Every language borrows from other languages, to some extent. Let’s take this sentence in Italian:
“Prendiamo un drink dopo il meeting sui computer questo weekend?”
(Shall we have a drink after the meeting about computers this weekend?)
I give it 100 years, 150 tops, until Italian has completely transmuted into English. (Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I’ll leave it for you to decide.)
English also borrows left and right. But there’s a simple and yet extremely useful and eclectic Chinese word no one knows which, once people hear about it, will spread like wildfire, I think.
The word is ma fan. Chinese people use it all the time. These are just a few of the thousands of different meanings it conveys:
- It’s a lot of trouble
- Too much hassle
- I don’t feel like it
- I can’t be bothered
- That sounds like a lot of work
- I feel tired just thinking about it
- I just sat down for a cup of tea. Gimme a break, Jesus…
Let’s put it into context and see some usage examples, taken from real-life situations:
- Shall we have a barbecue this weekend?
- Ma fan.
- Maybe you should mow the lawn. It’s starting to look like the Amazon forest.
- Ma fan.
- That IKEA box has been sitting there for two months. Are you going to put it together or not?
- Ma fan.
- Maybe this year we can go somewhere new. I’m getting fed up with Pescara.
- Ma fan.
- We need to go to town. Our son has no clothes.
- Ma fan.
Brilliant. Just perfect if you’re a boring, apathetic, unconcerned, lazy-ass bastard like me. I use it, like, 20 times a day. Which doesn’t seem to make my wife too happy, for some reason. Well, excuse me for trying to embrace your culture!
M.
PS: When Chinese people want to say that something is alright, not too bad but not too great either, they say ma ma hu hu, which literally means horse horse tiger tiger. I’m not kidding.
I love that expression so much, I use it all the time, but in English though, which gets a lot of puzzled looks from people.
- What did you think of the new Star Wars movie?
- Uhmm… horse horse tiger tiger…
