任你淘

[James Johnston]

任你淘 appears to be a fairly fixed expression. Google gives quite a lot of results, including this which appeared on a front page on Danwei recently, but wasn't translated.

I assume it should be translated as "to go wild about" or "to die for", as in the kind of adverts/articles you might get in a magazine like "10 new gadgets to die for". Am I right?

And how should 淘 be understood in this phrase? As in 淘气?

Thanks.

[skylee]

I doubt it is a fixed expression ... depends on how you define it. It means 讓你隨意選購. 淘 as in 淘寶 or 淘金.

[xiaocai]

I think it sounds more like "to search (for something of good value) thoroughly".

[James Johnston]

Thanks to both of you. Seems I'd got the wrong idea. So it means to look through a lot of things to find what interests you. In fact the explanation you've given explains why it seems to be used, for instance, by websites where you search for apartments where you are looking through a big range to find just what you want.

By 'fairly fixed expression' I just meant that these three characters are used together quite a lot in a fairly set sentence pattern. I wasn't making a linguistic point, nor indeed did I realise that 'fixed expression' had some sort of technical definition!

Thanks again.

[roddy]

'to choose from' is how I'd explain it. Not sure about what 淘 is doing here now I think about it though - is it the meaning 'dredge', as in perhaps rummaging through the depths of the selection to find the one you want? Or is is it a new use added to the language thanks to 淘宝？