As many people know, we are now officially in the year of the ox! Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! In this episode we talk about the often talked about “年味儿”. What is it??!
In this episode I read a segment of the book 《从你的全世界路过》，author: 张嘉佳。It’s a collection of short stories about the protagonists life, half of which are related to love. It contains modern, witty, humorous slang with some profanity. If you like it, you could buy a copy of the book and read along with me. Here we go!
【路过 (colloquial): The formal version is 经过 but in daily life we would always use 路过。For example, “我正好路过你家门口，要不要下来喝杯咖啡？” etc.
路过 (slang): 网络语言指不想认真回帖，但又想拿回帖的分数或经验值。On internet forums, when people don’t really want to answer the question but want to get the points for responding to a post, they’ll say something like: “我只是路过而已” or “水瓶座路过” etc.
世界: In Chinese, we like to use ‘world’ to represent the entirety of someone’s life but in English, it can sound a bit weird in certain contexts, like here. I passed through some people’s worlds and some people have passed through my world. It’s beginning to sound like a sci-fi film. In English, it makes more sense to say, “I passed through some people’s lives, and some people have passed through mine”. It’s the same vice versa here, if you were to translate this literally back into Chinese, “我从一些人的生命路过，一些人从我的生命路过”，it’s beginning to sound like a horror film.】
【罅隙（不常用 rare）：是裂缝，缝隙的意思。在这里，更常用的词是缝隙，夹在时间的缝隙里。You can translate it quite literally so: “it’s like a bookmark, worth getting caught in the gap of time”. Or translate the summary of the meaning of the phrase, for example: “it’s like a bookmark, marking a time, for us to take an occasional glance”.】
【岁月 (常用)：通常用来指时间，尤其是过去的日子。也就是：“In the years that have passed”. 然后，
世界：“我们都会想去拥有一个人的全世界”，”We will have wanted to have a person’s entire world” just about works here I think but I would probably translate it as “We will have wanted to have the entirety of someone but we can only pass by”. This line really reminds me of the song “Let Her Go” by Passenger.】
【呆呆伫立：呆呆means a bit dull, a bit lifeless, 伫立 means standing for a long time. In English, when we’re learning to write fiction, we’re often told ‘show, not tell’. 呆呆 this kind of emotion is often implied in English so I wouldn’t literally translate 呆呆。 In Chinese, it’s kind of show and tell, which also means something else in America but let’s stop the cycle there.】
这些并不可怕。所有人的坚强，都是柔软生的茧。
【茧有“破茧成蝶”的意思，就是cacoon, breaking out of a cacoon to be a butterfly. 也有callous 的意思。In English, 所有人的坚强，都是柔软生的茧, would translate into something like “Everyone’s strength is hardened by our softness”.】
【“世界”：“属于你的另一个全世界“, here we can translate it literally I think, “This whole other world that belongs to you, it will eventually open itself up to you, in the name of happiness. We must have happiness.”
“幸福” actually means a level higher than happiness, the ultimate happiness in life, but there are limited options is English. Maybe blissful or blessed, but that depends on the context of the sentence. Most of the time, the way it’s used is closest to “happiness”. For example, here, you wouldn’t say “in the name of bliss” or “in the name of blessed” so we’d almost always settle for “happiness”. 】
Chinese Colloquialised 