Random new word of the day

[roddy]

夯实 - to tamp or ram down.

[Lu]

翻译擂台 fānyì lèitái translation slam (Two (or more) translators separately translate the same bit of text and then discuss their choices in front of an audience.)

 

I knew I needed this term and had anticipated painful and prolonged googling and an awkward final choice of word, but it turns out the term already exists and so I was done in ten seconds. Context: I'm organising one.

[roddy]

Oh, I like 擂台. 

[Bao]

“狡辩！”

What my husband exclaims when I make excuses.

[roddy]

赋能 fùnéng - empowerment.

[geraldc]

皇家马德里 Real Madrid

 

Worth knowing for this pun-tastic joke

[889]

吐槽:

 

"请到吐槽里面提交问题."

 

https://m.xiaohuazu.com/xinci/12628.html

[白耀龍]

詞彙量：Vocabulary  

 

你的漢語詞彙量多少？

[Lu]

急就章 jíjiùzhāng hastily-written piece (or hastily-done job)

Someone on Douban, about a book. I predict that this will be one of those terms I never saw or missed before but now will encounter in the wild again.

[geraldc]

籃網球 Netball

[imron]

法櫃 - ark of the covenant

[murrayjames]

This thread is awesome

[陳德聰]

拿捏 to have control over sth.

 

e.g. When I agreed to give a lecture to a bunch of high school students and I asked what to include, the irresponsible education coordinator simply said “無所謂，你拿捏”

 

Alternatively: to have a (good/bad) grasp on something, 把握/掌握

[Michaelyus]

On 2018/1/20 at 7:07 AM, imron said:

法櫃 - ark of the covenant

 

Although 約櫃 in the Biblical contexts I've come across. That applies to all the Bible translations I know.

[imron]

The context I came across it in was 《法櫃奇兵》- Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Lu]

空气吉他 kōngqì jítā air guitar.

Isn't this great? I mean, I already love the concept of air guitar, but I also really like this word for it.

[Tomsima]

车厘子
'cherry'

 

After wanting to buy some cherries in a grocery store I did the classic point at tasty fruit and ask what it is, and was told 车厘子. Later my wife said she didn't know why, probably a foreign word, and apparently it does indeed come from the English 'cherries'. Wife then helpfully said it's only the big cherries in winter that they call 车厘子, the small ones that appear in the shops around summer time are called 樱桃. Thought it was worth sharing, as I have only ever used the latter, seemed like a distinction worth noting for people who like practicing their chinese in the local grocery stores

 

[Publius]

12 minutes ago, Tomsima said:

车厘子
'cherry'

It comes from HK Cantonese, which has a penchant for loanwords. It's been picked up by mainland grocers because they want a fancier name to distinguish the bigger, imported, and pricier fruit from the ordinary local variety. For the same reason:

美國布朗(黑布林) = plum = 李子

士多啤梨 = strawberry = 草莓

[Lu]

A series:

现实主义 realism

超现实主义 surrealism

魔幻现实主义 magical realism

荒诞主义 absurdism

All very well. But then the producer of the film (which was all of those four things) started talking about 非现实主义. I interpreted for director & producer several times over the course of last week's film festival, thought about this long and hard, and have not come up with a good translation (I went with 'unrealism', with a tone of voice implying that I knew this is not a word). I don't think the term exists in English.

[Jim]

1 hour ago, Lu said:

I don't think the term exists in English.

There's irrealism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrealism_(the_arts) which seems to have been translated using 非现实主义 at times on a quick search.