Articles About the Chinese Language

How to say biscuit in Chinese (and how to say cookie, cracker, chip, flatbread, pastry, cake, pancake and bun)

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There is a word in Chinese 饼, pronounced bing3, which means cake, biscuit, cracker, or shaped like a cake.

If you add the word 干 [gan1], which means dry, dried, empty, and/or relatives not linked by blood, you get 饼干, which means:

• biscuit
• cookie
• cracker
• chip
• flatbread
• pastry
• cake
• pancake
• bun
• pretty much any edible cracker-sized thing

You can walk into a Chinese pastry shop and pretty much call anything 饼干 and they will know what you're talking about.

How to say brainless and lawless in Mandarin

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In a recent post I discussed the phrase 我无所谓, which means "I don't care".

The word 无, pronounced wu2, means without. Thank you, Mandarin, for having such a useful word.

You can use this word with the word for brain (脑 = nao3) to make 无脑 = wu2nao3 = brainless.

You can also use 无 to make the word "lawless". You first need to know the word 法, pronounced fa3, which means "law". (Of course, 法 also means "method", "way" and "Buddhist teaching", but let's ignore that for a moment.) You also need to know the word 天, pronounced tian1, which means "heaven". (It also means "day" and "sky".)

Now you can make the phrase 无法无天 = without law without heaven = lawless, as in, that guy is 无法无天.

How to say "I don't care" in Chinese

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 I am a fan of two ways of saying "I don't care" in Chinese.

You can say 我无所谓 = wo3 wu2 suo3 wei4 = "I don't care" or "I am indifferent" or "whatev".

The words are:

• 我 [wo3], which obviously means I. That one is easy.
• 无 [wu2], which means "without" or "to lack" or "don't have".
• 所 [suo3], which means "actually". (This word also means "place", as in 厕所= ce4 suo3 = "toilet place" = bathroom.)
• 谓 [wei4], which means "speak of".

So, 我无所谓 = "I lack actually speak of" = whatevs.

Another great way to say "whatever" / "I don't care either way" is to say 随便 = sui2 bian4:

•  随 [sui2] means "to follow", "to comply with", or "to allow". (It is also a common last name, but let's ignore that for now.)
• 便 [bian4] means "convenient", "handy", or "easy". (Of course just to make things complicated, this word also means "ordinary", "plain", "then", "so", "thus", and "to relieve oneself" - as in 大便 = da4 bian4 = "big"+ "relive oneself" = do a #2. To make things even more difficult to remember, the character 便 is also pronounced pian2 and means "advantageous" or "cheap", as in 便宜 = pian2 yi4 = inexpensive.)
  

So, 随便 means "whatever is cool", and it feels like sure, I'll "comply with easy", or I'll "follow convenient".

So, which one is better 随便 or 我无所谓?

Whatever.