There are a few awkward words in Chinese that at least I find very strange to use. e.g. 磁悬浮列车 (ci2xuan2fu2lie4che1 / Maglev train) or
自动取款机 (zìdòngqǔkuǎnjī / ATM). Is there any dictionary where i actually can find the real daily usage of those and other words? I know that for maglev they often use just 磁悬浮 e.g. Other foreign words like email is often used instead of the Chinese. How often do you hear anyone actually use 电子邮件 (diànzǐyóujiàn /email)? For email the shorter 邮件 is also often used. I guess what I am looking for is a dictionary with updated colloquial usage. I where talking with my 1 grade daughter yesterday and noticed that she already are using Chinese in a much different way than my wife. She in her turn on the other hand use it very much different from her parents. My problem, who should i learn from;-)

I have seen it referred to as 磁浮铁路 (cí xuán fú tiě lù) in a few places - not sure if that is the common term though.

Oops, sent too soon. (yeah, edit would be nice)

I too would love to find a good dictionary of colloquial and recently coind terms for Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan usage. My current best source is my girlfriend (Chinese native most recently from Shenzhen and now living in the US), but she's been there 9 years and isn't as familiar with new terms as even she would like.

I have seen 磁浮铁路 in Shanghai and are waiting for the line to be build to Hangzhou. Last month they opened the 沪杭客运专线 Huhang High-Speed Railway. Those train go in 350 KM (217 mph) an hour! Nice. So much better than the bus i used to ride to Hangzhou. But, it where build in only 20 month and I have been following the construction and the quality do scares me;-)

As for 电子邮件, a whole lot of them just say "email". No chinese at all...

As to whom to learn from : all of them. After all, though you probably only use a subset of your native language, [is it English? I think you said somewhere else that it isn't] you can understand most of what is said by the very old and even the young, can't you? Needs to be the same with Chinese. In order to avoid sounding weird, you probably want to concentrate most on the vocab used by people nearest to your own age...

I'm sure I'm too old to say "cool" with any street cred at all, but I surely know what it means when my children say it. Funny though how the slang goes round again: "wicked" was out of date when I first read Enid Blyton, but it's an in word just now.

On a slightly different tack: In France there is a campaign by purists against imported phrases like "le weekend". Is there such a movement in China?

Rachael.

Another thought:

If the Chinese import enough foreign words, with enough new combinations of sounds, maybe they could expand the repertoire and eventually have fewer homonyms. That would be nice. How my heart sinks when I have to learn yet another ji or shi.

How do they write "email" ?

Rachael.

Yet another thought:

How up-to-date is MDGB?

To stay really colloquial we need to watch Chinese TV.

Does anyone know of a free-to-view Chinese channel?

Rachael.

Chinese TV is often more formal than people are in real life. Many shows are good for colloquial Chinese, but it is kind of a dangerous mix. Also, colloquial for which region? Unlike in the US, a show that is popular in the north, isn't that likely to be popular in the south. A show set in Beijing, including the way they actually speak, isn't that likely to be popular in the south. They are too different from each other.

As for a movement against lone words... kind of. I remember when I was there, they passed a rule against using lone words and abbreviations on CCTV. So, for example, they couldn't say NBA on TV. They had to use that absurdly long Chinese name whenever they wanted to say NBA on the air. I haven't heard of Chinese people on the street caring about loan words, though. I usually hear ATM 机。 If you say the long Chinese name, I understand it, but I have to think a second.

@rgwatwormhill usually you see email written as just email. Among my Chinese friend and family it is either email or sometimes 邮件. What is more interesting is the CC numbers than now are seen everywhere. E.g. 88 (byebye). First it is English and not Chinese and then it is also translated to numbers due to its sound similarity (bābā). Or 4242 (sìèrsìèr / shi a shi a) to agree etc. Like a whole new language to learn. About MDGB, they are adding new words but you can't really see the colloquial usage. It is after all just an dictionary. Guess that I need to spend more time with real people instead of living my life electronically;-)