Podcast

Oxford dictionary adds popular Chinese terms

Updated: 2010-09-06 15:47

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The prestigious 115-year-old Oxford Dictionary will now include popular new Chinese terms such as "shanzhai" "youtiao" and "fangnu," as part of the modern Chinese language.

As China plays a more important role in the world economy, the Chinese language is evolving, attracting more attention from people who want to understand this ancient and vibrant language.

For instance, the word "shanzhai" is used to describe the knockoffs of iPhones or designer bags imprinted with Louis Vuitton logos.

Another new term in the new edition is the word "fangnu," or a "mortgage slave" - a term used to describe the phenomenon in larger cities whereby well-educated youth complain of a miserable existence due to the heavy burden of a home mortgage.

All these new or often fashionable terms can be found in the new Oxford Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary that was unveiled in the recently concluded Beijing International Book Fair last week.

The dictionary now is available in stores.

This dictionary is the largest single volume English-Chinese, Chinese-English dictionary and contains 670,000 words and phrases after five years of preparation. Sixty editors from the Oxford University Press and its partner in China - the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press - worked together on the project. According to Julie Kleeman, the dictionary's chief editor, most of the firm's editors were Chinese, and about one-fourth were native-English speakers.

"We don't want to make it florid, we want it to be modern and conversational. Many of the words in the present dictionary are no longer in use," she said. "The need for studying Chinese by foreigners today is totally different from decades ago. Precise, native and practical - that is our core advantage."

She added that the dictionary also has a sidebar section that explains words that pack in too much cultural information, like "hutong," a traditional architecture style common in the narrow lanes of Beijing. Another would be "youtiao," the popular Chinese breakfast staple usually eaten with soybean milk.

Questions:

1. What words are included in the new Oxford Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary?

2. What do they mean?

3. How big is the new dictionary?

Answers:

1. Popular new Chinese terms such as "shanzhai" "youtiao" and "fangnu".

2. The word "shanzhai" is used to describe the knockoffs of iPhones or designer bags imprinted with Louis Vuitton logos.

"Youtiao" is the popular Chinese breakfast staple usually eaten with soybean milk.

"Fangnu," or a "mortgage slave" describes the phenomenon in larger cities whereby well-educated youth complain of a miserable existence due to the heavy burden of a home mortgage.

3. It contains 670,000 words and phrases.

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About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is fluent in Korean and has a 2-year-old son.