Discussion: Emics and buzz words in Taiwan

 

Hi! I’m Ayumi.

This time we did a group chat on Skype with Taiwanese and they explained several emics and buzz words in Taiwan. I talked with three Taiwanese students. I will share the words with you~

zhòng xié/中邪 – crazy

guī máo/龜毛 – the literal translation is ‘turtle hair’ but the real meaning is picky

(picky: not easily satisfied, or having very high standards about particular things)

xiǎo xiān ròu/小鮮肉 – ‘xiao’ means small, ‘xianrou’ means a fresh meat. It describes the young man who is good-looking and has a muscle.

nuǎn nán/暖男 – ‘nuan’ means hot or warm and ‘nan’ means a boy. The word means caring and considerate boy.

They said that the first two words are the words everyone have opportunity to use and the last two words is the buzzwords. One of the students from Tamkang university told me about the emics in the Taiwanese language, such as 古意, 緣投 and lon liu lan(no Chinese character), but I forgot what each words mean. Although I am a Chinese majoring students and have experience to go to Taiwan for studying, but I don’t understand Taiwanese language…

When I was in Taiwan, I took Taiwanese language class, but it was totally different from Chinese(Mandarin), so I couldn’t acquire it. If I have another chance, I want to study Taiwanese again!

Thank you for reading~

Ayumi

Discussion Questions

Q1. Do you have Taiwanese friends? Where did you met them?

Q2. Do you want to study Chinese? Why?

Q3. Do you like the person who is ‘xiaoxianrou’?

Q4. Do you want to go out with ‘nuannan’?

Q5. If you have chance to study abroad, do you want to study your major language or want to study other language like dialect as well?