Squeezing In
Lantian
July 12, 2007, 08:35 AM posted in General DiscussionPICKUP - Today a friend of mine was picking me up by car. Just before arriving he sent me a text message, 塞车, sai1 che1. From the context of the situation, I figured it meant something like "I'm coming now," "Almost there," etc. I could also guess at the sound from a similar character which means competition, 赛, and looks almost the same.
Anyway, now I'm looking up the character and the dictionary says, sai1, verb, to fill in, squeeze in, or it's a noun meaning stopper, as in wine stopper.
So was this kind of a joke, as it "Jump in the car" "cram into the car"? or someother meaning. As a side note, there was also another person in the car I wasn't expecting, so was this kind of a hint/joke to me?
More typical Chinese in this similar context would be:
马上到了
快到了
上车
塞, to sigh or sai, that is the question. Dictionaries are really useless! Help me Cpod!! :)
Lantian
July 12, 2007, 08:55 AMLATE - My friend is always late, and I rip on him continuously about it. :) ------------------------------- Wow, friends who use vocab way too advanced for me! Where are my less-than-1K friends? ;p I. Statistics Traditional Character Rank 1374 Simplified Character Rank 1143 "Changyong Zibiao" Rank 2256 Hong Kong Grade Level 4 II. Adso: Haha...adso says "Serbia car", no love there. III. Nothing on a Cpod content search. Muy mal. IV. Cpod elementary lesson Traffic Jam says: 堵车 dǔchē traffic jam V. So .... it for sure means "traffic jam"? I's pretty easy to say, so I could use this...unless it means...something else! To du3 or sai1 -- you du'cide. LOL
connie
July 12, 2007, 09:04 AM"塞车"和“堵车”是一样的意思。但是我习惯用“堵车”。^_^
johnb
July 12, 2007, 09:04 AMOn the mainland pretty much all I've ever heard is 堵车, but I know that 塞车 does indeed also mean traffic jam (and those are the right characters). How dare you doubt Amber?!! :P Interesting tidbit -- one of my favorite movies ever, "Pushing Tin," is 空中塞车 -- "Midair Traffic Jam."
eileen
July 12, 2007, 09:21 AMJust to throw in my two cents. I had an interesting conversation with a taxi driver once and he told me that the two words mean the same thing (and they could probably be interchangeable) but that 塞车 term tends to be "stronger" so I'm speculating that your friend was in one hell of a traffic jam then!
KennyK
July 12, 2007, 09:22 AMyes... in taiwan, people will say 塞车 (sai che), not 堵车 (du3 che) for traffic jam...it is very common to hear that
Lantian
July 12, 2007, 09:24 AMCPOD LUV - Thanks! I think we have consensus that my friend was making some lame excuse about traffic for being late! And using complicated Chinese to throw me off the trail!! ;p JohnB 兄弟, never trust a woman. ;p 都是一个样! Connie, 我知道了, 谢谢. 我还在这里用英文＆中文开玩笑. 别模仿我的英文啊! 你们该下班了, 我也饿了!
excuter
July 12, 2007, 02:44 PMChinesePera-kun gives me to stop up, to sqeeze in, to stuff in,Serb(abbr.),Serbian,block,seal,cork,pass,frontier,fortress for 塞. So, I would translate 塞车 as to stop up the car (= to stop by?) or he stuffed his serbian car and blocked the exit with cork ;-) (开玩笑)
amber
July 12, 2007, 08:39 AMhi Lantian, I seem to remember in Taiwan they called a traffic jam "塞车" sai1 che1 but i'm not sure if its the same characters. was he late? that might have been his excuse! :)