Studying language is so cool not only because we use it ever day but also because it is always changing and evolving. It is always interesting to see what new words are being added or what words have become popular. When comparing two languages like English and Chinese it can also be entertaining to see what one has shared or borrowed with the other.

There are many words that English has borrowed from Chinese. A few common Chinese loan words in the English language are: bonsai, China, chop chop (as in hurry), chow mien, feng shui, ginseng, gung ho, Japan, ketchup, kung fu, silk, soy, tofu, tycoon, typhoon, wok and yin yang.

I just read an article in China Today about a recent concern regarding how many loan words Chinese can borrow from English while still keeping its integrity and purity. This is not a new argument and it is one that many other countries have dealt with and are dealing with now. What usually happens is that the stronger language loans more words than it borrows. It might seem logical that when compared with English, Chinese is the stronger language since it is spoken by more people in the world than any other language and has a relatively uninterrupted linguistic history. But in fact English is the stronger language in this case because whereas the majority of people that speak Chinese live and stay in China English speakers make their way around the entire world.

The Chinese language has borrowed many words from English in a few different ways. Loanwords can be incorporated through transliteration (what it sounds like) like jipu (jeep) and tanke (tank) or through semantic translation (what it means) like huoche (fire vehicle = train), feiji (flying machine = plane) and diannao (electronic brain = computer). The "worrisome trend" that the article mentions is that more and more English words are appearing in Chinese texts without first being translated into Chinese. "Can the slavish copying of foreign words in the Chinese text symbolize progress?"

While I think that loan words should be made to fit the native language in a way that makes sense, this particular problem is just one of the many issues and challenges that translators face. Many of our English major students have a focus in translation and it is always interesting to see how they communicate difficult foreign words or concepts.

Here are some more loanwords in Chinese - most of them are transliteration and if you follow the sound rules for pinyin you will find that they sound quite similar.

sofa/shafa, coffee/kafei, pizza/bisa, hamburger/hanbao, chocolate/qiaokeli, aspirin/asipilin, vitamin/weitaming, cool/ku, poker/puke, engine/yinqing, motor/mada, radar/leida, model/mote, shock/xiuke, salon/shalong, neon/nihong, shampoo/xiangbo, cartoon/katong, rally/lali, yoga/yujia

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