How often do you make up words in Chinese?

[website]

Have you ever just made up words in Chinese? I was talking

to someone the other day here in China and I said "rukou-jukou"

for "import-export" because I forgot the correct term. She said the understood me, although I think she was just being polite.

Have you ever done that?

[xuechengfeng]

At first it was cool when people asked me to speak Chinese when I told them I do (to my fellow English speakers).. but now I get annoyed of trying to think of something interesting to say when they have no idea, so I spout off the first 10 words I can think of, and make up an elaborate sentence out of it.

[trevelyan]

Just memorize a little portion of the Three Representatives and toss that out for fun.

[XiaoMa]

I spoke "Fan4 tong3" 饭桶 when i sa a very big guy in the streets.. my friends laughed, but then i explained that i just created this word because of "Food" and Barrel, because he was really big. Indeed, Fan4 Tong3 really exist as a swear word..

funny isn't it?

88

xiaoma

[Claw]

饭桶 isn't really a swear word. It's more like a really mild insult (actually I wouldn't even call it an insult, but I can't seem to think of the word right now). It essentially means "slacker" because it refers to someone who does nothing for the large amount of rice he eats.