汉语新词新译系列-G
跟单货(gen dan huo)
knockoff products
The term refers to commodities, especially in the fashion business, that copy authentic products but use substandard material.
过渡引用(guodu yin yong)
overquote
This term is often used by some academicians as a euphemism for plagiarizing other people's academic works. It's now also cited by some Netizens to satirize such reprehensible behavior.
鬼马(gui ma)
witty
The expression is often used these days to describe a person who is sharp-minded and humorous, and prone to taking weird actions or saying unexpected words.
购房落户（gou fang luo hu）
house-for-residency policy
Many governments in major cities in China, such as Hangzhou and Chengdu, have rolled out new policies to encourage migrant people to purchase houses so that they can get a local hukou or local residency paper. The policy is designed to boost the local real estate market.
怪咖(guai ka)
geek
The slang refers to those intellectuals obsessed with mind games, such as sudoku and crosswords. Although being described as a geek tends to be an insult, the term has recently become a fond nickname, or even a badge of honor.
谷歌依赖症(gǔ gē yī lài zhèng)
discomgooglation
This term refers to the feeling of distress or anxiety at being unable to gain immediate access to information. It's a portmanteau of discombobulate, meaning to confuse or frustrate, and Google. According to a survey, about 44 percent of Internet users in the UK said they were frustrated at being unable to go online and 27 percent said they
experienced increased stress levels.
个人所得税起征点(geren suodeshui qizhengdian)
threshold of personal taxable income
China's top legislature recently issued the new threshold for taxable income, 1,600 yuan(US$198) a month, which will be effective from next year. It doubles the previous threshold which was unchanged for more than decade.
灌水(guanshui)
flood-blogging
When guanshui is used in the context of Internet, it does not mean "irrigation" as in its normal use. Some Web bloggers upload tons of nonsense or neither here nor there trivial in order to earn more online credits but only to be scorned by blog viewers for wasting their time and the server space.
跟帖(gentie)
follow-up comment
It refers to the comments or articles that are posted as a follow-up to what a thread starter did in a chat room or on BBS.
过劳死(guolaosi)
karoshi
This Chinese term is a direct translation of "death from overwork." The term first appeared in Japan in the late 1980s to describe a new phenomenon of high-ranking business executives dying in their prime years without any previous signs of illness. Now the same thing is happening among middle-aged Chinese businessmen and professionals.
光棍儿节(guanggun'r jie)
Singles' Day
Every year at 11:11pm on November 11, fun-seeking male college students will have rowdy parties by screaming out their desire to find a girlfriend and use whatever is available to make big noises. The timing, consisting of eight Arabic number of 1, is deliberately selected to personify many single people. Can you envisage a Single Women's Day?
官府菜(guanfucai)
official's home cuisine
Most cooks at residences of senior officials in feudal China were able to prepare specialty dishes. The recipes passed down for generations have helped establish some restaurants offering such dishes, like Beijing-based the Tan's restaurant.
古惑仔(guhuozai)
offbeat boys
The phrase refers to teenagers who pursue an unconventional lifestyle and behavior, including weird hairstyles and clothing and accessories. They also tend to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and get into street fights. They account for about 70 percent of juvenile delinquents in big cities across the country.
官瘾(guanyin)
lust for official power
Guan in Chinese means "officialdom." Yin means "lust." This Chinese term describes many people who lust official power.
搞定(gaoding)
fix something or someone
To gaoding someone has almost the same meaning as "fixing" someone. It could mean you have reached a deal with someone, or even have someone deep-sixed. To gaoding something also has similar meanings as "fixing" something.
骨灰级(guhuiji)
guru
Those well-acclaimed masters in a field are referred to by today's youngsters as someone at a guhui level. However, caution is suggested when speaking in the face of such a master, if he or she is elderly, as he or she may take offense at the Chinese term, which means bone ashes.
过劳模(guolaomo)
overworked workers, model of models
Those who work far more than eight hours a day, either voluntarily or otherwise, are called a "guolaomo," or an overworked worker. Accordingly, they may draw either juice of joy or poison of pain from the long working hours. The term is coined after the word karoshi.
