Niubi!: The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School [Paperback]

Eveline Chao (Author), Chris Murphy (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: November 24, 2009

How to talk dirty and influence people?in Chinese!

You can study Chinese for years, but do you really know how to talk like a native speaker? The next book in Plume?s foreign language slang series, Niubi! will make sure you learn all the colorful vernacular words and phrases used by Chinese people of all ages in a variety of situations, including flirting and dating, wheeling and dealing, and even specific Internet slang?not to mention plenty of Chinese words that are . . . well, best not to mention.

Accessible and useful to complete novices (Niubi! newbies), intermediate students of Mandarin Chinese, or just anyone who enjoys cursing in other languages, this irreverent guide is packed with hilarious anecdotes and illustrations, mini cultural lessons, and contextual explanations. So whether you?re planning a trip to Beijing, flirting with an online acquaintance from Shanghai, or just want to start a fight in Chinatown?Niubi! will ensure that nothing you say is lost in translation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eveline Chao is a freelance writer based in Beijing. She is extremely fortunate to have foul-mouthed Chinese friends willing to teach her words that most Chinese would be too embarrassed to reveal to a foreigner. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Original edition (November 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452295564
• ISBN-13: 978-0452295568
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun March 3, 2010

By Jeff Rutsch

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I speak Chinese pretty well and wanted to shore up my slang, plus it's just kind of fun to know how to cuss people out. This book was a help in that regard. It's a pretty exhaustive list, it's well categorized, and there's good notes explaining when each slang is used. I've learned a lot of new words, and more importantly, I found out that I was sometimes using an uncommon or scientific word, instead of the proper slang.

So mostly I'm positive about this book, and I recommend it highly. But I'll concentrate on the negatives, just because it's difficult to judge a slang book, and to let other buyers know what they're getting into. My first complaint is that while the book is largely accurate, it isn't entirely. Maybe a couple percent of them are off. I don't think it's just the vagaries of slang or regional differences, because I asked several people here in Shanghai about them, and they all told me "no way." Anyway, it's worth double checking favorite terms.

Secondly, this is (for the most part) Beijing slang. OK a lot of the vocabulary is universal, and that's particularly true to the (really excellent) Internet slang section. On the other hand, there's a lot of words that I don't think most people would say in Shanghai. For a non-native speaker to use many of these words would be bizarre. I wonder, do people in Beijing swear a lot more? Even though she addresses the issue in the introduction, I think the author drastically overestimates how often and how deeply people swear. And a whole lot of the insults would instantly lead to a fight. Oh yeah, and the book is missing common Mandarin slang words that are used in Shanghai.

Third, it's CRAZY that this book has pronunciation guides for people who don't even know pinyin. If you don't speak Chinese pretty well already, don't try this book. You'll just get in trouble. Maybe it can be read for the cultural notes, but personally I found the cultural notes could sometimes get a little cartoony, particularly in the introduction, about the marijuana smoking pro-democracy rock singers...

Finally, I wish the book had better notes or division about which slangs were common, and which ones weren't. The most common words are often pointed out, but not always. And there's a whole lot of pages given to slangs that are hopelessly obscure. There is a "top 25" list at the end of the book, it could have used a similar section at the end of every chapter.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Accurate and applicable February 16, 2010

By Christian Bjartli

Format:Paperback

After having spent a lot of time in China and picked up a lot of the vocab in the book already, I can vouch for its accuracy. The book is full of juicy vocab and sophisticated euphemisms that you are bound to hear if you ever go to China, but that your teacher won't teach you and CCTV doesn't dare to put on the screen. The vocab is not only accurate, but also up-to-date - incredibly so. Take the section on internet slang for example. The "jiong'" phenomenon is only a couple of years old still has its own entry. The same goes for a lot of the chapter, like '''"cao ni ma"s and the other "shi da shenshou"''''''. The only problem with this might be that internet trends change quickly, and therefore some of the language in this section could quickly become outdated. (Although, I could be wrong. 1337-speak is a pretty old phenomenon and is still going strong.)

Evelin has done great research into etymologies and ventured into subcultures that you might not even know exist. The book is therefore a gem for both those who are interested in the language as it is spoken in modern day China and those who are interested in seeing facets of Chinese culture that are hard to discover from the outside.

* (After having read the book cover to cover, I've seen a couple of minor errors here and there with translations and pinyin transcriptions. They are few and far between. For example, sa3jiao1 on p. 58 should be sa1jiao1.)

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Chinese language resource January 20, 2010

By Thom Mitchell VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Ms. Chao has written a great book that functions as not only a cultural anthropology tool about the Chinese language but also as a practical language instruction guide. All the words or expressions described in the book have the Chinese characters, the pinyin with tone marks, a pronunciation guide and an explanation of what the word literally means, how it is used and where the expression came from. The words and expressions are well-organized into sections - she even has a section on computer and internet expressions and slang.

I've already used some of the milder expressions from the book to great effect. If you are studying Chinese at any level or visiting China this book is an invaluable resource covering material that simply isn't available anywhere else. Her explanations are insightful and add significant depth to the book. I can't wait for her next book.