Taiwan online slang vocabulary...

[stinki_tofu]

I read a long time ago about how teens in Taiwan use slang to communicate with their friends....and that their parents aren't able to understand...so I thought it would be interesting to share them here...maybe we could all use them too~!~!^^

I've got two....

BT ------> Bian Tai (mentally illed person bah....not so sure)

LKK ------> Lao Ko Ko (Very old)

please correct me if I'm wrong~

[Mike]

http://jay-chou.net/forums/index.php?c=20

would be a better place for this topic

[wackycashew]

hmmm... this might be better in the ...And the Rest (http://www.jay-chou.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=42) subforum under Jay Fans Around the World international forums since it's talking about taiwanese slang. :happy:

*topic moved*

[sauerkraut]

well, no offense, but i wouldn't consider "bian tai" a slang word. and it usually means "pervert" or "perversion".

there are too many of those words. haha. but as soon as i can think of anything, i'm gonna post it. :happy:

[raerei]

well, no offense, but i wouldn't consider "bian tai" a slang word. and it usually means "pervert" or "perversion".

there are too many of those words. haha. but as soon as i can think of anything, i'm gonna post it. :happy:

Yeah, she's right with "bian tai" as in the definition. And I wouldn't count it as slang either.

[Chun Li]

Can ppl update us on all the recent slang in taiwan? I live in Shanghai and everyone here is backwards. (ok fine they're not but im saying it anyway!) all the chinese slang they use is sooo old.

[jakinni]

Some I came across watching some of those variety shows, and don't really know what they mean, so enlightenment appreciated.

瞎 = xia = blind = ??
機車 = jiche = motorcycle = ??
拽 = zhuai = ??
嘻哈 = xiha = ??

[wonnage]

for 機車...wow, my memory is wonderful, i remember having a convo with a taiwanese friend all the way back in june..I still don't quite understand myself so i'll just paste what she said.

: 機車..
: 就說...一個人做什麼是讓你不爽
: 你就可以說他很機車
: 機車是motocycle
: sometime we say in english liked..
: " OMG..he's so motocycle.."

so i guess the gist of it is..if someone pisses you off you call them a motorcycle. so if you hang around with a bunch of taiwanese friends and one of them starts calling you a motorcycle...yeah...

oh and another thing you might see online is e04. If you type that in zhuyin mode on windows it makes the word 幹 which pretty much means "to do"...but of course that's not what it means here, if someone says it they probably mean the... foogly word. err i don't want to leave the window to look at the cussing restrictions <.<

[missTBA]

hmmm, i'm going to ask my cousins from taiwan about that motorcycle.

actually, for "bian tai", it seems that younger people (up to age twentysomething) know it as meaning "pervert/perverted", while older generations (parents) take it as someone who is mentally ill. at least, that's the way my parents took it...

[sauerkraut]

嘻哈 = xiha


not 100% sure about this, but 嘻哈 means "hip hop" and 拽 means "arrogant", if i'm not completely wrong. i'm a little out of touch when it comes to slang words, but i'll ask my friends in taiwan when i get back.

btw, 讚 (zan4) is another popular word. it means cool or nice.
ㄍㄧㄥ (ging1) has the meaning of being coy or trying to maintain a facade. i find it a little difficult to explain. :oops:

[the one]

let me add just a few more..taught to me by my former taiwanese classmates.. they often used these words, so i was curious i asked what they meant. :bleh:

ben dan = idiot
da ben dan = moron
sen jing bing = stupid
bai chi = dumb
zi zang = retard
zhu = pig
sam ba = biatch
ke wu = bastord

btw, ji che actually means "weird/bizarre/strange"..even though literally, it does mean "motorcycle"..just to make some clarification. :D

[taiwanguonanhai]

let me add just a few more..taught to me by my former taiwanese classmates.. they often used these words, so i was curious i asked what they meant. :bleh:

ben dan = idiot
da ben dan = moron
sen jing bing = stupid
bai chi = dumb
zi zang = retard
zhu = pig
sam ba = biatch
ke wu = bastord

btw, ji che actually means "weird/bizarre/strange"..even though literally, it does mean "motorcycle"..just to make some clarification. :D

I wouldn't call any of these slang really....Those are how those words are used by everyone. Sort of like Bai Lei which is like loser or something along those lines. Its just a normal everyone knows it kind of weird.

