【Learn Chinese】Foreign Loanwords in Chinese (Part 1)

The Chinese language has historically been highly resistant to outside influence and therefore has fewer loanwords compared to some other languages. Loanword in Chinese is 外来语 wàilái yǔ.
The unyielding nature of Chinese characters is the main reason for this. Foreign transliterated words often sound very cumbersome in Chinese. For this reason, foreign concepts have usually, but not always, been translated into the closest Chinese equivalent.
Whereas the majority of the foreign words in Chinese are related to food or places, (take ‘pudding’ 布丁 bùdīng or ‘pizza’ 披萨 pīsà) in which the characters only imitate the foreign word in sound but make no sense, there are multiple examples where this rigidity in Chinese has led to much more creative translations.
Because the character already has a set meaning (or many), it is possible for the Chinese version to almost be a pun of itself – it both sounds like and conveys the meaning of the original word.
So, let’s take a look at some examples!

Myth 迷思 mísī
迷 mí, among other meanings, can mean ‘to confuse’ or ‘lost’, and 思 sī is ‘thought’, therefore mísī can be literally translated as ‘confused thought’. The ‘th’ sound in English words such as ‘myth’ usually turn into an ‘s’ sound in Chinese as it is the closest equivalent.

Talk Show 脱口秀 tuōkou xiù
The tuōkǒu in tuōkǒu xiù means ‘to blurt out’. The 秀 xiù is a phonetic translation of the English ‘show’, and is also as a word on its own. ‘Blurt out show’ is therefore an apt name for a place where celebrity secrets are accidentally spilled.

Hacker 黑客 hēikè
The literal translation of hēikè is ‘black visitor’ or ‘black guest’. Nowadays, the colour black in Chinese represents illegality, so it could be translated as ‘illegal guest’, a fitting term for someone who illegally accesses private information online.
The character 黑 hēi can also be used on its own as a verb, ‘to hack’. That said the main usage for the word 黑 hēi is for the colour black.

Calories 卡路里 kǎlùlǐ
Everyone can talk about getting fatter (变胖) or about losing weight (减肥) but how many people mention the word “calories“ while doing this? Luckily, the Chinese word sounds very similar to the English word. Here are two examples:
提拉米苏的卡路里太多，可是我好喜欢吃哦！Tiramisu contains too many calories, but I love it!
如果你想消耗一些卡路里，那就开始跑步吧！If you want to burn some calories, just start running.