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Today is just assorted bits of Chinese-related things and photos.
Courtesy of A-Pei who likes to bake in her free time, I learned much to my disappointment that the Chinese word for “brownies” is 布朗尼 (bùlǎngní); I think it should be either 小褐蛋糕 (little brown cakes) or 巧克力正方形 (chocolate squares).
Also from A-Pei, the Taiwanese slang 麻吉 (májí), from English “match,” used to mean “close, getting along well” etc. (Not to be confused with Japanese slang マジ (maji), coming (I think) from 真面目 (majime) and used to mean “serious, for real.” There is a train station called 馬路 (Maji) where you can take pictures and caption them マジで, either “at Maji” or “for true.”)
And one more from A-Pei, the Taiwanese word for avocado, 酪梨 or “cheese pear”—I’m not sure which is weirder, that one or the mainland 牛油果, “lard/butter fruit.” On the other hand, when you think of the root word of avocado, English can’t talk either.
嘛 (ma) is a sentence-ending particle which just means something like “y’know,” “right” as far as I can tell; for phonetic reasons I’m always tempted to translate it as “man” (in the interjection rather than literal sense).
At the Saturday juku I was practicing English vocabulary with eighth-grade Yuki, who is bright and knows it and has no hesitation about arguing his corner when he thinks he’s right; it took me quite a while to convince him that the difference between “success” and “succeed” was grammatically significant. It occurred to me later on that while this is easy enough to explain in Japanese (成功 vs 成功する, with a verb ending on the latter), it would be much harder in Chinese, where 成功 alone does double duty.
逆苏 (nìsū, also written 泥塑) is a Chinese fanword I ran across which was new to me; originally from “reverse Mary Sue,” believe it or not (the sū part is phonetic), referring in general to “feminizing” your idol (I am not wild about this term but it’s the shortest explanation I can find). I’ve definitely seen comments on Weibo etc. along the lines of 爱你老婆 and so on, from female fans to male celebrities, which seem to count as an example.
Photos: Assorted flowers, a container port with bonus mountains, chibi-chans on the march (you have to look closely to see them in their little pink hats, for obvious reasons I refrained from photographing unknown small children close up), Kuro-chan from the park and their friend Ushi-chan, fancy desserts in a fancy blue-lit café, a duck couple camouflaged by sunlight, a poster that cracked me up (it’s just a political poster for one of the rightwing asshole parties, but especially since the text down the middle reads “Love and Politics,” all I could think of was “this is an ad for a movie about two women politicians from opposing parties who fall in love during their campaigns”), and one of my farmboys who slipped in there somehow. 
Be safe and well.
Courtesy of A-Pei who likes to bake in her free time, I learned much to my disappointment that the Chinese word for “brownies” is 布朗尼 (bùlǎngní); I think it should be either 小褐蛋糕 (little brown cakes) or 巧克力正方形 (chocolate squares).
Also from A-Pei, the Taiwanese slang 麻吉 (májí), from English “match,” used to mean “close, getting along well” etc. (Not to be confused with Japanese slang マジ (maji), coming (I think) from 真面目 (majime) and used to mean “serious, for real.” There is a train station called 馬路 (Maji) where you can take pictures and caption them マジで, either “at Maji” or “for true.”)
And one more from A-Pei, the Taiwanese word for avocado, 酪梨 or “cheese pear”—I’m not sure which is weirder, that one or the mainland 牛油果, “lard/butter fruit.” On the other hand, when you think of the root word of avocado, English can’t talk either.
嘛 (ma) is a sentence-ending particle which just means something like “y’know,” “right” as far as I can tell; for phonetic reasons I’m always tempted to translate it as “man” (in the interjection rather than literal sense).
At the Saturday juku I was practicing English vocabulary with eighth-grade Yuki, who is bright and knows it and has no hesitation about arguing his corner when he thinks he’s right; it took me quite a while to convince him that the difference between “success” and “succeed” was grammatically significant. It occurred to me later on that while this is easy enough to explain in Japanese (成功 vs 成功する, with a verb ending on the latter), it would be much harder in Chinese, where 成功 alone does double duty.
逆苏 (nìsū, also written 泥塑) is a Chinese fanword I ran across which was new to me; originally from “reverse Mary Sue,” believe it or not (the sū part is phonetic), referring in general to “feminizing” your idol (I am not wild about this term but it’s the shortest explanation I can find). I’ve definitely seen comments on Weibo etc. along the lines of 爱你老婆 and so on, from female fans to male celebrities, which seem to count as an example.
Photos: Assorted flowers, a container port with bonus mountains, chibi-chans on the march (you have to look closely to see them in their little pink hats, for obvious reasons I refrained from photographing unknown small children close up), Kuro-chan from the park and their friend Ushi-chan, fancy desserts in a fancy blue-lit café, a duck couple camouflaged by sunlight, a poster that cracked me up (it’s just a political poster for one of the rightwing asshole parties, but especially since the text down the middle reads “Love and Politics,” all I could think of was “this is an ad for a movie about two women politicians from opposing parties who fall in love during their campaigns”), and one of my farmboys who slipped in there somehow.
Be safe and well.
