Takeaway Chinese where you can take some Chinese away and experience progress day by day Takeaway Chinese we will promise you a difference Welcome to take away Chinese.
I'm your home in with Steve Hatterley in the studio.
Hello Steve. Hello.
Hello. Thanks for having me back I'm looking forward to our topic today.
Yes. Me too. Always a pleasure doing takeaway Chinese i'm looking forward to disagreeing with our topic today what you're talking about well there's a statistic that we're going to share yes that i plan on denouncing okay then let's better quickly get into the content and today's content is about the theme youth yes and youth by the way in chinese is qingyin qingyin yes qing carries the meaning of young, vibrant, and green, actually in itself, the character is green and nian suggests nian mean age.
So young age, youth.
youth, qing yin. Qin yin, because we actually have a slew of words using that principle, we have tone nian, that's childhood.
xiao nian, that's kind of like adolescence and qing nian, youth, zhong nian, middle age, Because Zhong is middle, and Nian represents age.
Makes total sense. Middle age, Zhong -Nian Zhuang -Nian is like strong age.
But it's talking about already very, let's say, reliable, and strong, independent, and able to support other groups.
So Zhuang -Nian Zhuang -Nian is, I think, a nicer way of talking about Zhong -Nian.
Zhong -Nian is relatively neutral.
It's like saying middle age.
There's no connotation.
Whereas Zhong -Nian is like strong age.
so in Chinese whenever you're referencing an age without saying the number age group yeah an age group then you use the word nian yes and finally we've also got loudlyan that's like the elder generation the elder age launian launian so taunian taunian taunian is a little bit different though actually I should not be sharing the word taunian in this group because tóng nian, childhood is more like a um, how do you call it, a way to address childhood instead of an age group group.
So we use xiǎng yěn.
xiǎng nian is like adolescent or teenager group.
So xiǎng nian, qíng nian, zhōng nian, zhuāng nian, láo nian, these are the kind of age group words.
Okay let me go over those one more time.
So a teenager would be xiǎng nian.
xiaoyun, xiaoyun, and a young person or a youthful person would be qingyen, qingyen.
Question, can that refer to someone's energy or attitude?
Do you know what I mean?
I know what you mean.
It depends on the context.
You should always explain a little bit if you're using it to refer to their spirit, their condition, their spiritual status.
Because somebody can be a little bit older but still have a youthful spirit, right?
Yes, definitely! And that is why there is this Chinese saying, Nai ren zhi shi shao nian, male are always youthful until they die of old age.
Is that a nicer way of saying men never grow up?
A little bit. Let's see, what else did I learn there?
Zhong nian. Zhong nian.
That's middle -age. Yeah, middle aged, and then for older people, the elderly, Láo nian.
Láo nian. Yes, and these are some words we already share without getting into the free takeaway.
But for those of you who are interested in Chinese culture and you want to get a grip on the Chinese language, then this is the show for you.
Stick with us for 30 minutes and you soon see the real words.
And for more fun Chinese learning, follow our Facebook page learn Chinese to watch many fun videos and live streams we've already shared some vocabularies about different age group about youth, middle age, teenager, elder and also the strong age group.
I have to say though Zhuan Yan is not exactly an age group it's more like talking about someone who is with a bit of age yet do not want to specify it and are also really strong and with a lot of vitality so i think it's more of still a qi nian, zhong nian, lao nian, those are more like age -wise or age -focused okay so the other one is referencing more about the person rather than the age group that they might fall into, a little like that.
And besides that, let me ask you about this question.
Do you still consider yourself young?
100%. Right? Yes, because for...
I would say so for you, by the way.
For me, my definition of young, I didn't come up with this.
This is kind of a common thing, is that age is just a number.
We have another expression in you are as old as you feel so if you feel a 80 then you are 80 but if you're 80 and you feel 25, well, then you're 25 maybe not physically but it's more about a state of mind than it is an actual number.
