Help me figure out this funny-sounding word: something like "bin bin byan byan"

下貓貓雨

“Been-been-biang-biang” is the sound of 乒乒乓乓 in Taigi. 乒乒乓乓 is an onomatopoeic expression that mimics the sound of objects colliding or hitting each other. In the context of weather reporting, the announcer was probably describing heavy rain hitting roofs.

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Me, I dunno, me, but this looks intriguing:

That would be the equivalent of 滴滴答答 in Mandarin.

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That character was my Forumosa avatar for quite awhile.

[I don’t know if the biang character has finally been added to Unicode, but it should be. I mean, if they decided to included a bizarre Cyrillic letter than only ever appeared in one manuscript (this one: ꙮ ) they can certainly add in biang.

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Yeah, I think I remember that! I thought the character looked familiar, but it’s so bafflingly complex-looking that I couldn’t be sure that it was the same one as the celebrated character that you adopted.

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I’ve also heard “bing bing biang” can be a euphemism for people shaking the mattress during you know what. :wink:

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It’s Taiwanese meaning a lot of noise

If applied to a rainstorm could mean raining cats and dogs

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She said it again! “Bing bing biang biang”! Music to my ears!

It has been more than 2 years since my first encounter with the word, but yesterday, by chance, I saw the same EBC weather caster again say “bing bing biang biang”. September 4, 2025. Let this glorious day live forever in our collective memory. Hallelujah!

Now I need your help to pin down exactly what she’s saying, and exactly what is the meaning of “bing bing biang biang” in this case.

Here it is, at 4:01 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jz_VdqxjLM&t=241s

I’m going to try to run this through a translation app later, but does anyone feel like having a go at transcribing and translating the sentence with “bing bing biang biang”?

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The “Bing bing biang biang” is somewhat similar to the “Pitter Patter” some ppl use to describe the rain hitting the roof, the ground or other objects (pots/pans/vehicles) out in the rain…

Hear The Cascades singing about it in the 2:05 mark:

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its a taiwanese slang , not mandarin ! it means something like a lot of things happening …chaos. … usually in a light humorous setting.

love this song but, don’t really see the connection?

I’m almost positive that “bing bing biang biang” comes from Taigi, although as others have mentioned “biang” is a phonological gap in Mandarin (the syllable is allowed, but doesn’t exsit). I’ve also heard “king king kiang kiang” as a similar onomatopoeia. Calling @hansioux for more linguistics fun :folded_hands:

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Don’t know how I missed out on this thread the first time. The way she said pìn-pìn-piàng-piàng is definitely Taigi for 乒乒乓乓.

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I went ahead and found the Wiktionary (link) and uh

First attested in the Ming Dynasty.

Well, that definitely caught me off guard.

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So what else is she saying in that sentence? It exceeds my current language level…

It’s used 6 times in Journey to the West. The language used to write Journey to the West shows influences of either Yangzhou (揚州) or Tsuantsiu (泉州) languages. Instead of 吳承恩 who is traditionally credited with writing the story, the actual author could be either 李春芳, who was from Yangzhou or 陳鳴烈, who was from Tsuantsiu. So yeah, finding common Taigi terms in Ming dynasty novels isn’t that weird.

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They’re talking about how rain affects traffic. It’s something like “At 5:50, when everyone is off work, the traffic is bing-bing-biang-biang”

edit: Unclear to my ears whether she’s saying “The traffic is bing-bing-biang-biang” or if she’s saying “right when everyone got off work the rain was bing-bing-biang-biang”

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那當然囉,反觀台灣的天氣上來說的話呢,因為現在這幾天,我們知道嘛,都有那個搗蛋鬼、討厭鬼,那個khoo-khoo-lóo,不按牌理出牌的冷性低壓在。所以呢你可以看到,整個降雨的狀況,午後啊,的確就比較不穩定。但是昨天的大台北啊,你可以看到有下一點,但很快就停了,就過了。有聽到雷聲,但是呢,好像響了幾聲就沒了。那但是呢,昨天啊包括宜蘭啊,包括高雄啊,尤其六龜,昨天喔,就在傍晚的時候,五點五十分,喔也是大家呢下班通勤的時間就給他乒乒乓乓啊。喔,但是呢,事實上啊這個雨差不多都是在一個多小時就給他結束了。

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When Taiwanese people are presenting, it seems like they often adopt this very wordy, filler-prone sentence structure. I guess to buy time for the brain to catch up and come up with what to say next.

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