English Loan Words in the Chinese Language
Foreign words and concepts are adopted into the Chinese language in either of two ways. One way is to create a new compound word that actually translate the concept behind the word. For example, a computer is known as a diannao (電腦) or electronic brain, while a telephone is dianhua (電話), or electric voice. Another way is for the foreign word to be transliterated into Chinese. Unfortunately, this approach has a number of drawbacks. One is that since the Chinese characters were not designed to represent sound, the result is usually just a rough approximation of the original sound. Moreover, since the characters may be pronounced very differently under various dialects, what is a close approximation under one dialect may not be under another. Hence, it is not unusual for the same foreign word to have multiple Chinese transliterations based on the dialect. Another disadvantage of transliterated words is that since every Chinese character has a meaning, a transliterated word is nonsensical unless one immediately recognizes that one should read just the sound and ignore the meaning of the underlying characters. This can be very confusing for beginning Chinese readers.
Increasing globalization means that foreign loan words are likely to increase the Chinese language. In Hong Kong, where residents freely insert English words into their Cantonese dialect, they tend to have more transliterated English words than other Chinese speakers.
| English Source | Chinese Transliteration | Alternate Chinese Variant |
|---|---|---|
| Baby | 啤啤* | 嬰兒 |
| Bar | 酒吧 | |
| Bowling | 保齡球 | 滾木球 |
| Brandy | 白蘭地酒 | |
| Buffet | 蒲飛* | 自助餐 |
| Bus | 巴士 | 公共汔車 |
| Bye Bye | 拜拜 | 再見 |
| Calorie | 卡路里 | 熱量單位 |
| Cartoon | 卡通 | 漫畫, 動畫 |
| Cheese | 芝士 | 奶酪 |
| Cherry | 車厘子* | 櫻桃 |
| Cocoa | 可可 | 谷咕* |
| Coffee | 咖啡 | |
| Chocolate | 巧克力 | 朱古力 |
| Curry | 咖喱 | |
| Cyanide | 山埃* | 化物 |
| Disco | 迪斯可 | 的士高* |
| Fashion | 花樣 | 花臣* |
| Film | 菲林* | 膠卷 |
| Gallon | 加侖 | |
| Golf | 高爾夫球 | |
| Guitar | 吉他 | 結他* |
| Hamburger | 漢堡 | |
| Jelly | 者喱 | 果子凍 |
| Mile | 米 | 英里 |
| Morphine | 嗎啡 | |
| Motor | 摩托 | 電動機 |
| Ounce | 盎斯 | 安士 |
| Pudding | 布丁 | 布甸 |
| Salad | 沙拉 | |
| Sandwich | 三明治 | 三文治 |
| Sardines | 沙丁魚 | 沙甸魚* |
| Salmon | 三文魚* | 鮭魚 |
| Sauna | 桑拿* | 蒸氣浴 |
| Sofa | 沙發 | 梳化 |
| Strawberry | 士多啤梨* | 草莓 |
| Sundae | 新地 | 水果奶油, 冰淇淋 |
| Taxi | 的士 | 出租車, 計程車 |
| Tips | 貼士* | 小費, 提示 |
| Toast | 多士 | 吐司, 烤麵包 |
| Toffee | 太妃糖 | 拖肥* |
| Vitamin | 維他命 | 維生素 |
| Vodka | 伏特加酒 | |
| Whisky | 威士忌酒 |