So I do, I still feel young, I still act young maybe a little bit too much sometimes but yeah I think I have a say yes.
I think like you said, young or feeling young or used, it's a mental definition you give yourself, and it has something to do with whether or not you would like to embrace change, whether or not you're still curious about the world, whether or not you are tolerant enough for other people's different ideas.
If someone is in their 20s yet they're stubborn, they do not want to have a life that is full of possibilities and full of changes and they do not want to agree to anyone's idea who's different from theirs, then I don't think they're that young anyway.
Although we can have a young person who enjoys music from decades ago— Oh, that's different.
Right. That's just a good taste.
Well, we have a term for that, though.
Someone who enjoys old music or music from a long time ago, they might be a little bit more, I don't know, conservative in their thoughts.
We call this kind of person an old soul.
Have you ever met that kind of person?
Maybe they're, like, 24 years old.
But it just feels like you're talking to someone in their mid 40's whenever you talk to them.
And that's not an insult, by the way.
It's just kind of a personality trait.
trait. We call that kind of person in old soul.
I thought my son has an old soul, when he was born because of the facial expression.
But now I know maybe it's just because he could not see things clear enough.
That's why he looks confused and a little bit, you know, serious.
But I get your point.
Do you have a term in Chinese for that?
Yes, I was about to say that we do not really have a term for a young person with an old soul.
But we do have a term nian qing de xing, a young heart.
A young heart? Yes.
So nian qing is the adjective for young.
So if you say ta he nian qing you're saying he is young.
So qing nian is youth and nian qing, different characters by the way, would be young.
So nian here is the nian liang character.
So the age character and qing actually, in itself means light.
Light. Yes, so if someone is light on its age it's just because no - not too many numbers are there, so that's yang, okay.
And xin is heart, so nian qin de xin, a young heart.
The thing about Chinese is that instead of saying this person has a young brain we're saying he has a young heart.
I understand. Nian qin de xin.
Nian qin de xin. Nian qin de xin.
Yes. Nian qin Daxin, youthful.
An old soul. No, no. The opposite.
The opposite. A young heart.
I don't think there is a term for an old soul.
We might say cheng shu mature, but like in English it's mature.
It's not old soul. But that's kind of the meaning of an old soul, isn't it?
And we do not have a term for it.
But if you in Chinese, you directly translate the old soul, like in Chinese you say he has an old soul.
People would understand.
The statistic I said that I would like to denounce, for statistical purposes the United Nations defines youth as people between the ages of 15 and 24 and that's not a universal definition.
For everyday purposes, youth is a flexible category.
In China, for example, youth is defined as people between 14 and 35, but even putting a definition of what it means to be young.
I guess for statistical purposes you have to do that.
For research purposes, you might have to do that.
But for life purposes, I find this completely unnecessary.
and there is one more purpose that you can kind of define someone's age group that is to have a day celebrating the younger people oh okay like Children's Day like Children's Day and in China we also have Youth Day mmm that falls on the fourth of May so statistically even a 35 year old Chinese person can celebrate Youth Day yes because according to chinese definition if you're under the age of 40 you can celebrate use day and the reason behind it is not to insult people who are over that age it's more like to celebrate the young spirit and to give people who are not yet achieve any milestone in their
life might are still searching for the path of development okay who are might still you know are a little bit confused about what to do and having a lot of, you know, questions in their life for them to feel actually better about their stage in life.
Because in Chinese, we actually have another phrase or means 40, means not too many questions.
It means that once you pass the age of 40, you have figured out a lot of things in life.
Is that true? Is that true?
I hope, I don't know.
I'm not theirs yet.
All of our 40 year old listeners are going, huh?
Well that's the assumption though, isn't it.
That's kind of wishful thinking.
Yes, yes, yes. So I think that is related to identifying 40 as the ceiling of youth, meaning that if you're past the age of 40 you might already have a lot of certainty in your life and but if you're not there is also still a day for you.
