I heard it on the street... my brain's gone!

bodawei
March 23, 2010, 10:01 AM posted in General Discussion

If you hear something you haven't come across before bring it here!  It can be pitched at any level, we are not fussy.  

I'll start off with a condition that I know only too well.  On ChinesePod we have heard the expression 乱七八糟 luànqībāzāo (all over the place; at sixes and seven).. 

Yesterday I heard 我是雷得外僬里嫩 wo shi léi de wài jiāo li nèn.. I am not sure of the 'breakdown' but it means 'I am very tired and confused'.  嫩 nèn has a number of meanings including 'not good at something', but here it means 'tender' [edited, thanks Jason.]  

The conversation goes something like this .. (corrections are welcome):

A: 你干嘛啦? 

B: 那,最近我睡的很不好。 

A: 哦,真的不好情况。。 

B: 对对对,那,那 昨天我跟我们的朋友联系啊。。 

A: 哦,谁? 

B: 哦,。。。 我忘了。 我,我是雷得外僬里嫩。。 

A: 是么? 

B: 我是纠结的。

A: 是么?

B: 我累死了。

A: 去睡觉吧!

B. 好。  

Variations on this condition include: 

我是纠结的。。 wo shi jiūjié de  (my brain's 'gone' - literally it means that I am all mixed up with.. )  

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JasonSch
March 23, 2010, 08:44 AM

I've never come across this specific expression before, but I'm pretty sure the僬 should be 焦. i.e.:

我是雷得外焦里嫩

This 雷 means thunder or lightening, but has pretty recently started to be used to mean 'shocked' or 'amazed'. So, if you follow that logic, the expression would literally mean something like,

'I'm shocked till I'm burned on the outside and tender on the inside'.

Quite the colorful expression indeed! I can't verify that it can used to mean tired and confused, but it's completely possible that 雷 is quite a flexible word.

Interesting stuff!

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bodawei

Yes of course, 焦 jiao1 - thanks; I asked my friend to write the expression down but couldn't read her terrible writing, I wasn't sure. And your translation is great (in my opinion) - she explained 嫩 as 'not good at something' but now I realise that she was just trying to identify the character for me. Sadly I didn't know that meaning either. I thought that her 'brain had gone' so she was 'no good at anything', but the expression is much better than that. I didn't get it all together until now - colourful indeed.

any thoughts on 纠结的? (she just said that it means the same thing.)

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JasonSch

The first thing I thought when I saw that was the 'entangled' from 纠, but I hadn't seen this word used like that before.

So, I did a search though and found a good explanation here.

Here's an explanation from the link:

目前网上这个词的意思应该是陷入某种境地而心理混乱

"At present, online this word means something like to be bogged down in a situation and also to be in a confused and chaotic mood."

It also says that it can be used to express 囧, or alongside it.

So, it looks like it's another one of those vague expressions. 'confused, befuddled, shocked, awkward, etc'.

Another good one. :)

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bodawei

Hey Jason, thanks for the research, very helpful. I gather from my friend that this is a 'new' expression, or at least a new meaning; possibly one born on-line? The idea that it can be used to express 囧 lends support to that, but it also raises the issue about how broad the meaning is? You know I find it difficult enough to learn Chinese without the younger generation keep changing it!

As an aside, I have recently begun talking to a work colleague who has taught both Chinese and English for something like 30 years. He is one of the few Chinese I know who insists that Chinese is 'not hard' (ditto English). He gives elective (& popular) language classes using his own language learning method. He is writing text books - I think he may want to sell them to the Confucius Institute. The most interesting thing for me is that his (English teaching) method involves no writing - it is all oral.

