Sometimes people in China will hear me tell Y: “Go die, idiot!” What the hell? Who talks like that to her husband, you might wonder. Let me explain.
Actually, what people hear in Chinese is not what I tell Y in reality. So what do I say?
Ever since one of my colleagues asked me how to say good-bye in German, saying this German word has become a running gag in my company. Good-bye is Tschüss in German. It sounds just like the Mandarin Chinese equivalent of go die (去死, qù sǐ).
Y and I call each other Schatz (German endearment meaning treasure), which sounds like the Chinese word for idiot (傻子, shǎzi).
So every time I say goodbye, honey, people who speak Mandarin will think that I’m randomly insulting Y.
Are there any words in your native language that sound just like something completely different in Chinese? I’d love to read your comments.
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I cannot really think of anything at this moment beside ‘mou ye’ in cantonese meaning ‘nothing’ but in my languange ‘moje’ means ‘mine’ 🙂 I know more similar words in English rather than my own language, haha 🙂
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In Catalan “Xavi” is a male name, pretty common and elegant, while in Chinese is not at all XD. So my boyfriend doesn’t want to call any of our future children Xavi, lol.
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How would you pronounce “Xavi” in Spanish? Does it sound like the Chinese word “shabi”? That one wouldn’t be a nice word for your kid!
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Sorry, I forgot to say how to pronounce this name^^. Yes, it’s exactly like “shabi” in Chinese XDDD.
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“Sexy” sounds like “eat shit” in Cantonese. Back in the eighties, there was a series of ad selling Solo, the lemon squash drink. It featured an adventurous dude doing all sorts of crazy sports, like riding a kayak down a forest. Twist “Solo” a bit and you get “stupid man”.
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Chinese have a quirky pastime of praying to objects whose names sound like something lucky in Chinese. I guess you could say homonyms, to them, are auspicious. The same goes for inauspicious, which is why the number “4” is jinxed/unlucky. It’s a homonym with the Chinese word for death. I once quipped to my husband over Chinese New Year, that if Americans were like Chinese people we would “bai bai” (pray) to celery (yes, the vegetable), because it sounds like “salary” and should therefore bring us more money, right?
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Haha, that’s funny!
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omg, why have I never before thought of this …. 😀 I’m always just thinking in the Chinese->German direction, like… Xia laoshi was always saying “xia yi ci” and it sounded like “scheisse” 😀 or when I’m in Vienna talking Chinese I’m always wondering what will the people think if I always say „Na ge, na ge“ when the „na“ is pronounced as „ne“ 😛
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I didn’t realise the “na ge” thing until my sister one day asked me what it means, since for them it does sound a lot like something you really shouldn’t say. I agree, I also often thought xia yi ci sounded like Scheisse.
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This is classic! Must raise an eyebrow from time to time. 🙂
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To be honest, it only rarely does. We don’t use this combination that often, it’s usually only colleagues who hear us say those words often enough that they could understand it wrongly (they usually know that this is German though, we stress the words differently from the Chinese ones).
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Could you rephrase your loving terms of endearment a bit, like “Tschuss, mein Schatz” in order to avoid the stares? Or, is it just the case that being misunderstood is so darn fun that it’s better as Tschuss Schatz? Or is it better to just smile and say “this is how we talk in Austria.”
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It’s not like we shout it out loud for everyone to hear.
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About the something sounding like “Scheisse” 晒死了Shai si le
Always got me confused 🙂
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