Students of Chinese have been having some fun with the new slang and jargon in the latest edition of the Xinhua Dictionary, the go-to reference book on China's official national language. It's a doorstop of a thing, over 700 pages, and you nearly need to be a shot putter to carry it around. (An electronic version is reportedly under construction.)

《新华字典》最新版里新收录的俚语和术语可给中文学习者们带来了不少乐子。这本字典是学习中国官方语言的首选参考书。这是一本堪比城墙砖的著述，有700多页，你几乎得成为一个铅球运动员才能将其搬动。(据报道，该字典的电子版正在开发中。)

The new edition took eight years to compile, according to the deputy editor, Zhou Hongbo, and many of the debut entries are derived from social media. New terms include NBA, animal conservation, credit-card slaves, social harmony and diplomagate, a reference to the widespread faking of academic credentials.

副总编周洪波说，最新版的修订耗时八年，其中很多新收录的词汇来自于社交媒体。新词汇包括“NBA”，“动物保护”，“卡奴”，“社会和谐”和“学历门”等。学历门指的是学历证书的广泛造假行为。

Eveline Chao, writing on Foreign Policy magazine's Web site, has a fascinating look at seven of the new words and terms in the dictionary, including "house slaves," "PM 2.5" and "angry youth."

赵懿(Eveline Chao)为《外交政策》 网站撰写相关文章，对字典中的七个新词汇进行了颇为有趣的解读，包括“房奴”，“PM 2.5”，“愤青”等。

"Banana person" also makes its first official appearance. Ms. Chao notes that the term "usually refers to Chinese-Americans - yellow on the outside, white on the inside - though unlike in the United States this is not pejorative."

“香蕉人”也是首次正式亮相。赵懿写道，该词汇“通常是指美籍华人——外面是黄的，里面是白的——但和在美国不同，这个词没有贬义。”

An excerpt from Ms. Chao's piece:

以下是该文章的节?。?/p>

This edition includes slang and online terminology for the first time - remarkable for an official Chinese publication for which informal language has long been prohibited. Indeed, the Xinhua Dictionary has always been a guide to what's new and modern in China, but a few steps behind, aimed more at the masses less aware of the cutting edge. In the early days, it was like the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford English Dictionary rolled into one, teaching a mostly illiterate country about everything from umbrellas to fertilizer to how to write the word "pigeon."

相当值得注意的是，新版本首次收录了一些俚语和网络词汇，因为中国官方出版物长久以来都禁止非正式语言。的确，《新华字典》一直都是中国语言新趋势和现代性的指南，但通常会落后几步，其目标受众更多是对前沿了解较少的广大人群。早期，《新华字典》像是《大英百科全书》和《牛津英语词典》合二而一，把各种词汇教授给该国大多数目不识丁的民众，从雨伞到肥料，再到怎样写“鸽子”这个词。

Ms. Chao also explains how NBA has now become an official word in Mandarin:

赵懿还解释了“NBA”如何成为了普通话里的正式词汇。

The NBA is by far the most popular sports league in China, domestic or foreign. The inclusion of this term reflects not just China's rabid passion for all things "Kebi" (Kobe Bryant), "Aifosen" (Allen Iverson), and "Lin Shuhao" (Jeremy Lin), but also the inevitable impact of the United States on China - and vice versa.

“NBA”目前是中国国内最受欢迎的运动联盟。该词汇的收录不仅反映了中国对“科比(Kobe Bryant)”“艾佛森(Allen Iverson)”和“林书豪(Jeremy Lin)”的疯狂热情，还表明美国对中国产生了重大影响，反之亦然。

Just as English has many loanwords derived from Chinese and various dialects - including brainwash, yen (as in craving), silk, and even ketchup - Chinese has absorbed many words from English, like sandwich, sofa, bye-bye, bus, and chocolate. English letters are especially prevalent in online slang because English is much easier to type than Chinese. "3Q," for example, is phonetic slang for "thank you" because the number three pronounced in Chinese (san) combined with Q sounds like "thank you."

正如英语中的很多外来词汇来源于中文和其他方言，包括洗脑(brainwash)、渴望(yen)、丝绸(silk)、甚至番茄酱(ketchup)等，中文也从英语中吸收了很多词汇，如三明治(sandwich)、沙发(sofa)、拜拜(bye-bye)、巴士(bus)和巧克力(chocolate)等。英文字母在网络俚语中特别常见，因为英语比中文更易输入。例如，“3Q”就成为了“thank you”的俚语表达方式，因为中文中“三”加上“Q”一起发音很像“thank you”。