Laowai Chinese 老外中文

The month of May sports one of what I call (for the first time) “fakie-sounding pun-tastic number-slang days”: 5/20. (Here’s a Baidu link so you know I’m not making it up.) May 20th, pronounced in Chinese as “wǔ èr líng” 五二零 is supposed to sound like “wǒ ài nǐ” 我爱你 (“I love you”). As best as […]

Strangely, I’ve been inundated with new Internet slang recently, and I just can’t help writing about it. It’s gotten me wondering about the specific processes and devices are at work for introducing and popularizing these “new” words. I’m getting closer to a unified theory about how it works, but for now, here’s the latest: mù […]

Recently, I’ve noticed a word making waves in the weibo-sphere and even in my oral English classes: kēngdiē 坑爹 = dishonest [defraud father] I’ve heard it used in the following contexts: The kēngdiē doctors (坑爹的医生) didn’t know what they were talking about. They just told me to take some medicine and go home! That cafeteria is so […]

Through my new two new wēibó-s 微博 (pzAlbert and pzEnglish, NOTE: you have to be a member of sina or weibo to view them) I’ve been exposed to some interesting new language. The most chīxiāng 吃香 of which at the moment seems to be: Gěilì 给力 [give strength] I’ve asked for usage examples and it […]