Qing Wen - Talking with Numbers

Seriously, my home telephone number was "xxxx -xxx - 5174" before, which was always laughed at by my Chinese friends, since it sounded just like "我要气死！" (wo3 yao4 qi4 si3, Damn it!). I didn't know this at all when I selected the number at a telephone office. 真是气死我了！

P/S. That said, the number was very easy to remember.

This lesson sure does remind me of the last Qingwen lesson

Funny and useful lesson. 3Q!!

Hi yankees,

I don't know what you're talking about. Both lessons were about slang, but the content is completely different.

Hi all,

Courtesy of connie, here are the words in today's lesson:

88，886： 拜拜bāibāi，再见zàijiàn，

5201314

我爱你一生一界

Cute lesson. Where else would we learn this!

Today was the most popular day to celebrate Chinese New Year in Houston. Like everywhere, the kids in their new clothes stole the show! Thanks for some great lessons this week.

Thanks pearltowerpete for the breakdown.

Time to catch some sleep.  Taking my daughter to Chicago's Chinatown New Year's parade tomorrow.

大家好﹗

我也要說說 Numbers

今天是農曆正月初七 "人日" 根據中國傳統習俗，當日為眾人的生日。

典故﹕

根據西漢時期東方朔的《占書》記載，農曆新年的首八天

為不同畜牧作物的生日，依次序為「一雞二狗、三豬四羊、

五牛六馬、七人八穀。」

故此，每年正月初一為雞的生日，初二為狗的生日，

初三為豬的生日，初四為羊的生日，初五為牛的生日，

初六為馬的生日，初七為人的生日，最後初八為穀的生日。

祝 大家生日愉快﹗

886

Hi !

You can find the English translation at :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renri

拜拜囉﹗

My sister has a Starbucks mug that only has numbers on it (and a little Starbucks logo.) There are no explanations and there is no text. It must have 300 different "phrases" encoded on it. Even though she has teenage children she only understands a handful of them.

Hi ai1pi2

Ha, I have a similar mug, except it is for Bailey's Irish Cream (and it does have the Chinese characters). I got it at Karaoke about a year ago.

The phrases are cute, but some of them are a bit of a stretch.

I have had '444' in my various cell numbers ever since moving to China. When I used to sell phones in Brisbane back in 99 not a single Chinese customer would accept a phone number with a 4 in it. So when I bought my first number here it had a triple string of 4's at the end and me being my usual wicked self thought it'd be hilarious to court disaster and use that number. Ever since then I've always used phone numbers with triple 4's in them. That being said apparently it's not as cool any more to have multiple 8's and that 4 is the 'new' 8: because on the do rei mi fa scale the fourth in the series is fa (a bit of a stretch I think). According to my Chinese friends I no longer have a death wish. lol

Hi Pete,

Wups, my bad. I don't know why it reminded me of the last one.

Hi 陈博士

你为什么不早点告诉我呢？你说的那个"初二(狗的生日)"，很可惜，我家小胖狗错过了。不过今天是初七，祝贺"人的生日"还来得及！

The chat codes are too numerous to list and especially to remember them all, but here are a few others I personally find quite useful:

987: 对不起 : dui4bu5qi3 : excuse me

885: 抱抱我 : bao4bao4wo3 : hug me

596: 我走了 : wo3zou3le5 : I'm leaving

530: 我想你 : wo3xiang3ni3 : I'm thinking of you

08056: 你不理我拉 : ni3bu4li3wo3la5 : you ignore me now?

51396: 我要睡觉了 : wo3yao4shui4jiao4le5 : I want to go to sleep now

matt_c,

Great story.I like your spirit mate.At least with mobiles I presume you could just offer them a different number.When I was selling my last house,we had some Chinese come to look as prospective buyers and we were lucky enough to be number 8.I was aware of feng shui at the time also and as far as I could see there was nothing untoward and I thought we had 8 on our side.But it ended up being sold to someone else.But it must be hard selling your dwelling in China if the numbers are bad.Is it like the hotels here that don't have a 13th floor? ie do they skip the bad numbers?

In Thai "555" means ha ha ha.  They sounds the same.

Many Chinese-speaking Thai folks can use "ba1" to mean crazy, because it does.

And for those tri-lingual folks of Thai, Chinese, and English, they can say, "You must be 9", pronounced gao1 and of course meaning high.

No, I don't get 9 and have never used this.

Hen3 you3 yi4si1 lesson.

When I was living in Taiwan I hardly ever heard 再见. Instead they used 8181 bai yi bai yi, just like the English bye bye. Consequently I seriously have to think to say zai jian.