But have you ever heard the expression life begins at 40?
That makes a lot of sense too!
Do you have any kind of equivalent in Chinese?
I wonder like life begins at 30 life begins at 50 something like that?
We do not specifically have that but just like we have shi shi bu huo, so in 40s, you have answered many questions in life, already answers to questions you have in life, we also say sang shi a r li, yes li means stand up or establish, it means that in your 30s you've probably already established something in your life, established a proper job or land on a good job that you can start from also established family and yeah something that you have established.
something like that.
following that a little off topic, of today's topic, we also have you know about your life destiny, you know exactly where you're going and liu shi ar shen in your 60s.
you would hear the things in the world and always understand the positive side of it so you don't hear bad words or bad news anymore you can always find the good things and so that's more related to wisdom yes yes how do you say wisdom in chinese this is also a very important and interesting character or word with two characters because in chinese we believe the character means we say so one you are in a position or in a situation where you need to react really quick and find out a solution very fast, so it means in a hurry or something that you need to react quickly, then you would come up with an idea.
The ability to do that is zh and jīngji shōng huì, so when you are quiet, when you are not in a hurry of anything, it comes wisdom, the kind of much bigger and more profound kind of smart.
It's not exactly smart.
It's wisdom. When do you think wisdom comes in someone's life?
Is it during a specific age, period?
Kind of like the Chinese definition?
I think it's more about your status, like the kind of work you do, the kind of concentration you put, the things that you care about, the kind of thinking that you do, the way you do it.
So again, the Chinese word Jī HUì putting together, it talks about the smart, you need navigating in life, yet I think it covers a situation where you need to react really fast and the situation where you actually need to pause, take your time, find out the better solution.
All of those things.
All of those things.
Jī HUì. Jī HUì. Do you think young people also have Jī HUì?
I think they can. They can.
They have their own versions as well, I think.
Yeah, it might be a little bit different from our stereotypical definition of wisdom, but knowing which things are important, knowing which things aren't important, that can come at any stage of life, I think.
A lot of it might depend on the things that have happened to you, life experience in your life.
You know, some people go through challenges, is, how do you say challenges in Chinese?
Tiao Zhan. Tiao Zhan.
Mm -hmm. Some people go through a lot of challenges—tiao zhan—in their younger years.
And that kind of forces them to grow up perhaps a little bit faster than other people would.
But having those difficulties or those challenges can bring wisdom.
And it doesn't matter how old you are when those things come to you in your life.
Mmm. But a very common theory in, especially today's Chinese social media, is that what has caused us to be wiser, is not the challenges that stand in front of us.
It's more of how we react to the challenges into the problems. So instead of being gratitude to the difficulties in life, people are saying we are thankful for how I reacted in front of those.
Yeah but to learn how to react to those things you have to have them happen to you.
It's kind of like a chicken or egg situation a little bit, but if you are just standing in a room by yourself for the first 30 years of your life you can't gain a whole lot of wisdom about the world or about people or about...
So if you have some of those, I guess it doesn't have to be challenges, maybe that's not the It's a better way to put it.
Yeah. And it's always important to learn from past experiences because I sometimes tend to complain about difficulties, whether the difficulties are generated by people surrounding us or by the environment itself.
But actually, like you said, when we are put into these situations, the better thing to do is to find a good way to solve the problems, to gain the zhè huì, the wisdom.
Yeah. But that's so hard because what will your emotions do if you're not using them to make your logical decisions?
That is definitely true.
Right? Yes. That's the hard part, isn't it?
That's the hard part.
So, at the same time, what do you think are some other good words you'd like to use to describe someone with a young heart?
Well, I think a lot of young people these days have become maybe more independent than, I don't know if I can say than in the past, but I definitely think that independence is a word that we can use to describe today's youth.
How do you say independent or independence?
Independence in Chinese would be du li.
