Invasive Verbs

[roddy]

All the foreign words that have been adopted into Chinese that I can think of are nouns - 咖啡，沙发， etc.

What about verbs? The only one I can think of is 拷贝 for 'copy' - I've only ever heard this in a computing context, and I've seen it on some menus (Photoshop 7 has 拷贝，but Word has 复制). Are there others I don't know or can't bring to mind?

Roddy

[Alleluia]

I can't think of any verbs that I would know, but there are adjectives as well, like these for example: 幽默 (humorous) and 浪漫 (romantic).

幽默, 浪漫, 沙发 and 拷贝 come from English so I'd guess they're relatively new to the language, but what about 咖啡 then, that could be older, from Arabic. Any ideas? Anyone else interested in etymology...?

[Quest]

party - 派对

Internet - 英特网

clone - 克隆 (possible verb)

Tank - 坦克

hard to think of a verb.

[roddy]

Ah, nouns are easy. Who can come up with some more verbs?

Roddy

PS Off-topic, but related, people here in Beijing (mainly young people) are dropping ever more English into their conversation. I overheard this from the middle of an argument on the subway today:

我sorry了, ok?

Roddy

[shibo77]

Do these count?

朱古力化 to chocolate-ise

卡通化to cartoon-ise

思考 to think

They are probably more common in Hong Kong and Taiwan than in the mainland. What can one do to change the tide? English is needed more and more for success in the business world. How will one fare on this forum without English? Too bad for Esperanto.

- Shibo

[Quest]

思考 to think

that's interesting.

[roddy]

Is 思考 imported? Where from?

[Quest]

I think it's a native verb, 思考 means 思量 and 考虑.

[kentsuarez]

In Taiwan, 酷 ku4 is used as a loan of 'cool' (slang), so there's an adjective. Can't think of any verbs, tho.

[roddy]

酷 is used quite a lot in the mainland too.

perhaps we should create some more borrowed verbs . I'll start with . ..

楼滚 - to log on.

楼高 - to log out

Any more

Roddy

[Quest]

create

[confucius]

Off the top of my head all I can think of is "bowling"

[jj]

Well, lots of verbs were brought over many times via Japan from European languages during the late Qing. They were often borrowed and translated by intellectuals, based on meaning and not phonetics. Not very invasive, I suppose, don't know if it counts or not.

And god only knows how many 'Chinese' verbs were borrowed from other languages in times we can only dimly perceive.

A fun one that went the opposite direction: Gung Ho, from 共合，cooperatives set up during the war with Japan. People that belonged to them were so enthusiastic that a visiting solider (I think the story goes from the US) metonynically attached the phrase to the disposition. Still my favorite Chinese invasive.

[shibo77]

Sorry, I forgot why I had typed 思考 to think, maybe I had thought that it sounded close. Now, I truely think that it is an original. But I suppose one could -ise almost every loaned noun to make a lot of technical verbs. Another thought is that there are many loans from Japanese. 人民people, 经济business are both loaned from Japanese, as well as 共和 to unite..., which can be a verb.

- Shibo

[pazu]

I agree that verb are more seldom to be imported... (I don't like the word "invasive" indeed.)

In Cantonese we still use this word in daily conversation:

1. 傾偈 (chatting)

It's a loan word from Sanskrit which means "talking about the lessons/stories of Buddhism".

Some other verbs are:

2. 伊貓兒 (yimao'er): email.

You can use it as a "verb". 我回去會伊貓你。

It seems to me that the "er" at the end of the word is not only functioning to represent the "L" in email; but also as a noun indicator, so if you use "yimao'er" as a verb, most people just drop the "er" at the end. (compare: 蓋 vs 蓋兒 : to cover; a cover)

Roddy,

A note to your post. I feel it extremely intriguing but annoying that some people always pepper their conversation with English words without any obvious reasons. Last year Lang Lang (the famous pianist from Beijing) came to Hong Kong and was interviewed by RTHK in Mandarin Chinese, it seemed that he couldn't express himself with a pure Chinese sentence. He said, "對一個~~~ pianist (with emphasis~ then pause, followed by: ) 鋼琴家來說...."

Maybe it's a trend... to show how globalized China is now... hopefully there's nothing to do with WTO. (just kidding)

[skylee]

pazu, I remember watching in a TV news report a couple from Shanghai explaining why they visited the HK race course on a racing day. They said in Putonghua, "我們來看看這兒的 culture ..."

But this seems quite universal (especially now that we have the internet). Here is a thread on the Thorn Tree where a Dutch complains about Dutch managers using more and more English terms at work.

[pazu]

But still the difference is, ask the Shanghainese couple who come to see the "culture" everything in English, they can probably say nothing.

[39degN]

伊貓兒 (yimao'er): email.

You can use it as a "verb". 我回去會伊貓你。

we say 伊妹儿, more romantic, uh?

i find a strange usage of "happy"(as a verb)

你五一去哪儿HAPPY了?

[pazu]

The meaning of imported words can be changed in some funny ways. HAPPY is one example.

I remember I talked to my Japanese friend about the terrorist event, I said "テロ イベント" (TERO IBENTO) and my friend laughed. She said that イベント (EVENT) in Japanese means something happy only.

[trooper]

Pazu's example demonstrates the worst effects of languages mindlessly borrowing for 'sophisticated' effect - both Japanese and English come away damaged here.

I don't think Dutch businessmen are on to as good a thing as they think. From the English-speaking business world has come some of the most empty, meaningless and ugly language you can find.