高薪跳蚤(gaoxin tiaozao)
high-salary job hopper
This Chinese term means literally a "high-salary flea." Since a flea can "hop" very "high" considering its small body, the term is actually used to describe highly paid job hoppers.
高考状元(gaokaozhaungyuan)
college entrance exam ace
This word means the top scorers in college entrance exams. Such cream of the crop is usually taken away by top universities in the country.
挂羊头，卖狗肉(guayangtou, maigourou)
bait and switch
The popular Chinese term translates literally "advertising with a sheep's head, but actually selling the dog meat." It is often used to describe the bait-and-switch tactic when someone tries to sell inferior or substandard stuff in the name of quality products.
轧闹猛(ganaomeng)
follow suit en masse
This popular phrase in Shanghai dialect reflects the fact that many locals love to follow fashion trends, ride the bandwagon, do what most people do and go where most go.
轧山湖(gashanhu)
chat casually
The colloquial expression in Shanghai dialect means chewing the rag or shooting the breeze. In different localities, there are different terms for chatting idly, such as "kandashan" in Mandarin in northern China and "bailongmenzhen" in Sichuan Province in southwest China.
戆大(gangda)
gander
This word is a typical example of Chinglish expressions used in Shanghai dialect. The local pronunciation of the word is quite similar to the English word "gander." The term is used to insult someone's intelligence.
膏方(gaofang)
tonic prescription
This Chinese term means a tonic prescription that has the principal aim of enhancing
the immune system functions. Many people, particularly the elderly or the weakly, will seek tonic prescriptions in winter as it is deemed the best season to take tonics.
搞脑子(gaonaozi)
brain teaser, brain basher
This is a Shanghai colloquial term, meaning something which is difficult to figure out or a problem which takes a lot of brain to resolve.
高压线(gaoyaxian)
top prohibitions
The term means literally a high-voltage line. But it is often used to refer to rules that one should never break because it will prove to be as lethal as touching the
high-tension wire.
谷歌炸弹(guge zhadan)
Google bombing
This Chinese translation of the English term means setting up a large number of Web pages with links that point to a specific Website so that the site will appear near the top of a Google search when users enter the link text.
干货(ganhuo)
substance, real stuff
The term originally means dry cargo or dried food, but it is often figuratively to mean substantial stuff or the essence of things. A person has ganhuo if he or she has solid thoughts. A book has ganhuo if it is not full of wishy-washy mumbo jumbo.
果冻族(guodongzu)
jelly clan
It refers to those young Chinese born in the 1980s who are seen as soft and fragile as jelly. They usually have pleasant looks but a weak heart and boast little resistance against pressure.
钢管舞(gangguanwu)
pole dance
It is an irony that some fashion-conscious white-collar women in large Chinese cities like Shanghai and Beijing have taken to pole dancing as a form of exercise in their spare-time while it's often seen as a popular performance at strip clubs in Western countries.
公寓式仓库(gongyushicangku)
garage condos
The Chinese phrase derives from a US terminology referring to garages located at sites that look like ordinary storage rental facilities, but they come with unusual features, such as heat and air conditioning and clubhouses. They are sold like condominium apartments, where the owner gets title to one unit in a complex of garages. Some buyers use their units to store big boats, fancy cars or collectibles.
公费游(gongfeiyou)
junket
The Chinese characteristic of a junket is that it always goes under the name of an official business or assignment. Recently, some senior government officials in Anhui Province were discovered using public funds and false documents to embark on an overseas sightseeing trip.
硅谷新贵(guigu xingui)
IT nouveau riche
The in expression refers to either those high-end IT talent who ride the wave of spending on fashion products and services like spas or those are never tired of undergoing silica gel-based plastic surgeries. The first two words of the Chinese expression means Silicon Valley while the latter means nouveau riche.
古惑仔(guhuozai)
young eccentric, punk
This is a Cantonese term widely used in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. It refers to young eccentrics who wear strange clothes and act in a maverick way or juvenile delinquents who frequently commit minor crimes.
