Albert's Learning Log

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New Internet Slang: Gěilì 给力

Through my new two new wēibó-s 微博 (pzAlbert and pzEnglish, NOTE: you have to be a member of sina or weibo to view them) I've been exposed to some interesting new language. The most chīxiāng 吃香 of which at the moment seems to be:

  • Gěilì 给力 [give strength]

I've asked for usage examples and it seems to mean:

  1. lìhai 厉害 (awesome)
  2. jiāyóu 加油 (in the cheering sense)
  3. hǎo 好

For example:

  1. tài gěilì a! 你太给力了! = You're so awesome!
  2. nǐ xiǎng zuò ma? gěilì gěilì! 你想作吗? 给力给力! = You want to do that? Go for it!
  3. 140 zì tài bù gěilì le. 140字太不给力了. = (Weibo.com only allowing 140 characters per post is so bad.

It's also morphed into some bizarre Chinglish words:

  • "geilivable" or "gelivable" (the latter gets more than twice as many google results even though the former is "correct" pinyin)
  • "ungeilivable" or "ungelivable"

Apparently, "geilivable" means "incredible" or "excellent." But "ungeilivable" is bad. According to an article at Beijing Today earlier this month, "geilivable" has even made it into the news.I've also heard "gěilì" and "geilivable" spoken by my students which means it's not only confined to online communication.See also this Xinhua article about new internet slang. The only other internet slang from that article that I've heard or seen is "niubility" (from niúbī 牛屄), but that doesn't mean anything. I'm ungeilivably out of touch with the internet slang world.Anyone else heard this or any other new slang we should know about?