Some of the words that stick in my memory best are nouns that are either surprisingly just like the English or , conversely, completely different from the English. For example:

洗腦: brainwash... literally "wash brain"

or

水母: jellyfish... literally "water mother"

Water mother? I learned this word going on 5 years ago when I was first starting to learn, and still remember it, even when I go for ages without hearing it, simply because it's so weird. (It helps that I'm terrified of the decidedly unmotherly jellyfish!)

So I'm wondering, does anyone know any other good examples of memorable words? There are some obvious English-y ones, like 熱狗 (hot dog) or 桌球 (table tennis), and amusing ones like 吸管 (suck pipe!), but are there any lesser-known ones out there?

I feel like half the words in Chinese are like this. A couple of my favorites:

Chameleon: 变色龙 (color changing dragon)
Lobster: 龙虾 (dragon shrimp)
Drunkard: 酒鬼 (alcohol ghost)
Ring finger: 无名指 (nameless finger or anonymous finger)
Storm: 暴风雨 (violent wind and rain)
Fig: 无花果 (flowerless fruit)
Ice skating: 滑冰 (slide on ice)
Kangaroo: 袋鼠 (pocketed rat)
Ballon: 气球 (air ball)
Sailor: 海员 (member of the sea)
Aquarium: 水族馆 (house of the water races)

This has made me think of a feature request. could the list editor automatically strip all alphanumeric characters when you click "Validate Words"? Then I could just copy JB's post above into it, for example, which would be quicker and easier than adding the items he mentioned one by one. It's lazy I know but what are computers for, eh?

It's not as easy because we have a bunch of logic for trying to pick up delimited simp, trad, reading, and definition entries you might have helpfully decided to provide in case we need to create the missing word. So that logic conflicts with this. It usually works if the characters are first in the list, but not in this case.

These are great words!

@aeriph

I agree that would be an extremely useful tool, even if it was just a script or something I could run outside of Skritter first. Vocab lists still often come in completely unusable formats, and to strip them all down to the 汉字 and put them in Skritter, Pleco, or whatever would be an amazing timesaver. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard... but it's been so long since my programming days... :)

@nick thanks for that feature, by the way. I discovered it early on and has saved me loads of time importing words from yellowbridge's 'common words with this character.' I copy the characters, pinyin and definition all at once and never have to manually input unknown information.

Thanks, JB! I'd never heard "kangaroo" before, but I'm sure I'll never forget it now.

Here are a few more interesting combinations - and I'll leave out the definitions (easier to remember if you have to work it out yourself) and separate the Chinese (in case anyone wants to copy and paste):

brain pocket
hair hair rain
electric brain
triangle pants (or 3-angle pants)
cat bear
no-tail bear
not rotting
red green light

腦袋
毛毛雨
電腦
三角褲
貓熊
無尾熊
不朽
紅綠燈

Is 三角褲 used for both men's and women's underwear? Skritter doesn't know about it but it could be added to the clothing list.

I've only heard it used in conversation/movies for men's briefs, but it's used for briefs worn by both sexes.

A Google image search confirms this - and also makes one feel a bit like a "color wolf" (ooooh, there's another one for the list! 色狼)

Can I just say, best thread ever :) Absolutely agree, these awesome Chinese words are something you never forget.

I'm an aussie and I didn't know what kangaroo was. That's seriously hilarious.

We have a very old slang word for 'good' in australia, "grouse". Which you might know as a form of pheasant. I said this in a text to a chinese friend, who naturally didn't know what I meant so texted me back the Chinese. 松鸡。

I didn't know 松 by itself but knew it from 轻松 so I just thought of it as a "peace chicken". Which caused me to split my sides naturally.

Couple I can think of...

Cat headed eagle and concluding the Australian theme... the pocketed bear. 袋熊 :)

Sorry, forgot the hanzi for the cat headed eagle! 猫头鹰

Actually I think they were having a riot in Australia. Duck Billed Beast. 鸭嘴兽. And the laughing kingfisher. 笑翠鸟

Everywhere you look there's some humdingers. How about the river piglet? 河豚