By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Swearing in Chinese for beginners!
OK I'm a total beginner at Chinese (Mandarin), I've been learning / studying for 6 months and can read pinyin, and have a very small vocabulary. My accent is abysmal and my pronunciation worse, but I'm working on it. I've got some good books and a decent work ethic.
However, I NEED to know the naughty words, how do you swear at a Chinese person and how do you know they are swearing at you? So if you could give your favourites, (in pinyin please), with an approximate translation, (so I can contextualise of course) I would be most grateful.
13 years 35 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - Other cities
I found this to be useful: http://www.chinasmack.com/glossary (includes some additional lingo, not just swearing). Also, it's not uncommon that when a Chinese person starts swearing at someone, that they'll revert to their local dialect, in which good luck trying to understand.........
Most common one here in Nanning is 'sha bi', which apparently translates as stupid cunt. Sha is third tone and I think bi is fourth. Charming.
-You should remember that Chinese men are looking for a fight. They enjoy beating people at 15-1 odds. Therefore swearing at them is a bad idea. I was crossing a street when a black SUV drove by, and a chinese dude leaned out the window to yell "puck you!" while his idiot mates laughed inside the car. Notice they drove by. I'm close enough to Russia the locals have learned a foreigner can take down 3-5 Chinese men easily.
-In other words, be careful swearing. Americans laugh off the 'puck you mama" jokes rather easily. Chinese men are just looking for an excuse to cut off you balls with a broken bottle of beer.