骨感型(guganxing)
boney clan
The term means the boney type. Young women who desire a slim figure often follow the example of boney fashion models strutting the catwalk. However, many people see this trend as unhealthy and unattractive.
干股(gangu)
gift stocks
The "dry stocks," as the Chinese term translates literally, refer to the shares a
company offers to someone as a present. China's Supreme Court has just defined the practice as illegal for government officials.
古墓贴(gumutie)
age-old post
Some Netizens love to update old posts published on BBS several years ago to the front page in order to arouse a new round of discussion. The Chinese term here means literally a post from an ancient tomb.
赶场子(ganchangzi)
function venue hopping, whirlwind partying
As a spinoff of modern urban life, many people have to go to frequent parties and functions during their spare time and while officially on holiday.
高疯贝(gaofengbei)
crazy games
The Chinese term sounds like 高分贝, which means "high decibel." It actually refers to highly exciting rides like roller coasters.
贵族乞丐(guizuqigai)
rich beggar
It refers to those professional beggars who reportedly are rich enough to own a car and keep a mistress.
干物女(ganwunu)
himono onna
The increasingly popular term originates from a Japanese manga "Hotaru No Hikari," describing women who show great ability in their daily business but actually live a dull and lonely life after work. They don't have boyfriends and miss out on romance even when they are in their twenties. "Himono" means a dried fish and "onna" is woman in Japanese.
公司驻虫(gongsizhuchong)
resident office worker
It refers to office workers, especially in the fields of IT, art design and media, between the ages of 25 and 45 who work, eat, entertain, exercise, and even live, in their offices or nearby facilities. This is either because they are too busy to return home after work or because they want to save on living cost as a young career starter with too many
things, such as an apartment or car, to buy.
甘党(gandang)
sweet-tooth clan
Urban youths often refer to those who have a craving for sweet food as following the group. The Chinese word 甘means sweet and 党a party, gang, or a cluster of people.
搞怪(gaoguai)
spoof, parody
On Internet or in daily life, many young people nowadays love to make fun of their friends, teachers or celebrities by altering their pictures, voices or mimicking their behavior. Sometimes, the term may also mean to act in an outrageous way.
格子店(gezidian)
shelf shop
This term has become popular among students and white collars who cannot afford to open their own shops. But at the shelf shops, they can rent small units or cabinets in large shopping malls at a cost of hundreds of yuan per month to sell small products such as toys, cosmetics and accessories.
购物狂(gouwukuang)
shopaholic
Those who shop for shopping's sake rather than actual need fall into this category. They enjoy the act of buying things rather more than actually using them.
挂科(guake)
flunk
It is an expression popular with college students these days when talking about failing an exam.
高楼(gaolou)
high-rise posting
Widely used online, it refers to topics that attract hundreds of postings. In online communities, one posting is regarded as one storey, so popular topics are like
high-rise towers.
公主帮(gongzhubang)
celebutante
A portmanteau of the words celebrity and debutante, referring to young, rich women in the news for their extravagant way of life.
公司腐败官(gong si fu bai guan)
CFO
The term means Corporate Fraud Officer here, not chief financial officer. It is another example of borrowing and twisting the meaning of an existing term.
跟风(gen feng)
copycat, follow blindly
A copycat is a person who mimics other people. The word means someone following a trend often in a blind way.
孤儿(gu er)
office loner
This term, meaning literally "orphan," is often used by young people to refer to an office worker who is isolated, or chooses to be isolated, by others, either because of his or her bad behavior, disputable character or other problems.
格子店(ge zi dian)
pigeonhole shop
A kind of store where cabinet boxes are rented out to different people to sell various types of goods. It has become popular among young people, especially white-collars as they don't have to stay in the store themselves.
高楼掷物、致命垃圾(gaolouzhiwu, zhiminglaji)
killer litter
The term refers to garbage dropped from high buildings. In a mega-city like Shanghai, which is crowded with highrises, killer litter remains a protracted headache.
孤老(gulao)
elder orphan
This Chinese term means literately the "lone elder." It refers to an elderly person who has no family or can't obtain any support from his/her family. In China, it also indicates that the elderly person has no pension and is incapable of making a living. This is not a new phenomenon, but the number of them has been increasing quickly as
our society ages.
