Chinese Tech Terms Explained in English | Hacker News Reader

Chinese Tech Terms Explained in English

16x.engineer

179 pointsparadite32 comments

"lunzi" and "huidu" are both nice concise terms, would be nice to have an terse english equivalent. I am curious if knowing this sort of term is actually helpful for the average engineer working at an org like bytedance, or if things are siloed to the point that the eng orgs are basically separate with limited Chinese-English collaboration outside of certain management teams.

PS: If you're interested in learning more Chinese tech terms, I've put together an Anki deck of 330+ cards with example sentences.

Anki deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1351796314

Preview of cards + list of sources: https://computerlab.io/2023/06/08/chinese-software-engineeri...

"lunzi"'s meaning is close to it's literal translation: wheel, as in Python Wheels and "reinventing wheels".

To be pedantic, Python wheels refer to cheese wheels, not as literal as you’d think.

huidu would be "canary deployment", I think

I might say "preview" for huidu

Staged rollout?

> "lunzi" and "huidu" are both nice concise terms, would be nice to have an terse english equivalent

"Huidu" looks like Microsoft's RC (release candidate).

"lunzi" looks like UI/UX.

Huidu seems just like how one would use AB testing in English. You roll out a change, see if it works. If not, roll it back. Otherwise, roll it out to the rest of the users.

The thing with languages is that we'd create those words if we actually needed them. There's no reason to have individual words for a lot of those terms and even the linked site mentions that some of the sources of the Chinese terms are from English.

English is already bastardised enough imo, we don't need an individual word for every technical term from every industry, that would just be ludicrous.

What's unique here is that those terms are not transliterations of English terms. Which is what happens in most European languages.

I'm guessing that apart from increased phonetic distance what also matters is the size of the language, i.e. the number of speakers. With more speakers it's more likely that someone will create a neat native term for a new concept that spreads successfully, instead of adopting a foreign one.

> As individual characters, “mai” means burying, and “dian” means points. The phrase “maidian” literally means “embedding points” or “burying seeds”.

> It can be translated into tracking, tagging or user data analytics depending on the context.

or "breadcrumbs", to highlight the similarity of stuffing someone's pockets with something that trickles out so they can be found later

Breadcrumbs is arguably an English word that only makes sense after you read the Children's Story: Hansel and Gretel. Where Hansel and Gretel use breadcrumbs to find their way back home (except not really, cause the birds eat the crumbs and so they get lost).

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I've been told of various Chinese phrases that have similar story-driven meanings. Ex: "Pour more oil" is something to do with Sima Yi filling the torch of Zhuge Liang in the tomb. Sima Yi, a lifelong enemy of Zhuge Liang, is somewhat expected to defile the tomb, but instead honors his fallen enemy by pouring more oil and keeping the light going.

I forgot what "pour more oil" means in Chinese, but its something to do with respect, even respect towards a sworn enemy.

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English has "Breadcrumbs", "Sour Grapes", "Break a leg"...

Actually, English also has "Adding fuel to the fire", which is almost the opposite of the Chinese meaning.

Unless you are referring to another term, "add oil" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/加油) is just a term of encouragement, derived from the verb to refuel a car. I don't think it really has a connotation of respect.

From the provided wiki link, it doesn't mean to refuel the car, it means to "step on the gas."

It would make a nice translation, if not for the existing common understanding of breadcrumbs as a frontend UI navigation component.

Having a term with two different meanings in the frontend tech stack would be problematic for communication.

The domain name made me curious: http://10x.engineer/

"404 Not Found: 10x Engineers aren't real"

Well played.

This is interesting, always fun to see the same work in a different light and perspective. Btw Id say chendian is “retrospective”, which most tech companies do after projects but some do them regularly. I also worked at a trading firm that did retros for big trades

To me, it feels like “intuition” although it has different origins covers all of the resulting meanings.

Fun read. I found "maidian" more intuitively understood as "embedding dots" instead of "embedding seeds", since tracking dots (or tracking pixels) are often used for analytics and "dian"'s literal meaning is "dot".

Thanks for the suggestion. Updated the article to reflect this.

These terms are often referred to as 黑话. Just fancier jargons.

Personally, I would reserve Black Speech (the literal meaning of 黑话) for VPs and the PR department.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Speech

Thanks for distilling the key aspects that Chinese biz-ops care about into 5 terms. In context of the post:

lunzi (轮子) (lit. "cogs"/wheels) => ("techs") [elements of tech stack]

huidu (灰度) (lit. (userbase) greyification) => rollout penetration

chendian (沉淀) (lit. precipitation) => know-hows

dapan (大盘) (lit. market, big dish) => analytics

maidian (埋点) (lit. probes) => trackers

# Clock analogy

To explain "tech" to non-techies, somebody comes along with a term "cogs" to explain their importance to a clockwork, which user only sees the dial ("frontend") of.

No "cogs" no clocks: no "techs" no products.

>Local hires in these global offices are becoming a norm So the offices should speak the local language, or a common language. Chinese terms won't matter at all unless Chinese is chosen as the common language.

It's fortunate for a lot of English speakers that English is often chosen as a common language as a lot of people in tech from basically anywhere in the world learn it.

I wonder if a shorter, catchier word means an idea is more commonplace, or a shorter catchier word can end up causing an idea to be applied more.

I guess copying doesn't stop at technology level.

> Chendian is not a technical term, but it is commonly used in Chinese tech companies. It means consolidating learnings from past experience.

This term definitely does not exists. On the contrary. Learnig from past experience is considered a sign of weakness.

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