[dazzlette]

I dunno why I never noticed this thread before. :oops:

Anyway, 嘻哈 (Xi Ha) definitely means hip hop. I learnt that from watching MTV Chinese. :happy:

瞎 (xia) I think means bad. So when someone says Bu Xia, I think it means not bad. But I think it's not a very flattering way of saying it. (I got this from the Kang Xi Lai Le clip)

機車 (Ji Che) means motocycle. But I think it also means annoying. I'm not sure if it means you talk too fast cos I remember watching some clip where they described Jay's talking as Ji Che

Oh I think to ask something about Taiwanese culture. It's about Wu/Liu/Qi Nian Ji Sheng (5th/6th/7th graders). I know that the 5th graders are the oldest and the 7th graders are the youngest. But how exactly are they divided out? :? As in which time period refers to which?? I think this has been asked before but I didn't really understand the explanation.

[taiwanguonanhai]

Oh I think to ask something about Taiwanese culture. It's about Wu/Liu/Qi Nian Ji Sheng (5th/6th/7th graders). I know that the 5th graders are the oldest and the 7th graders are the youngest. But how exactly are they divided out? :? As in which time period refers to which?? I think this has been asked before but I didn't really understand the explanation.

Oh, are you asking about school divisions themself?
School grades are like this-
Elementary School: Grades 1-6
Junior High: Grade 7-9
Senior High: Grade 10-12

[dazzlette]

No I'm not asking about that. In Taiwan, they refer to different age groups of people differently. The oldest group I know is called as the Wu Nian Ji Sheng (Fifth graders) while the younger people like us, as probably the Qi Nian Ji Sheng (Seventh graders) I want to know how exactly they divide the different groups up. I'm not even sure if Jay is considered a Liu Nian Ji Sheng (6th grader) or a Qi Nian Ji Sheng (7th grader)

[vicks]

hehe here's my two cents. along the lines of LKK from the first post, once i heard my dad talking about SPP (song pei pei... or something like that) meaning something along the lines of uncultured. ok i don't know if people actually say "SPP" but i thought it was interesting.

[xinerz]

wow, i don't kno why i haven't noticed this thread before... hrm but i was born in the states, raised in the states, and have only gone back to island like, 3 times so my taiwan slang is very limited, if at all. hah, at home i call crazy old men 'oh lee san' and crazy old women 'oh ba san', but maybe that's taiwanese/hakka? i'm not sure~dad speaks taiwanese and hakka , or so he says and i just picked those up from him/mom. but mostly i speak in chinglish.. like "choo ban woa na my jeans" (go get my jeans)or i'll combine stuff like "it's chee suh seven doo" (it's seventy-seven degrees).... -_- yeah,.. like i said, very limited

haha, with this thread, i can now improve my chinglish!!

[kewlpiggy88]

do people use 馬子to describe a girlfriend? is this even slang? because in toast man's kiss, and other dramas, they go 馬子 a lot when referring to girlfriend.

[newg]

kewlpiggy88 I think 馬子 means the girls you flirt with in the pubs.

Is "shun" classified as Taiwan's slang? It means " suck " right? :?

[cj0617]

馬子..if you watch outsiders(something like that)..it does mean girlfriend in a way. but if you say like "ba 馬子"..it's like picking up girls in a pub..that type of thing...

