手机 : shǒujī - cellphone
手机 (, "hand-machine") seems to be the most common word for "cellphone".
"Cellphone" is of course a shortened form of "cellular telephone" which describes the technology used. It gets further abbreviated to "cell", these days people say "call me on my cell". So the English word for a tiny room has now become the word for a tiny phone.
But "cellphone" is American English. In Britain it would be "mobile phone". In London they'll say "call me on my mobile".
In Chinese there's also the term 移动电话 (, "move-phone"), which is closer to mobile phone. And there's a more typically Taiwanese term 行动电话 (, "move-about-phone"). 电话 ("electric speech") as I've mentioned before is "telephone".
But 手机 contains another common and useful character "机" (), meaning "machine". The radical (the left half of this character) is 木 (), "wood" or "tree", it looks like a tree. The machine this character originally meant was a loom.
机 appears in many, many interesting technical words. 计算机 () is another word for computer. 机器人 () is a robot. 机器 is the word (as opposed to just the character) for "machine". It's found in the name of IBM, 国际商用机器 () or 国际商业机器 ().
"Cellphone" is of course a shortened form of "cellular telephone" which describes the technology used. It gets further abbreviated to "cell", these days people say "call me on my cell". So the English word for a tiny room has now become the word for a tiny phone.
But "cellphone" is American English. In Britain it would be "mobile phone". In London they'll say "call me on my mobile".
In Chinese there's also the term 移动电话 (, "move-phone"), which is closer to mobile phone. And there's a more typically Taiwanese term 行动电话 (, "move-about-phone"). 电话 ("electric speech") as I've mentioned before is "telephone".
But 手机 contains another common and useful character "机" (), meaning "machine". The radical (the left half of this character) is 木 (), "wood" or "tree", it looks like a tree. The machine this character originally meant was a loom.
机 appears in many, many interesting technical words. 计算机 () is another word for computer. 机器人 () is a robot. 机器 is the word (as opposed to just the character) for "machine". It's found in the name of IBM, 国际商用机器 () or 国际商业机器 ().
- Cool new cellphones on Engadget
- Cell Phone Culture at the MIT Communications Forum [2005]
posted by Ed Hardebeck at
9:17 PM
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