This is interesting because du means so soul, seoli, solo and li, same li with san xia or li, so stand, stand, if you can stand, standing alone, stand by yourself or more accurately established by yourself then you are independent.
I think that's a good way to describe part of that zhù huì, zhù huì, when you gain independence, then you gain some wisdom perhaps at the same time.
Another word I personally really like is zhù shù.
Zhù shù. Yes. So zhù means hot.
And shù means blood.
Hot blooded. Hot blooded.
It means you believe in things.
You believe in a good cause.
You believe that people are good and we need to fight for the good.
Zhù shù. Zhù shù. Zhù shù.
Yes. it's passionate, it's enthusiastic.
It's knowing that something might be really really really hard to do yet still are dairy enough and strong enough and brave enough to do it.
It's like passionate.
It's like passionate.
Passion and enthusiasm mixed together.
Mm -hmm. When I think of gaining wisdom, growing up, gaining independence I think of adventure and I think of risk taking a little bit cuz I think taking risks in your life can lead you to good decisions some bad decisions but still it's all part of the experience so how do you say like risk -taking or taking risks or something like that Um, I think it's more like mǒu xiàn jīngshén, adventurous spirit.
Adventurous spirit.
Yeah I think we use that term more often.
So mǒu xiàn. Mǒu xiàn.
Yes, that means take adventures, risk it.
And jīngshén is spirit.
So mǒu xiàn jīngshén.
Mǒu xiàn jīngshén. Yes, so we say someone is with a spirit that likes to take adventures.
so ta -chen you mao xian xingxuan, he is full of the adventurous spirit.
mao xian xingxuan. how about those who we talked about the term old soul before, what about someone who is maybe a little naive?
a young person who's naive but but naive is a negative word it has negative connotations right?
but i'm just talking about being pure or being innocent in the world.
Well there definitely is a Chinese word for innocent.
We say or pure dantuan dantuan but I feel like dantuan is also a little bit closer to a little naive mmm -hmm dantuan it's kind of like well even the word pure if you're calling someone in their 20s or 30s you say well he's got a pure so he doesn't think about things it's not exactly a good pure pure right?
Well it can, I mean it can be right?
So if you're talking about somebody who always trusts people, always thinks that people will tell them the truth always takes things at face value and we describe that person as kind of innocent or pure, that's almost complimentary in a way.
I think chun zhen would be a better one.
Chun carries the of pure, and zhen carries the meaning of stay true to what whatever, stay true to it, so but still always always read the room, always read the context.
Read the world! Not only, you know, yes read the world, but also when people use that word you should still be, you know, be a bit careful.
Oh really? because i think it's kind of um kind of a lovely thing to have even though it might lead to getting hurt over and over and over and over again it's definitely a good word or good character to have and you know in chinese we say so shown here we talk about it's adolescents or teenagers or young person and is a feeling, so a feeling of a young, like to the extent of teenager kind of young.
But this is not talking about being innocent or a little bit gullible, it's talking about still very passionate and also pure in a definitely good way, and sometimes even a bit shy, meaning that this person is not that sophisticated in the society just yet, it's definitely a huge compliment.
especially if we're talking about male it's almost like, for some girls it's almost like saying wow he's very attractive because his clothes is clean not that sophisticated and he is acting like he still believes in all the dreams and all the mighty goals definitely a compliment yes you have Xiaonian gun oh do i yeah yeah i have to get that on a t -shirt thing So you xiao, nian, gan is definitely a compliment and a good way to describe someone with a young spirit with a young heart.
Is that exclusive to men or can we use that about anybody?
We can use it to anybody, and for some people maybe it's a bit more common when you use it to describe a man.
Got it. Especially for someone who is with a little bit age.
I see. If he's already just a kid, maybe it's not necessary.
Understood it depends on the context of the situation.
Definitely. Actually here in China we describe different generations differently than in the Western world.
In the Western world there are Baby Boomers, Gen Z, Gen X.
Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha, for sure.
But I think it's it's not exactly a round number, right?
these generations start from like 1995 to 2005?
it depends on what they define it by the years you were born, if you were born in a specific window then they apply you to that specific generation the same thing here in china it's just that in china we use round numbers so it's like those born after 1979, it's like from 1980 to 1989.
Then we call them Baliing Ho because it's 1980.
80 actually means Baliing.
So after 1980s, that'll be Baliing Ho.
After 1970, that's Qiling Ho, and after 1990, Zhiu Lim Ho because Zhiu Ling, 90, and the Ling Ling, zero, zero, that's just 2000s after 2000.
So it's actually, I think, easier here in China.
We do it in two different ways in English, I guess, because we have the things that you mentioned, like, generations, right, Gen 3, Gen Y, Gen X.
But then we can divide it by decade, too.
Like, I'm an 80s kid.
I was a 90s kid. Yeah, that's how Chinese people do it.
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah. Yeah. You'll hear that a lot when people are discussing pop culture, like for example oh do you remember the TV show friends oh yeah definitely I was a 90s I was that makes a lot of sense yeah I used to watch it with my family or whatever something like that that exactly was what happened to me the times that we just use those terms like Gen Z, Gen Y, Baby Boomer you'll hear that a lot in the news but you won't hear that as much in daily conversation Yeah, when people are talking about themselves.
When people are talking about themselves, they refer more to the decade that they were born, as opposed to the generation that they belong to.
Then, I guess, the situation here in China is that we use the year that we're born in both news reports and our daily lives.
So, besides the good characters, the things to celebrate about qingyian, about the youth, Do you think we have certain, by saying we, I mean, all of us who define ourselves as the younger generation, do you think we have any challenges that are particularly true to this age group?
I think there are, well, specific to which age group any particular age group?
Maybe those below 45 or below 40?
It depends, right? I'm not trying to avoid your question.
I just think it totally depends because, for example, some people will get married in their 20s and have a baby in their 20s or something like that.
And then they're dealing with a whole different list of challenges than someone who delays marriage and children until say their 40s or something like that.
Every person in the world has a list of challenges.
It's just I don't think we can define what those challenges are through a blanket statement or even, you know, culture by culture.
I think it's just whatever you happen to be going through at any particular stage of life.
But that said, you know, when we talk about high school years, those challenges are similar globally, I think.
University year, same when you enter the job market.
I think the challenges change as you go through life what we hope when we're young is that the challenges?
Disappear When you get a little older you realize they never disappear they just change Yes, and if one thing that I can describe about with the blanket turn or blanket idea I think would be that the younger generation in my parents generation for example, or the younger group of people in my parents' generation for example.
And the younger people in today's day and age face different opportunities and challenges.
In today's day and age, we look at a time with information explosion, with the development of technology in a speed that is hard for every individual to catch on. And we are looking at numerous possibilities yet also looking at fierce competition.
And that's just our destiny.
It's just our life.
I think the competition starts earlier for people now than it did before smartphones and social media existed.
Yes but the condition for them to figure out what they really like and really want and the access for them to cultivate their great traits they have or the talent that they have is also being more abundant.
Yeah you could argue that as well, I mean with something like social media and the internet and all of the tablets and devices that we're using these days and that young people are growing up with, there's a list of advantages and a list of disadvantages too.
So the challenges are similar in a sense but they're also very different in a sense.
Yes, but no matter which age or which era or time you're in, youth or a young heart is always something to celebrate, especially on China's Youth Day.
Happy Chinese Youth Day.
I thought you just said Happy New Year again.
I was like wait a minute we did that already.
Hopefully, all of you would embrace a young heart, and that means no matter which age group you fall into, you can always celebrate the youth day.
That I do agree with.
And that brings us to the end of today's Takeaway Chinese.
I am Myo Hong Lin, with Steve in the studio.
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