Infographic: Chinese Relationship Slang

Are you a single dog? A gone girl? Perhaps a sunshine man?

With Valentine’s Day firmly behind us for another year, we can reflect upon the changing world of relationships, or more specifically, the changing language used to describe relationships.

As compiled by China Daily, here’s a list of trending terms used by netizens to describe all things related to love:

We’re not sure #5 counts as “friends with benefits”, since the term concerns casual sex with both friends and strangers. And even if netizens are familiar with the movie Gone Girl, which didn’t get a theatrical release in China last year, they’re likely not using the phrase as intended in #6 but rather its Chinese equivalent 腹黑女 (fùhēinǚ), which loosely translates to “two-faced woman”. In any event, there’s some complicated relationship verbiage out there; make sure you keep up to date.

Charles Liu

The Nanfang's Senior Editor