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bodawei

I 'floated' this around a bit and now offer the following:

1. Jason's explanation above may be pretty spot on - but it is not a well-known expression. I think it might have been invented at my university! :-)

2. 外焦里嫩 - is a fairly well known idiom with a concrete meaning of charring something and leaving the inside rare (eg. when you're cooking)

3. Putting 雷 together with 外焦里嫩 (雷得外焦里嫩) probably gives it an abstract meaning, assuming the 雷 is being used to mean 'shocked and amazed'

4. There may be an anime connection, the scenario where a character is struck by lightning and they are left 'shocked and amazed' and 'burnt to a crisp' and ... feeling that their brain is gone? ;-) 囧 jiong

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bodawei
March 23, 2010, 08:57 AM

Yes of course, 焦 jiao1 - thanks; I asked my friend to write the expression down but couldn't read her terrible writing, I wasn't sure. And your translation is great (in my opinion) - she explained 嫩 as 'not good at something' but now I realise that she was just trying to identify the character for me. Sadly I didn't know that meaning either. I thought that her 'brain had gone' so she was 'no good at anything', but the expression is much better than that. I didn't get it all together until now - colourful indeed.

any thoughts on 纠结的? (she just said that it means the same thing.)

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bababardwan
March 23, 2010, 11:38 AM

Another great idea for a group bodawei [btw we'll have to revive that photo group of yours].Ok,the latest word I learnt "on the street" that I hadn't picked up before is :

..ok,well I am actually very familiar with it in terms of it's meaning sour or acid,but I was off for a Chinese massage so brushed up on my foot therapy lesson and also recalled recent discussion of 疼 and 痛 but when I went to use these terms I was assured that the word I was after was 酸 [or it can be 酸痛 but it has to have the 酸 in there] and lo and behold I see that it does mean ache and is the same character as the one for sour.I was led to believe that this is for more of a low grade soreness whereas tong and teng are more for pain.

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bodawei

I put a stack of photos on Flickr, then went and forgot the password! 我是纠结的。 :-) I have started another (and written the password down) and will start putting some more photos on soon.

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bodawei

酸痛 suāntòng OR 酸 (a low grade soreness) - good find Barbs. Exactly the kind of thing we are after. Nice find. I wonder if you can say:

我喉咙酸。 wǒhóulóngsuān (I have a bit of a sore throat)

I bet you pay more than we do for a massage. :-) We can get 40 minutes foot massage (including shoulders, arms and hands) for A$1.60. But the language learning makes it worth it. Actually the massage makes it worth it.

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user271828

I recently became familiar with 寒酸 [hánsuān] to mean "shabby" or "sloppy". How "cold" and "sour/sore" combine to mean this is beyond me.

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bodawei
March 23, 2010, 01:51 PM

I put a stack of photos on Flickr, then went and forgot the password! 我是纠结的。 :-) I have started another (and written the password down) and will start putting some more photos on soon.

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bodawei
March 23, 2010, 02:01 PM

酸痛 suāntòng OR 酸 (a low grade soreness) - good find Barbs. Exactly the kind of thing we are after. Nice find. I wonder if you can say:

我喉咙酸。 wǒhóulóngsuān (I have a bit of a sore throat)

I bet you pay more than we do for a massage. :-) We can get 40 minutes foot massage (including shoulders, arms and hands) for A$1.60. But the language learning makes it worth it. Actually the massage makes it worth it.

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bodawei
March 23, 2010, 02:14 PM

I 'floated' this around a bit and now offer the following:

1. Jason's explanation above may be pretty spot on - but it is not a well-known expression. I think it might have been invented at my university! :-)

2. 外焦里嫩 - is a fairly well known idiom with a concrete meaning of charring something and leaving the inside rare (eg. when you're cooking)

3. Putting 雷 together with 外焦里嫩 (雷得外焦里嫩) probably gives it an abstract meaning, assuming the 雷 is being used to mean 'shocked and amazed'

4. There may be an anime connection, the scenario where a character is struck by lightning and they are left 'shocked and amazed' and 'burnt to a crisp' and ... feeling that their brain is gone? ;-) 囧 jiong