[CJay]

wow! i never knew about such a thread! Anyways, regarding the 5th grader, 7th grader question, 5th graders refer to those born in the 50s, 7th graders are those born in the 70s. When I say 50s, etc, I mean ming guo. So in order to get ming guo, you subtract 11 from the year we usually use. For example, someone born in 1999 would be born in ming guo 88 and would be an 8th grader

[indigo]

I often use bian tai as a slang, to me it refers to anyone who's too good to be normal, or its literal meaning.

Usage : Whoa, she scored straight distinctions for her final year! That's so bian tai!

No offense :-)

[raerei]

wow, i don't kno why i haven't noticed this thread before... hrm but i was born in the states, raised in the states, and have only gone back to island like, 3 times so my taiwan slang is very limited, if at all. hah, at home i call crazy old men 'oh lee san' and crazy old women 'oh ba san', but maybe that's taiwanese/hakka? i'm not sure~dad speaks taiwanese and hakka , or so he says and i just picked those up from him/mom. but mostly i speak in chinglish.. like "choo ban woa na my jeans" (go get my jeans)or i'll combine stuff like "it's chee suh seven doo" (it's seventy-seven degrees).... -_- yeah,.. like i said, very limited.

Oooooh. OKAY. Yeah.
I think in Tai Yu...

"oh ji san" is old man and "oh ba san" is old lady. XDDD
It's not hakka though. ^^ My mom is Hakka too.
I think it's Taiwanese. Please smack me if I'm wrong. :angel:

[Ling]

Oooooh. OKAY. Yeah.
I think in Tai Yu...

"oh ji san" is old man and "oh ba san" is old lady. XDDD
It's not hakka though. ^^ My mom is Hakka too.
I think it's Taiwanese. Please smack me if I'm wrong. :angel:

actually, those ojisan and obasan are japanese words

[CJay]

Another slang:
台 (tai) - which is something along the lines of fitting the stereotype of a Taiwanese person - the description given was something like wearing flowery shirts, slippers(the blue ones)/flipflops, etc. If anyone has seen meteor garden, it's pretty much like qinghe & how he acts in MG. Here's a link to his picture that's semi, but not really tai: http://www.beaconschool.org/~swong1/meteor%20garden.jpg - the guy in pink

[YanaLiao]

[QUOTE=sauerkraut]not 100% sure about this, but 嘻哈 means "hip hop" and 拽 means "arrogant", if i'm not completely wrong. i'm a little out of touch when it comes to slang words, but i'll ask my friends in taiwan when i get back.

btw, 讚 (zan4) is another popular word. it means cool or nice.
ㄍㄧㄥ (ging1) has the meaning of being coy or trying to maintain a facade. i find it a little difficult to explain. :oops:[/QUOTE

i've been looking for meaning for this word... ㄍㄧㄥ... after hearing it from variety shows, maybe i got the meaning which is it describes a person who's too uptight, or too straight... maybe too concentrated and serious about working something out or playing his/her part...

o ba sang= tai yu, dao ming si once used that word to call yu sao~ hahaha...

[kewlpiggy88]

o yeah..a lot of people said that jolin tsai is really "ㄍㄧㄥ " when she was younger, but now she has opened up.

[YanaLiao]

and i think 馬子's tai yu is Chit-ah haha.. got it from a-ya while she's doing a LIU XING HUA YUAN TAI YU BAN... it was soooo funny, aya don't know how to speak tai yu, zaizai and jerry kept on laughing...

[yuliandini]

This is really interesting! I wish I'd known about this when I was in Taiwan several months ago, then it would be really useful ... anyway ... am interested in learning more words & their contexts ...

[jaychoulover]

Bian Tai is pervert (:
Ohh.
LP!
I can't really explain what it means.

[Shu1Yah]

Hmm.. currently, im hearing if you say 'Jolin' in Taiwanese, as in 'jou ling' does that mean a cold joke?

[rainbowballoon]

wow i like this taiwanese dictionary here! ya i dont really get the meaning of 瞎 (xia1) -- somebody said it meant 'bad' but the way they use it also makes the word seem to have the meaning of 'lame'.

