I’m amazed at how often I come across new Chinese characters….

Pretty much every week creating RealTime Mandarin, I discover ones I’ve never seen before.

Like this one which I learned researching this week’s newsletter:

诌 zhōu

It means “to fabricate”.

And appears in this word:

胡诌 hú zhōu — "To talk nonsense, make things up"

Break it down:

• 胡 means reckless or random.

• 诌 means to fabricate or spin a story.

Together: talking complete rubbish — making things up as you go along.

The catch:

诌 is supposed to be pronounced as zhōu.

But in casual speech you'll often hear people say zōu — which is technically wrong, but common.

To add more complexity even you weren’t already confused enough….

As a standalone word, 胡诌 it’s always negative.

But in writing, it often appears in quotation marks.

Which signals the author is using it loosely, more like "speaking off the cuff" or "saying the unsayable." So actually more of a positive tone.

Example:

He wasn't lying exactly — he just had a habit of saying things out loud that most people would keep to themselves. 他这个人不忌讳，什么话都敢"胡诌"。