Are there any "slang phrases" using letters in Chinese.  For instance, in English we have LOL... 88

What about 250==idiot? What does it come from?

Some theories, not confirmed here

Do you have any explanation?

Hi kybod4

I had always heard that 250 was some kind of rating that a person was unfit for military service, like 4F in the States.

But as with many such stories, there is more than one explanation. In addition to the story you linked to, there is the "long boring story about a Hong Kong card game" 牌九，in which the two weakest tiles are 二板 er4ban3 and 么五mewu3. Any other tile is better than them, so everyone looks down at them and calls them by the shortened name, 二百五.

What other ideas do you all have?

What about 三八 (san1ba1 / stupid)? I often heard taiwanese people use it. Does anyone know where it comes from?

Hi Niels

三八 is an insult for women who are perceived as not being serious or dignified enough.

But 三八 also pops up in 三八妇女节, the Women's Festival on March 8th. That holiday started in America, but was then adopted by the PRC in 1949. A big part of their early support was from women, who had gotten a raw deal in China for thousands of years (foot-binding, being treated as property, etc.）

Mao said that they were 半边天-- they held up "half the sky."

So, for 748 I understand that it means chu si ba.  However, doesn't the ba imply that it is a suggestion and a bit more friendly, rather than an order?  So, if it is said in anger then why would one add ba?  Is it like saying, "Why don't you go to hell"?  Is it more said in jest if you have the ba there?  If I was really angry, would I want to say, "chu si a"?  Thanks.

Fascinating stuff. I don't see this sort of slang working in English, so it's an interesting phenomenon.

There's a wikipedia article on 250. It claims 250 is half a diao4, an ancient monetary unit, which was worth 500 copper coins. So saying someone is half a diao is like saying someone is "a few sandwiches short of a picnic" or whatever your favorite expression is along those lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/250_(number)

Hi mbreakstone

Good question. 吧 is a little tricky to use properly, and it depends on the context. Sometimes it softens your tone, sometimes it expresses some uncertainty. 

I asked Jiaojie and Connie whether anyone would just say 去死 or 去死啊 and they agreed that you really should have the 吧.

Jiaojie said, as you suggested, that you can think of it as advice-- Why don't you go to Hell?!

Hi coljac

Very interesting! That is actually the most convincing explanation, to my ears.

We have these kinds of disputes over the origins of words and slang in English, too, by the way. Think of Napoleon allegedly saying that pumpernickel was only good enough to give to his horse-- "bon pour Nicole" etc.

Some people make a career out of this stuff!

Well, I never really thought of suggesting someone go to hell as "advice", but I suppose there are a couple people out there that I could "advise" in this way, so I'll keep the ba in mind! Thanks, Pete, Connie, and Jiaojie.

数字确实很有趣

在中国大家比较喜欢8 不喜欢4 不过这种观念在改变 大家已经不那么在意了

还有大楼一般没有第18层 而是17A 或者别的名字

這個“請問”很有趣！As coljac said, this phenomenon would never work in English. English internet slang is all about deciphering acronyms!

Anyway, thanks for the great podcasts, and I wanted to say hello... I have been listening for about six months now and just subscribed as a member. Look forward to participating in the poddie community.

我叫 Eileen, 我的中文名字是“明薇”。大家好，新年快樂！

Hi xemrac

Thanks for getting involved! We at CPod will be looking forward to your questions and comments!

Hi justin001

西方有的地方有點忌諱13,很多公寓沒有13樓。就算有，租不出去，沒人要住啊！

518 我要发（财）

Hi Pete,

非常感謝你的歡迎！我希望可以跟你們交流，學習我的中文。我很喜歡 Chinesepod。

- e

I'm slightly confused about the useage of these numbers.  Are they only used on-line or can they also be used in oral conversation.

1458：一世唔发（cantonese）never get rich all your life

769394：出来搞三搞四（cantonese）Come out and plot secretly

15-16（fifteen sixteen）：七上八下，忐忑不安或者拿不定主意 （Cantonese）  perturbed

All above,you can use in Hong Kong,Macao and Guangdong province.

=========

13:十三点（idiot，simp）

9413：九死一生 moribund,dying

=========

to Niels

三八，八婆，八卦，八 all mean busy body or nosy parker.就是好管闲事的。本来都是特别针对女性的，后来可以随便用了，尤其“八婆”，很多时候会用来辱骂女性。我印象中英语里面是不是有一句俚语说好管闲事的？但是我一下想不起来了。

urcto您好！

（广东话）

祝您1314168（一生一世一路发）

客家仔