...?

[querac]

someone said "ke wu = bastord"
actually, i think it is more like abominable. not sure if it is slang either.

"sen jing bing"
i think it's also kind of like "you're nuts/crazy"

"gin" ㄍㄧㄥ (taiwanese, ming nan yu)
perhaps it also means stubborn?

here is another person's opinion: "after hearing it from variety shows, maybe i got the meaning which is it describes a person who's too uptight, or too straight... maybe too concentrated and serious about working something out or playing his/herpart..."

"Qi Nian Ji Sheng" (Seventh Grade)
similar to the terms generation X or generation Y.
refers to Taiwanese kids born between 1981 to 1990. They are characterized by their unabashed attitude toward self-gratification. (i dunno about this since i am one of them...but it does seem like talking style and such things are different from the parent generation)

"hen2 diao3"
i'm not really sure how to translate this? anyone? i just sort of get the idea of what it means a tv show host comments on an artists performance or something like that

[ziai]

"sen jing bing"
It isnt much of a taiwan slang, since alot of people use it too. It means crazy.

"Hen2 diao3"
Simply means 'very cool'. Hen is Very, and Diao, although it isnt a very nice word, means cool to most of the taiwanese people.

"gin" ㄍㄧㄥ (taiwanese, ming nan yu)
It can be explained as stuborn, and it is something like you refuse to give up.

[¦-Metal-Gear-¦]

i have one question!

hmm. whats the meaning of 'ORZ'?

[v3rmillion]

i have one question!

hmm. whats the meaning of 'ORZ'?

^haha, I've been wondering what it means too :D

and adding to the list, '881' and '886' both mean 'bye-bye' (ba-ba-yi and ba-ba-liu) ...:dry:

[sauerkraut]

orz basically illustrates a kneeling or bowing person. the "o" is the head, while the "r" represents the arms and the "z" the legs. it has several meanings... -> http://web.missouri.edu/~bltd8/life6.html

[hellokitty]

To answer the query of what 瞎(xia) means.

The literal meaning is blind.

It is obviously not a nice word and can be taken in several ways.

To me, when you call someone 瞎, you are saying they have bad taste.
For example, I say 'that guy is hot'
My friend responds, '你好瞎!' (ni hao xia), which translates to, you have such bad taste.

Dunno if I'm correct or not.

[KawaiiPanda]

To answer the query of what ?(xia) means.
The literal meaning is blind.
It is obviously not a nice word and can be taken in several ways.
To me, when you call someone ?, you are saying they have bad taste.
For example, I say 'that guy is hot'
My friend responds, '???!' (ni hao xia), which translates to, you have such bad taste.
Dunno if I'm correct or not.


i've never heard it being used before.. but i can see how it works =D umm i don't really have one... cept i do sometimes say 'ni you bing' as in... you have problems. lol or your sick.

[ziai]

I use xia quite often, and it's... I don't know, it shouldn't be taken too seriously, and it's somewhat like stupid in a more kiddin' way.

Like when someone says a lame joke, I just go hao xia o!
or like when somebody does something dumb we just use xia..

[gcgal]

Okay I have a question.
Im watching 'Bull fighting' with Mike He, and some words I come across I don't understand.
Like: 我的媽ya! or 你爸
What do those mean? Yes they mean "My mom" and "Your dad" but I don't think it means that in the context ^^;;

[bawkbawkchicken]

i think "wo de ma ya" or "wo de ba ya!" means something along the lings of Oh my gosh!

or HOLY SH**!!!!! hahah

[gcgal]

Oh ic.
How about when people say, "___ ge pi!"/"___個屁!"?
And what about this word?
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/yo-lli/Picture073.jpg
(I don't know how to say it...I've just seen it somewhere)

[sam_ho]

^ 個屁 means your ass! or if you want to make it nicer it'll just be your head. hahaha

[hamtaro]

We use '屁啦'(pi4 la) to respond to a person when we say it's not true.. It's something like 'your head la!' I like to use it but it sounds crude =X

瞎(xia) means lame. =)

I know of another word commonly used by taiwanese:
龟毛(gui mao)
Literally it means a tortoise's hair. But tortoise have little hair (or no hair?!) so it's used to refer to someone as being picky.


