This week, LTL Mandarin School, have provided us with a guide on knowing more about the social media in China. This blog has been written by Marie from LTL.
As you probably already know China has its own social media platforms, so, even if a lot of people know what Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter are, due to the government monitoring and control, these platforms have been blocked and/or banned in mainland China while new social media channels took their places underneath the Chinese Great Firewall.
What are the most popular Social Media in China?
Youku
Youku(優酷 / 优酷– Yōu kù) is effectively China’s version of YouTube: it allows them to upload and watch any kind of video, provided they do not criticise the Communist Party.
If WeChat’s “Moments” is the Chinese Facebook, then QQ is the Chinese Facebook messenger. This desktop App allows people to chat online without having a phone number.
WeChat (微信– Wēixìn) is considered to be the Chinese answer to WhatsApp but it evolved to an all-in-one App which allows its users to order food, pay utility bills, hail cars as well as to send messages, make audio and video calls and post contents on “Moments”.
Weibo (微博– Wēibó) is basically the Chinese Twitter (推特– tuītè): people have 140 characters to get their toughts out. So, what’s the difference between the two platforms? On Weibo people normally post about their personal lives rather than news and politics.
Now that we’ve learnt which are the most popular Social channels in China, let’s learn all the expression we need to know to talk about Social Media in Chinese.
Our ultimate vocabulary for Social Media in Chinese
The word for social media is 社交媒體 / 社交媒体 (Shè jiāo méi tǐ), literally “social interaction media”.
Whatever the social media you want to use is, you will need to register (註冊 / 注册 zhùcè) , to enter (輸入 / 输入 shū rù) your username (用户名 yònghù míng) and password (密碼 / 密码 mìmǎ) and to sign in(登錄 / 登录 dēnglù).
Once you’re logged in to your favourite social media, you can publish (發布 / 发布 fābù), edit (編輯 / 编辑– biānjí), like(讚 / 赞 zàn, comment (評論 / 评论 pínglùn), reply (回覆 / 回复 huífù) or share (分享 fēnxiǎng) a post (帖子 tiězi).
According to the social media you are using, you can have different types of content, such as personal thoughts (狀態 / 状态 zhuàngtài), news (消息 xiāoxī), pictures (照片 zhào piàn) and videos and every time you are interacting with someone, or someone is interacting with you and/or your content you will get a notification (通知– tōngzhī).
On social media you can also search for friends (搜索好友 sōu suǒ hǎo yǒu), add new friends (加好友 jiā hǎoyǒu), follow people (關注人 / 关注人 guānzhù rén) or influencers (影響力者 / 影响力者 yǐngxiǎng lì zhě).
We hope you enjoy this article and you will find it helpful everytime you need to talk about social media in Chinese!
