What sort of chinese equivalent expressions are used for its cactus/its broken etc ?

If you want "it's broken" you can use 怀了. Try

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?searchMode=C&word=怀&cache=0

which gives as an example 暖气坏了, "the heater is broken".

I had never heard "it's cactus" before (had to Google it) so don't know if there's some extra nuance you're trying to convey.

James

also had to look up "it's cactus"

Yeah, seems to be an Australianism or something.

Searching for “its broken”, I've found the following examples:
濾水器沒作用了 滤水器没作用了
電話故障了 电话故障了
機械人不聽控制了 机械人不听控制了
洗衣機壞掉了 洗衣机坏掉了
汽車拋錨了 汽车抛锚了

I don't know what its cactus means. Does cactus means “something useless”? so may be 沒作用 is the best equivalent. But I think there's something more conversational. Just hope that someone can contribute.

It gets used as a polite form of :
its f ing useless/it's broken or it's gone tits up , it's fracked etc it's unrepairable

Wouldn't say it's just an Australian use, heard it from English and from a few Americans.

Fairly certain its not a common term in the US...

I love reading about word origins. I'm American, never heard of this phrase.

According to wikipedia, it is Digger slang, which is slang that originates from the Australian military: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digger_slang This particular phrase apparently originated from the Australian air force.

heard it quite a bit when I work on aircraft maintenance

Australian is so different from American - I'm teaching a Chinese businessman English so he can keep up with his son's progress in college in Australia. We were looking at a paper his son had written and I couldn't make any sense out of some of it - notably the sentence "The headlines shlep the bias..." I had to tell the businessman that I had no idea what it meant, and that I'd have to ask an Australian. Also mentioned that he might want to get an Australian tutor instead!

Thats not Australian either.

Maybe should be
the headlines shape or show the bias ?

If you get stuck again email me

The usual language here isn't much different from american, a few more English(UK) style expressions.

What differs a lot is the slang, especially in country areas. I was helping a couple of Chinese nurses with their English in exchange for help with my Chinese and they were really struggling with it.

The state government took about 200 Chinese nurses gave them refresher courses and employed them in mostly country hospitals. If they last the four years they get their nursing degrees paid for and australian citizenship.

It was hilarious trying to explain some of the different meanings for the salng
especially the expression
bangs like a dunny door

They got given a list of 200+ sayings and were expected to learn the meanings. It was hilarious (for me) especially as one of them was rather prim and proper

This explains it reasonably well.
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071005144007AApizVU

@alxx Niether may be originally Australian, but if only Australians understand it without the aid of an online slang dictionary, I'd say it's more or less Australian.

As a native Aussie I wouldn't have a clue what "The headlines shlep the bias..." means :P

I have however heard "it's cactus" many times ... often paired up with "mate" eg. "It's catus mate".

Yeah the fact that the author of "The headlines shlep the bias..." is a 19 yr old native Chinese speaker who has been in Australia for the last 5 years just complicates things. His dad (who I'm tutoring) is super excited whenever I can point out an English mistake in the kid's work, so he can taunt him about it and show him ol' Dad's still got it. But since sometimes I genuinely have no idea whether it's a mistake or an Australianism I'm simply not familiar with, it's tough! That article was all about media bias, and compared recent headlines by Fox News and Al Jazeera on the topic of the current unrest in the South China Sea. Left my head spinning, that's for sure.

@Nicki "shlep" or "schlep" is a Yiddishism, very common here in NYC. Apparently they use it in Australia as well:

http://dictionary.babylon.com/schlep/

In NYC to schlep is to carry or travel with a lot of effort, for example "I used to work all the way down in Ditmas Park but I got tired of the schlep".

Yep. It is used quite often in South Africa as well, but in SA it can be used to refer to anything that is difficult and cumbersome.

@jww1066 Thanks. I am familiar with the Yiddish roots and meaning. However, I'd never heard it used with an inanimate subject, (like headline) or an intangible object (like bias.) That's what threw me for a loop!