Hello everyone, I’m Grace!
Welcome back to my channel!
Did you know that this word 桌球
means billiards in Chinese Mandarin
and table tennis in Taiwanese Mandarin?
A bit confusing, right?
The same word can refer to different meanings in Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin.
There are only a few words like this,
and it may cause barriers to communication and some misunderstanding.
So it’s really important to know these differences.
Today I will tell you 5 words with different meanings in Taiwanese and Chinese mandarin.
Let’s go!
The first one is
感冒
感冒 this word means “to catch a cold” or “to have a cold”
in both Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin.
But this word also has some other meanings
and they are completely opposite between Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin.
That is in Chinese Mandarin,
感冒 can be used to show that you like someone or something,
but it’s usually used in the negative form.
For example, you can say: 我對他不感冒。 I don’t like him.
But in Taiwanese Mandarin, 感冒 means you dislike someone or something,
so Taiwanese people would interpret the sentence we mentioned
我對他不感冒 into “I don’t dislike him”.
Let’s see another example:
OK, number two is
酒店
This word means “Hotel” in both Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin.
But in daily life, if you say 酒店 to Taiwanese people,
we often think of a place where they serve you wine
and there are girls to keep you accompany. Like this:
So when you’re in Taiwan, and you want to say “hotel”,
you can say “飯店”.
Next one is
媳婦
This word means daughter-in-law,
but in Northern China,
many people use this word 媳婦 to refer to their wife
and they use 兒媳婦 to refer to their daughter-in-law.
This might cause some confusion, like this:
OK, number four is
窩心
窩心 means the feeling you get
when someone does something sweet and thoughtful
that touches or warms your heart.
But in Chinese Mandarin,
it also refers to feeling aggrieved and upset because something happened.
In China, this word has two different meanings,
but in Taiwan, we only use it to refer to the first meaning
which is to feel touched or have your heart warmed by something.
Let’s see an example:
The last one is
筆記本
筆記本 means “a book for taking notes”.
In Chinese Mandarin, people also use 筆記本 to mean “laptop”,
but in Taiwan, we don’t use 筆記本 to refer to that,
we say “筆電” instead.
So when you say 筆記本,
Taiwanese people would only think of “a book for taking notes”.
So sometimes it causes some misunderstanding.
Like the following story my friend shared with me:
OK, that’s all for today!
Personally, I’ve encountered this kind of situation
so I thought it would be interesting to share these with you guys.
I hope you enjoyed today’s video.
Also if you want to learn some daily expressions in Mandarin,
you can check out my Instagram and Facebook page.
Alright then,
I'll see you next time. Bye!