We all know the geek terms used in English, and now Japanese geeks have developed their own vocabulary, such as :
‘‘Heso-ten’’ in Japanese – means: ‘‘laid-back, secure, happy’’. Literally means sprawled on one’s back with one’s belly-button pointing skyward.
‘‘Haniwa rukku’’ – High-school girls, particularly in northeast Japan, have taken to wearing sweat pants under their short uniform skirts to discourage the ubiquitous camera peepers. By so doing, they resemble the garments on haniwa, the clay figures placed around prehistoric grave mounds.
‘‘Nonai kanojo’’ – literally “brain-inside girlfriend.” It means the girl of one’s fantasies – a virtual partner who does not actually exist. The opposite would be riaru (real) kanojo.
What are some of the terms that Taiwanese geeks here use in Mandarin to call themselves, their friends, their surfing days? Do they copy Japanese trends or do they create their own Mandarin words? Know any?
Are you sure about geek being “daizi”? I always thought “daizi” was more of a dolt or stupid person, which wouldn’t describe a geek. I’ve found it on some Taiwanese web sites, but first it looks as though they were all copied from mostly the same source, and second they feel that the terms nerd/geek/dork/dweeb/gweeb are all the same. So I wonder…
Then again it was always difficult explaining the meaning of “geek” to Taiwanese, and much harder still to distinguish between a geek and a nerd.
Interesting question (so naturally I have to Google it to avoid going back to work):
One site in Taiwan has 電腦人技客 (dian4nao3 ren2ji1ke4) which is actually a pretty slick translation as the “ji1ke4” part sounds tolerably like “geek” in the first place, and also carries some of the meaning. I don’t know how you can translate the sense of “marginal social outcast status” though!
For those of you who read Chinese and enjoy sociological analyses, there is http://theory.people.com.cn/BIG5/40557/51611/51615/3612691.html which actually analyzes types of geeks. (This URL also gives a translation for “wannabe”: 希望成為者 xi1wang4 cheng2wei2zhe3). And, it’s from the People’s Daily network, so it MUST be good. And 754 Google hits says it’s gaining ground as an expression (I mean ji1ke4). 558 of those are from .tw websites, BTW.
try “shu dai zi” / book idiot. ask young taiwanese people about the swearing and insults, they can give you some good ones, although nowhere near as creative or specific as in english.
As a person familiar with the inner workings of that certain dictionary company whose name sounds like the very source of the sunrise and conjures up visions of the Orient, I would probably try to find other sources for things like this.
Alas, the days when that company had a lock on a famous and accomplished linguist (Liu Shaoqi) are long gone. Nowadays, dictionary makers need not only to have actual native speakers of both languages, but also to listen to them. :raspberry: Truly, “wealth does not last past three generations.”
I was trying to explain to my 13-yr old student waht ‘nerdy’ meant - “well, if someone’s nerdy, they study a lot, play lots of computer games, read comics, don’t do much sport …”. I stopped myself thinking - that sounds like your average Taiwanese highschool boy (including my student).
I think the term ‘geek’ is kind of unneeded in Taiwan.
I don’t think there are equivalent terms in Chinese. I’ve asked a few times.
The closest match is with “nerd” which they often say is 書 獃 子 shu1 dai1zi, but that is more like a “bookworm”. You can be a bookworm and still be good at socializing, whereas nerds are nerds because they can’t get over their brainiacness to be cool.
If you’re looking to explain the terms to someone else in Chinese, not call them one, you can explain it like this:
The following people are socially unpopular because:
nerd- too smart and don’t know how to socialize
dork- too clumsy, usually says and does things other people think are stupid or weird
geek- overly interested in a particular topic (one that is not shared by the majority of people) and liable to talk about it with others who are not interested in that topic. The intelligence of a geek relates directly to their areas of interest: computer geek/science geek=smart, bug collecting geek may not be.
dweeb- too immature to be cool in a particular social group
If you explain the terms like that to someone and give a few examples from popular television: (Ross from “Friends” is a science geek, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter is a nerd/bookworm/know-it-all-- at lest before she starts making friends and having adventures) they’ll understand.
But I’ve gone through this a few times with fairly knowledgable people and they haven’t found equivalent terms in Chinese for these.
Actually, a great source for these social terms is The Simpsons. If they’ve watched that show (which is now showing on cable in Taiwan) you can easily use characters from there to make your point:
Martin- nerd
Lisa- book worm
Milhouse- dork
Comic Book Guy- geek
Science Guy- geek/nerd
If anyone actually has a real translation for these terms, I’d be very interested to hear them, too.
[quote=“puiwaihin”]Actually, a great source for these social terms is The Simpsons. If they’ve watched that show (which is now showing on cable In Taiwan) you can easily use characters from there to make your point:
Martin- nerd
Lisa- book worm
Milhouse- dork
Comic Book Guy- geek
Science Guy- geek/nerd[/quote]
puiwaihin - brilliant
Your post right above this one is spot on. And this is a great set of examples. :bravo:
[quote=“Hobbes”][quote=“puiwaihin”]Actually, a great source for these social terms is The Simpsons. If they’ve watched that show (which is now showing on cable In Taiwan) you can easily use characters from there to make your point:
Martin- nerd
Lisa- book worm
Milhouse- dork
Comic Book Guy- geek
Science Guy- geek/nerd[/quote]
puiwaihin - brilliant
Your post right above this one is spot on. And this is a great set of examples. :bravo:[/quote]
Unfortunately, this reveals me as something of both a language geek, and a television geek.
Hey! There’s no such thing as a language geek, now that I think about it. I mean, everyone is fascinated by equivalencies between Chinese and English. Everyone!!
That’s what my Far East English-Chinese Pinyin Dictionary wrote for “geek”.