And what about this word?
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/yo-lli/Picture073.jpg
(I don't know how to say it...I've just seen it somewhere)


This word is 'zhuai3', used by the Chinese to refer to people as cocky/arrogant although the actual meaning is not this. Jay's cool cool character is sometimes being report as 'zhuai' (contains negative meaning though).

This word looks similar to '拽' which was posted in the first page, but the pronunciation and meaning are different.
拽 is pronounced as zhuai1 or zhuai4, meaning throw/pull/drag.

[gcgal]

ooo thanks hamtaro!!! i wouldve never figured that out from my chinese-english dictionary XD

[x94bp6ru6]

I don't know where my post went, put it just disappeared.
I'll just share one more time on the form of replying instead of starting a new thread.
I organized all listed above on my blog

And if there are any other slangs you want to know you can just either PM me or Reply on the blog.
(don't bother reply on this thread 'cause I don't think I'll be checking this thread often)

BTW, sorry for the poor english skill ^^


note from laruku:
Unfortunately, I've taken a look at your.. list.. And it's close to being atrocious. Horribly ridiculously wrong. And some terms were from PTT which you didn't understand at all..

I don't want to mislead the rest of the people to thinking that your post is the real deal etc so its gone.

And may I ask you something...
HTF do you know they are wrong?
I mean, that's what we use, and how we use

And you think they're wrong? fine, go be a freaking chinese. You don't deserve to understand how we speak a Taiwanese style Mandarin

[laruku]

機車 ------> Motorcycle ----> (adj.) sucks, stinks
BT -------> 變態-----------> (n./adj.) mentally illed
白癡 ------> White Dump ---> (n.) Idiot
豬 -------->Pig ------------ > (n.) Adagio
三八 --------> 38 --------------> (adj.) vulgar
ㄍ一ㄥ ------> from Taiwanese--> (adj.) Doesn't give up,stuborn?
Jolin -------> a female name --> (adj.) very cold (taiwanses)



Above are all inaccurate. Your chinese portion is not important. 60% of the people who visit this thread does NOT know chinese. BTW, I've been using NTU's PTT for i dont' remember how many years.. I can even tell you the history of some of the so-called slangs that you guys use.. with some digging i might even be able to find the person who coined it.

I just met up with 30 Taiwanese yesterday and none of them could tell I was not pure bred Taiwanese. And no, they are not just accustomed to Singapore accent. Most of them have just been here less than 6 months.

Tourists come up to me and ask me for directions in Taiwan. I have met a LOCAL who came to ask me directions.. And they all looked so shocked when I said I'm Singaporean.

Furthermore, to explain slang words you cannot just LIST the 'answer'. You have to explain the meaning behind it. LISTING doesn't work and it serves to confuse everyone even more.

EXAMPLE:
Jolin -------> a female name --> (adj.) very cold (taiwanses)

So someone who reads this is going to go to Taiwan and talk to people "Oh the air-conditioner is making me JOLIN." is that right? Cos that's exactly what others will think.

So unless you explain and say that in Taiwanese (or Hokkien for some countries) JO-LIN is similar in sound to 很冷 (literally translated as Very Cold). It's not used to describe temperature but more used as saying that a joke is extremely lame.


We explain slang words to enable others to understand the culture. Sometimes you even have to use others' slangs to explain your slang. Not just that, such words do not exist on its own. It is used in a certain way, in a certain sentence structure. There are circumstances that a slang word cannot be used and certain times where we use another word or phrase instead.

[cacky]

laruku: So what does 機車 actually mean? I've been wanting to find out for years!!

