, but has messed up and now fears that the mayor will be just as quick to fire him. I'm going with 'the mayor giveth and the mayor taketh away' (in Dutch, which doesn't use the ancient spelling for the expression). Quote
CrazyKid Posted January 8, 2015 at 11:01 AM Report Posted January 8, 2015 at 11:01 AM 反恐精英 Counter-Strike Quote
dwq Posted January 15, 2015 at 12:13 AM Report Posted January 15, 2015 at 12:13 AM 小確幸 small but definite happiness Came upon this word from a Taiwanese author. Looked it up and it came from essays of the Japanese author Haruki Murakami, from the phrase "小さいけれども、確かな幸福"(小而確實的幸福感). An example given was drinking a cold beer after patiently doing some intense exercise. ㄟ～「小確幸」的來源是日語?! http://k22k5566.pixnet.net/blog/post/147847172 【日文學習筆記】小確幸（しょうかっこう） http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20140409/375948/ Apparently this word had been all the rage in Taiwan, being used in all sorts of advertisements, to the point of people getting sick and critical of it. At least that's the impression I got from googling the word. Quote
skylee Posted January 15, 2015 at 12:29 AM Report Posted January 15, 2015 at 12:29 AM I mentioned 小確幸at #1700. http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/14374-random-new-word-of-the-day/?p=358148 Quote
dwq Posted January 15, 2015 at 01:10 AM Report Posted January 15, 2015 at 01:10 AM I did search before posting, but google hasn't picked up your post yet Quote
陳德聰 Posted January 15, 2015 at 02:23 AM Report Posted January 15, 2015 at 02:23 AM More interestingly, there's some sort of serendipity going on to bring you two closer together through Murakami's work. Quote
edelweis Posted January 26, 2015 at 09:01 PM Report Posted January 26, 2015 at 09:01 PM random words learnt this past week just by watching TV: 航母甲板 糖尿病 （I heard 糖要病 at first hehe） 代糖 魔方 （which a little kid solved in 1‘30） Quote
陳德聰 Posted January 31, 2015 at 04:34 AM Report Posted January 31, 2015 at 04:34 AM Haha that reminds me of the other day at work I had to ask a client if they've ever contracted 癆病, but I didn't know that it is actually called 結核病... Quote
skylee Posted January 31, 2015 at 07:38 AM Report Posted January 31, 2015 at 07:38 AM A new word (as I didn't know that it can be written) I learnt today - http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%90%B2 Quote
anonymoose Posted January 31, 2015 at 09:51 AM Report Posted January 31, 2015 at 09:51 AM Shouldn't that go in the non-mandarin subforum? Well, if we're going to allow other languages, then: 戆大 Quote
dwq Posted January 31, 2015 at 04:02 PM Report Posted January 31, 2015 at 04:02 PM That reminds me that I came cross 咬豬肉 the other day as a nickname for a famous brand of chocolate. It made me scratch my head since its pronunciation in Cantonese or Mandarin is nothing like the English name. I couldn't believe it despite finding multiple mentions of it, and finally have to look it up in a 閩南語 (Hokkien?) dictionary. Still makes me wonder why the pronunciation is so different in Hokkien. Quote
skylee Posted January 31, 2015 at 09:47 PM Report Posted January 31, 2015 at 09:47 PM “Shouldn't that go in the non-mandarin subforum？But why? It is a proper Chinese word and is in Kangxi Zidian - http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0448.gifI don't think some of the words that Roddy reported on this thread are more commonly used/alive than 搲. Quote
skylee Posted February 1, 2015 at 09:50 AM Report Posted February 1, 2015 at 09:50 AM I have seen this a few times in Chinese subtitles in films shown in cinemas in Taipei and inflight movies - 歐麥尬 - oh my god/gosh Quote
Lu Posted February 1, 2015 at 07:34 PM Report Posted February 1, 2015 at 07:34 PM 制片人 zhìpiānrén producer (of a movie). Don't know how I managed to never learn this one before. Quote
roddy Posted February 2, 2015 at 04:21 PM Author Report Posted February 2, 2015 at 04:21 PM 滑铁卢. My, my,where Napoleon did surrender. 滑铁卢. You could look it up if you wanted to. Quote
renzhe Posted February 3, 2015 at 10:00 AM Report Posted February 3, 2015 at 10:00 AM This must have come up before, but yesterday I actually saw it for the first time as a character in a real book (a story by Eileen Chang): 卍 wan4 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8D%8D#Chinese) Had a hell of a time looking it up. Its radical is actually 十. 1 Quote
roddy Posted February 3, 2015 at 11:33 AM Author Report Posted February 3, 2015 at 11:33 AM 赘言, unnecessary talk or redundancy. Quote
Lu Posted February 3, 2015 at 11:48 AM Report Posted February 3, 2015 at 11:48 AM 虚脱 xūtuō exhausted, completely spent. Learned from a friend who was describing how a woman feels after giving birth. Now that I look it up, the dictionary says it means 'to collapse'. 1 Quote
tooironic Posted February 3, 2015 at 11:16 PM Report Posted February 3, 2015 at 11:16 PM 卍 wan4 There is also a character for the reversed swastika, 卐 with the same pronunciation. The characters are interesting, not least because scholars believe they are 則天文字, i.e. two of the Chinese characters of Empress Wu. Not many of them are still in use today, except maybe for 〇. 1 Quote
Lu Posted February 4, 2015 at 09:57 AM Report Posted February 4, 2015 at 09:57 AM 半路杀出个程咬金 bàn lù shāchū ge Chéng Yǎojīn You have a plan and your plan is coming along well, when suddenly an unexpected setback happens, or someone appears who starts to mess things up. Wikipedia explains that Cheng Yaojin was 'the Tang dynasty's lucky general, portrayed as somewhat inept and bumbling he would nevertheless always arrive in the right place at the right time to save the day.' Learned this phrase from my language partner who was talking about setbacks in her work. Quote
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