Posted by
isonoawabi
18 yrs ago
Jiayo (mandarin). No one can tell me what it means. I thought it was something equivlent to "Break a leg!" but the boys and girls in my office all disagreed. Anyone?
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When you say "break a leg", it always confuses me. "break a leg" means good luck, yes? Literal meaning of Jia-yo in Mandarin = to add (jia) oil (yo). In conversation, we say that to people, especially before competitions or exams, meaning work hard, put more effort etc. Does it make sense? It will be easier if you can give us the whole sentence. Hope this helps.
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Well jiayo does have a similar nuiance of wishing someone good luck. Might not be exactly the same but I dont think you are wrong though.
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My son is doing a picture story about the Olympics torch relay. In one of the pics, he drew someone waving a little red flag and he'd written "Shake a leg" on the flag. I thought shake a leg was kind of funny in the Olympics context. He said he's only translating jiayo into English. I had doubts (he's only six and speaks only a little Chinese). I was wondering where he got the expression from. I didn't know it's the official motivational language for the BJ Olympics. There must be an official English version. Does anyone know the official English version of it? Curiosity is killing the cat!
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aemom
18 yrs ago
It's more like "try harder" "put on a stronger effort" "put pressure on the opposing player/team" "try try try" or as another person said "go go go". Chinese people always shout it out at sporting events.
"Shake a leg" for a running event is funny! Thanks for the giggle.
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mayo
18 yrs ago
There is a word in japanese "ganbatte" which is used similarly and although there is no literal translation for it, it is usually translated to "fight" in english.
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It's an expression to encourage and support you that means "Add oil"!
In Cantonese, the equivalent is like "ka yau".
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