Chinese Slang Series (www.youtube.com)
posted by jill on July 6, 2011 | 6 comments
大家好！One of the best parts of living in a dorm with Chinese students was picking up slang! Just as I've come to realize how much English slang I use on a daily basis, it was fun, and at some times frustrating, to hear how much slang my Chinese roommate and friends used. I've decided to take my growing love of Chinese Slang and produce a Chinese Slang Series with Cheng & Tsui, where I'm currently interning.Here is a link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM0W5wtENVk&feature=related) to the YouTube video of Lesson 1: 给力 (gěilì) - the most popular new Chinese word of 2010! Also, there's an accompanying blog post about the origin, usage, and variations of 给力 on the Cheng & Tsui blog (http://www.cheng-tsui.com/blog).I would love to get a conversation going about Chinese slang: How many words do you know? How did you learn your slang? Any funny slang stories/experiences?希望你们都喜欢！捷明
@jill,None of your Youtube stuff is going to be visible to anyone in China. You guys know this, right. :(
drummerboy on July 6, 2011 | reply
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As far as I'm concerned, putting up anything from Youtube on a Chinese language learning site is kind of pointless, considering there are great numbers of students who are living in China and can't access it. If you're going to put up a video, I think it would be advantageous to also upload the video to Youku the Chinese Youtube clone.
@ Everyone in ChinaYouku video is up! http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjgzMDc5MzUy.html
@Jill,
Very cute video. 你的朋友的普通话讲得真不错！我很好奇，谁是 Chang 谁是 Tsui?
I myself have given a discertation or two about that of the 山寨.
So what is the best translation of 山寨 anyway? Knockoff, imitation, clone...ripoff?
I'm still at odds with myself over this puzzling 山寨 conundrum.
我觉得我对“给力”这个流行用语已经有点腻烦了。在中国我周围的四面八方到处都有“给力”这个词。连麦当劳的广告牌也有这个词。好郁闷的事儿哦！
@ Xiao Hu谢谢！Cheng & Tsui 就是出版社的名字。Cheng & Tsui is based in Boston, and specializes in publishing Asian language learning textbooks and multimedia educational materials.For more of our take on 山寨, check out our Slang Series blog post: http://www.cheng-tsui.com/blog. Like most slang words, I don't think there's one good translation of 山寨. It mostly depends on the context. In English, for 山寨东西，如山寨iPhone, we would normally say knockoff iPhone or fake iPhone. But for the 山寨春节联欢晚会, I would call it an "imitation Chinese Festival Gala" or "a parody of the Chinese Festival Gala." Come to think of it, 春节晚会 is a word I'm at odds with translating myself!