谷歌文(gugewen)
Googlese text
Scholar Xu Lai coined this term. He uses it to describe written works created by Internet writers who base their text on materials obtained by Googling. Such writers can hardly guarantee the accuracy of their data and frequently risk stepping into plagiarism disputes.
高考房(gao kao fang)
exam-break room
Many parents in large Chinese cities are tending to book a room as a place for a noon break for their child during the three-day national college entrance exams. This allows them to avoid traveling between their home and the examination venue.
过度引用(guo du yin yong)
overquote
It has become a euphemism for authorities in a Chinese college to report, in concluding their probe into a plagiarism claim, that a professor in the school had "overquoted" from research papers.
挂马(gua ma)
Trojan horse
The Chinese word means "to place a horse" and the "horse" stands for Trojan horse programs. A hacker distributes a Trojan horse through the Internet. Anyone who enters the affected Website will automatically download Trojan horses, causing their computers to crash.
观音兵(guan yin bing)
women's page boy
When a man is extremely eager to please women, he will stand by and go out of his way to run errands for them, just like a soldier taking every order from his commander. 观音, or Kuan-yin, is traditionally associated by Chinese people with women, though the Buddha itself is technically a male.
官博(guan bo)
officials' blogs
It refers to the real-name blogs of some government officials who usually create blogs just as a show of being close to the people but in reality they seldom update the blogs.
杠杆女(gang gan nv)
lever women
The term refers to wives who play their advantages to the full to help their husbands succeed in careers. Such women are compared to levers to lift their husbands.
格格党(ge ge dang)
princess clan
It is a workplace expression to describe those who were born after 1985, take their job as play, pay too much attention to their own needs and are too socially unsophisticated to heed public standards.
规则潜(gui zeqian)
defunct rules
The term, a literal reversion of "hidden rules" in Chinese, refers to rules and regulations which no longer punish violators and do not work well any more. The defunct rules in fact foster hidden rules to some extent, the unspoken cues that dictate behavior and actions.
搞手族(gao shou zu)
online organizer clan
The term, derived from Cantonese, refers to people who issue Website posts to organize various get-togethers such as mountain climbing, pub crawling and karaoke. Participants usually prepay while the organizer takes a cut from either the Website or the venue provider after each get-together. The monthly return can be 1,000 yuan (US$146).
官二代(guan er dai)
the second officer generation
The term, another word popular over the Internet after "the second rich generation" and "the second poor generation," refers to children from families of senior officials. Their privileges are based on their parents' power or other useful networks, instead of their own accomplishments. This second generation is notorious for their domineering practices and other misdeeds that annoy the public.
鬼旋族(gui xuan zu)
city roamers
The term refers to white-collar workers under pressure who would rather wander around on the streets without a purpose until midnight than go home after work. Experts say the city roamers are lonely yet successful people that need a family to warm their heart.
怪蜀黍(guai shu shu)
lolita man/pedophile
The expression in Chinese pronounces the same as 怪叔叔，or strange uncle, an online allusion to the pedophilic man in a southern China city who was involved in a sex scandal last year.
光替(guang ti)
lighting stand-in
The term refers to people who substitute for big stars, leading actors or actresses during movie shoots by standing still for lighting tests in preparation for sequence filming.
过度医疗(guo du yi liao)
overdose treatment
Many doctors in Chinese hospitals have been accused of dishonestly prescribing far more expensive medication and more clinical tests for their patients than necessary as a means of pumping up their wallets.
古董衫(gu dong shan)
vintage clothes
The term refers to new or second-hand garments that originate from a previous era. The word vintage here is an elegant-sounding euphemism for old. It literally means an antique dress.
高低男(gao di nan)
men of high IQ but low EQ
It is a label used in the Chinese match-making market for those young men who are well-educated and well established in career but are poor in communicating and socializing skills. More often than not these people have bad luck along the road to romance.
