Chinese and English Slang
by Lisa
Have you ever pay attetion to the problem that hold you back when talking to a person from another culture? Sometimes it is not about your grammer or pronunciation, it is just because of the slang that people usually use in their daily life which is unfamiliar to you. Slang is a "specialized dictionary covering the words,phrases, and idioms that reflect the least formal speech of a language. "Much slang belongs to specific groups, as the jargon of a particular class, profession, or age group. Language is not just a mean of communication but also a product of culture. Therefore, if you would like to have a better communication with someone who is different to you, master in their language is just not enough but you also need to learn the slang they use and try to apply them in a proper way. Here I would like to give some examples of slang people often use from both English and Chinese and culture hope it will help you with your smooth conversation.
Have you heard about these items when you are talking to a student from Mainland China? It is very possible that you don‘t know the meaning especially in a certain situation. So learn it and try to use it in your next conversation with your Mainland Buddy!
In addtion, I would also like to share some of the English Slangs I have learned when talking to the Native English Speaker or from movies and hope you will understand others more easily and be able to use it right at the place to make your English sounds greater!
1. Don't pull my leg.
别开我的玩笑了
2. Don't let the grass grow under your feet.
别浪费时间了
3. Play it by ear.
随机应变
4. Walls have ears 隔墙有耳
5. Spend A Penny: to use the restroom
6. pain in the ass: 麻煩事
7. an all-nighter：學習了一整晚
8. bent out of shape：be upset
9.I'm going to blow out of here now: i am going to leave now
10. catch some rays: get some sumshine.
There are still more of them and you can also learn it online. and Please also show something you know to us!
try to use it next time with the exchange student on campus and I am sure they will be impressed by you! Surprise them!
Lisa, Thanks for your sharing! I totally agree with you that communication is different from academy. For me, the biggest usage of language is for communication! If you wanna be a good communicator, you have to know their common slang rather than thousands of advanced words. The best method to learn the slang is to communicate with the native speaker and especially pay attention to how they use words and slangs in different situations. Anyway, Thanks for sharing! I could definitely learn from your post!
ReplyDeleteDollars
Lisa, I was intrigued to read the PTH slangs in English. Where did you find them? It'd be nice to have the hyperlink as well. Language is, first and foremost, for human connection & communication. I appreciate any post that shows how alive, dynamic and profound our languages are!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this post. I have learnt a lot from it since I haven't heard of most of the slang.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that much slang belongs to a certain group of people. Even Hong Kong and China share some common culture, I have no idea of the meaning of those slang. Also, as we can see, most of the slang is created by the netizens. There is always new words in describing different social situations. This is what I find it interesting about language --- you will never get bored from it.
By Kourtney