[x94bp6ru6]

機車 ------> Motorcycle ----> (adj.) sucks, stinks
BT -------> 變態-----------> (n./adj.) mentally illed
白癡 ------> White Dump ---> (n.) Idiot
豬 -------->Pig ------------ > (n.) Adagio
三八 --------> 38 --------------> (adj.) vulgar
ㄍ一ㄥ ------> from Taiwanese--> (adj.) Doesn't give up,stuborn?
Jolin -------> a female name --> (adj.) very cold (taiwanses)



Above are all inaccurate. Your chinese portion is not important. 60% of the people who visit this thread does NOT know chinese. BTW, I've been using NTU's PTT for i dont' remember how many years.. I can even tell you the history of some of the so-called slangs that you guys use.. with some digging i might even be able to find the person who coined it.

I just met up with 30 Taiwanese yesterday and none of them could tell I was not pure bred Taiwanese. And no, they are not just accustomed to Singapore accent. Most of them have just been here less than 6 months.

Tourists come up to me and ask me for directions in Taiwan. I have met a LOCAL who came to ask me directions.. And they all looked so shocked when I said I'm Singaporean.

Furthermore, to explain slang words you cannot just LIST the 'answer'. You have to explain the meaning behind it. LISTING doesn't work and it serves to confuse everyone even more.

EXAMPLE:
Jolin -------> a female name --> (adj.) very cold (taiwanses)

So someone who reads this is going to go to Taiwan and talk to people "Oh the air-conditioner is making me JOLIN." is that right? Cos that's exactly what others will think.

So unless you explain and say that in Taiwanese (or Hokkien for some countries) JO-LIN is similar in sound to 很冷 (literally translated as Very Cold). It's not used to describe temperature but more used as saying that a joke is extremely lame.


We explain slang words to enable others to understand the culture. Sometimes you even have to use others' slangs to explain your slang. Not just that, such words do not exist on its own. It is used in a certain way, in a certain sentence structure. There are circumstances that a slang word cannot be used and certain times where we use another word or phrase instead.

SO what? you think they're wrong? go suck your dick
however what you learn, you'll never get anything right if that's your attitude, refuse to accept the truth and stuck your your little own world.
Do you even know what's PTT and how it's formed? It does not make you smarter if you used it all right? don't feel so proud to be a freaking "half-understood" taiwanese-maderin speaker. bitch, ban me will you

btw
So someone who reads this is going to go to Taiwan and talk to people "Oh the air-conditioner is making me JOLIN." is that right? Cos that's exactly what others will think.

you actually can use it that way and has been used quite a lot before, if you want to learn another culture, accept it, don't try to be so smart, you'll never learn

[gcgal]

x94bp6ru6: Please try not to start a fight ^^;;; laruku is just trying to tell you that some people may not understand it the way you explain it, since you are a native Taiwanese speaker, and many others are not. Even though maybe 'Jolin' can be used to describe the A/C, many other slangs cannot be used in certain situations even though they may seem to, according to your definition. So laruku is just trying to say maybe you should explain each slang more, maybe provide a background story to it as to why Taiwanese people use it, because many non-Chinese speakers are interested in that.

[x94bp6ru6]

oops sor. I was in a bad mood during the final and "tried" to start a fight lol
that's why I stated that it's welcome for anyone to correct, ask, or add new entrances in the 1st paragraph.
(and also, it'd be messy to explain each on the same page, sould be explained individually, i was expecting people to ask for though)
btw, i appologize for all the bad manner and language i used

[judes]

...so yes there's no need for name calling or anything here.

as a native taiwanese who has been in canada for many, many years, i have trouble translating the slang sometimes too. i don't think the problem is your understanding of what the slang means, just that your english translation is not entirely 100% accurate and/or it's difficult to place into context when being used in conversation.

so let's just move on with slang that people have questions about or slang that you want to share and if someone thinks they have a better interpretation, please state it but don't insult each other about which is the "right" way.