Peanuts or Potatoes? The First ‘Unified’ Chinese Dictionary
A Taiwanese visitor to mainland China was shocked to see sliced “tu dou” on a menu. The word means peanut in Taiwan - but potato in mainland China.
A Taiwanese professor ordering coffee at a Beijing cafe was asked if he wanted a “coffee companion” - China’s way of saying cream.
The stunned academic thought they wanted him to hire a hostess to keep him company. He told the waitress: “I didn’t bring enough money.”
Taiwan and China may share the same linguistic heritage - like Britain and the United States - but more than six decades of separation and political tensions have led to the Chinese language evolving in very different ways on each side; sometimes causing confusion, frustration or embarrassment.
Relations have been improving since 2008 and in the past year, the two former foes have been working on a first-ever joint dictionary that will encompass their different ways of writing and speaking Chinese.
The dictionary, named the Great Chinese Dictionary, will be free and put online.
A preliminary version containing more than 28,000 commonly used words and phrases will be unveiled by the end of this year, while a more comprehensive version will be available by 2015.