戆大(gang du)
Idiot, fool, simpleton
Some people believe this phrase comes from the English word "gander" because they sound alike and share almost identical meanings. However, others argue that it is an aboriginal term. In this phrase, the first character "戆" means "stupid or simple," and the second means "big or elder."
In rural areas of Shanghai, people say that the eldest child in a family is usually more honest, obedient or simple-minded, but the second child tends to be smart, shrewd and mischievous. Thus, 戆大(gang du), as the "simple-minded elder," is now used to describe anyone who's a fool or simpleton.
攻略(gong lue)
detailed guide
With World Expo 2010 occurring in Shanghai's backyard, many youngsters have
devoted themselves to working out an informal guide to avoiding crowds and long queues and finding the most convenient ways to visit the Expo site.
轧闹猛(ga nao mang)
Join in the fun, take part in the merriment, add trouble
This term combines the verb "轧," meaning "roll" or "join in" and "participate in," with the phrase "闹猛," meaning "full of bustling activities," "lively" or "a noisy crowd" in colloquial Shanghainese. You can hear the phrase "闹猛" in ordinary local conversation every day, because city people just can't get enough hustling and bustling.
So, in locals' mind the term gives the image of squeezing into a noisy crowd and joining in the fun. However, it may also mean adding trouble. For instance, just when you have your hands full with multi-tasking, someone comes up and asks you to do something else right away. That's another kind of 轧闹猛(ga nao mang).
公公知识分子(gong gong zhi shi fen zi)
coward intellectuals
The phrase sounds like "public intellectuals." Yet the second Chinese character is different, making the phrase literally mean "eunuch intellectuals." The sarcastic expression refers to those intellectuals or professors who have no backbone and say whatever people in power need them to say.
果粉(guo fen)
Apple fan
The term refers to die-hard supporters for any digital gadget produced by Apple Inc. The enthusiasts line up for hours, even days, to buy the latest products, such as iPads and the latest smart phone iPhone.
罐头笑声(guan tou xiao sheng)
canned laughter, laugh track
Fake audience laughter is a separate soundtrack inserted into sitcoms and TV comedies. The mechanical laughter recording is compared to bland canned food that always tastes similar.
轧三胡(ga sei wu)
Chat, gossip, shoot the breeze
In the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), there were three celebrities -- businessman, a painter and a prostitute -- sharing the same surname "Hu" in Shanghai. Naturally, their names were frequently mentioned in local gossip. So, later, talking about the three "Hu" or 轧三胡(ga sei wu) became a popular term used to describe people gossiping.
That's one of the several etymological stories about the Shanghainese phrase 轧三胡(ga sei wu).
Another story was about a Chinese musical instrument called "二胡" or a twostringed fiddle. It's difficult to master the skill of playing "二胡" and someone learning the instrument could produce a lot of noise and soon lose interest in it. Irritated by the strident sound, people tended to ridicule a poor player by saying "三胡"
(three-stringed fiddle) instead of "二胡". Later, the term of playing "三胡" or 轧三胡(ga sei wu) came to mean chatting idly or shooting the breeze.
In current usage, 轧三胡(ga sei wu) means to chat, engage in idle conversation or gossip.
过立废(guo li fei)
overqualified
When an employee is far too qualified for a job, an employer will shudder at the idea of offering him or her a vacancy for fear they will be half-hearted at work or go
job-hopping at any minute. In this case, overqualification means useless or wasted in the job market.
给力/不给力(gei li /bu gei li)
cool/dull
An expression gaining popularity in both online posts and publications in China. It evolved from a north China dialect, “不给力” which roughly translates as disagreeable.
刚需族(gang xu zu)
real homebuyer
These are people who genuinely need a home, such as first-time buyers, young couples and those who settle in another city. It's distinct from property speculators.
过度包装(guo du bao zhuang)
over-packaging
The commercial practice of doing up merchandise in far too fancy and expensive packages has been blamed for contributing to corruption, and extravagance and waste in China.
高姐(gao jie)
bullet train stewardess
The term is derived from airline stewardess and was coined after China started
high-speed bullet train services. Train attendants are required to meet strict standards for height, build and attractiveness, similar to those used when recruiting flight attendants.