Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 歡迎回來酒館. Hi, 安瀾.

Hi, lulu, hi, everyone.

Which moves us on to physical appearance. I know a word that you can replace old with, which is mature.

Mature like a fine wine.

Interestingly, when English learners hear the word mature, they think of the direct translation, 成熟. Because for us, 成熟 is once you're an adult, you're mature, but be very careful in English when people talk about “she's a mature lady”, we're not talking about this person has just grown up to be like 18 or 20. We're talking about at least close to their retirement age.

Yeah. If you wanna say in terms of not being a child, then you would say that “she's grown up” or “she acts in a mature way”. So We would use that for children “he's mature for his age.”

You have to be very, very careful with the word mature because I've seen people who are actually just trying to find a woman basically who knows who she is, who's not childish, but then ended up writing on dating Apps “I'm looking for a mature woman”. Yes. Because then you're looking basically for “older” women.

Yes.

Like in their 50s at least.

Even that is a euphemism, older woman, not old woman, you don't say old woman, you say older.

Older and mature in English basically means old essentially, but you also hear mature students.

Yes.

就有點像我們說的成人學(xué)生, they're not school age, university age anymore. Physical appearance, what else, instead of fat, there are lots of words you can...

So many, full figured, curvy ,if you're describing a woman.

Plus size .

Plus size. So I think what you would say for a man really.

Big boned?

Big boned, chubby.

Chubby is not even that euphemistic, but full figured, I quite like this. It's almost like people who are skinny, they haven't grown into their full figure.

Yes.

So full figured basically are used to talk about especially women who are on the plump side. 比較豐滿比較豐腴的女性, 你去看大碼女裝里面, 她用的都是full figure或者plus size. Full figure, figure這個詞本來是這個身材的意思, 這就好像她的身材是完整的身材, 一個full figured.

Yes.

And moving on to financial issues talking about like poverty or poor seems to be a word that people want to avoid.

Yeah. Sometimes you might hear the expression financially challenged.

Yeah. You can basically say everything challenged, for example, you say obviously physically challenged to mean people with physical disability. Mhm. Can I just call myself vertically challenged because I'm short.

You can do.

So financially challenged basically means broke, no money.

Yeah. And this is quite a formal expression, so it's used in very very formal contexts, same as economically disadvantaged.

Economically disadvantaged basically means poor, but I always feel like economically disadvantage, or disenfranchised, or underprivileged, it also kind of has that feeling of society hasn't been giving them fair treatment.

Yeah. So some people prefer that expression, personally I don't like it. I think it's a bit patronizing.

It is patronizing. But I would use low income.

Yeah, I think that sounds slightly better.

Call it as it is really.

Yeah. And finally we can't avoid this anymore. Bathroom, going to the toilet.

I mean you don't really need to say anything. I would really just say, excuse me and I would just leave.

Yeah, but you might say use the restroom or so for example we said the same way as the toilet you might say where can I use the restroom?

Where can I use the restroom?

Yeah. Or as a bit of a joke, we might say answer the call of nature.

你知道中文叫什么嗎? 叫人有三急, answer the call of nature, nature calls就是大自然在召喚你. Basically it means you know you have this natural needs to go to the toilet.

By the way, do you guys say number one, number two?

We do, we do, a bit more now, but it's more... still quite American.

Number one, number two其實也有一點點euphemistic 只不過更具體, 就是小號和大號. 中文叫小號, 大號就是small and big, and you can guess which one is number one, which one is number two.

I always remember when I was a little kid you know in French, “oui” is yes, yeah. And “wee” in English is pee. And my dad actually told me that “no” in French is “poo” and I believed him.

And you went to French class, and when the teacher is asking questions, you go “oui” “oui” and then “poo”.

Yes.

You have a little bit of a special case aren't you?

I was about like four or five at that time.

Blame your dad for that.

Yes.

All right. And with that cute little joke, we're gonna end this episode. Share with us in the comment section what other euphemistic expressions, euphemisms that you can think of, either in Chinese or in English, or if you want to put in any request for other topics, let us know.

So until next time.

I'll see you next time.

Bye

Bye.