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Chinese internet slang expressed in a combination of Chinese & English is widely used in the workplace in emails, IMs, and Wechat. So if you are not a studious netizen of Chinese social networks, you might not be able to understand what they mean without the context of their online origins. This edition will give you a preview of what it’s like and it will be short and sweet.
When I first came back to China as a “haigui” to work in a global advertising firm, even while being able to read all the numbers, letters and Chinese characters, It was difficult for me to understand most of the context of how they were used. I was even shocked that there were now Chinese contractions and abbreviations, a concept not even heard of 10 years ago.
I can imagine how hard it can be for foreigners with limited Chinese language skills. I also realized that in advertising specifically, we really need to keep up with the trend of what’s happening on social networks, what new phrases have been created, what millennials are talking about.
Here are a few common ones that you might come across at work:
Also, the Chinese language (especially numbers) is rich in homophones, which makes it easy to turn numbers into proxies for words and phrases
Here are some hyper links in English for you to get your head around if you are interested in digging a little bit more on this topic.
https://hahachn.wordpress.com/internet-slang-glossary/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Internet_slang
By keeping up to date on the latest internet slang, you will find it every easy to impress people and will make fitting in a breeze. And now that you know how to talk and write a true local, in my next edition, I will help you put those skills to the test with an into to the biggest workplace time hog of all: Meetings!
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