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Kiasu (simplified Chinese: 惊输; traditional Chinese: 驚輸; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: kiaⁿ-su) is a term derived from the Hokkien “kia” meaning afraid and “su” meaning to lose. [1] It is commonly defined as “the fear of losing,” and is directed at a person who behaves competitively to either attain their goal or to get ahead of others. [ 1 ]
Lin's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage comprises approximately 8,100 character head entries and 110,000 word and phrase entries. [10] It includes both modern Chinese neologisms such as xǐnǎo 洗腦 "brainwash" and many Chinese loanwords from English such as yáogǔn 搖滾 "rock 'n' roll" and xīpí 嬉皮 "hippie".
Words of Chinese origin have entered European languages, including English. Most of these were direct loanwords from various varieties of Chinese.However, Chinese words have also entered indirectly via other languages, particularly Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese, that have all used Chinese characters at some point and contain a large number of Chinese loanwords.
The Cantonese-English code-switching is the insertion of isolated English words into a Cantonese Chinese syntactic frame. It can save time by adding a shorter English word or expression into a Cantonese Chinese sentence without distorting the original meaning. [4] Abbreviations
Exclamative particles are used as a method of recording aspects of human speech which may not be based entirely on meaning and definition. Specific characters are used to record exclamations, as with any other form of Chinese vocabulary, some characters exclusively representing the expression (such as 哼), others sharing characters with alternate words and meanings (such as 可).
A Chinese-English Dictionary: 1892: Herbert Allen Giles' bestselling dictionary, 2nd ed. 1912 A Dictionary of the Chinese Language: 1815–1823: First Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary, Robert Morrison: A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language: 1874: First Chinese-English dictionary to include regional pronunciations, Samuel ...
Loanwords have entered written and spoken Chinese from many sources, including ancient peoples whose descendants now speak Chinese. In addition to phonetic differences, varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese and Shanghainese often have distinct words and phrases left from their original languages which they continue to use in daily life and sometimes even in Mandarin.
The phrase is an ancient one in Chinese, but sources differ as to when it entered the English vocabulary. Although some sources may claim it dates back as far as 1850 [1], it seems the Chinese phrase was first translated when it was applied to describe the United States. In 1956, Mao Zedong said of the United States: