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Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 欢迎回来酒馆. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, lulu, hi, everyone.

So 安澜, are you following up on... I don't know, the latest trends on Chinese social media?

I don't really even follow up on the trends on English social media, to be honest.

You're ancient.

That is true, that is true,

安澜对于 pop culture完全是一无所知. So the reason why I'm bringing this up, in today's episode, I would like to talk about a new trend, somewhat a new trend. It's called 搭子文化.

Oh, I know 搭子, it's like sort of friend, isn't it?

It's like mate, pal, that sort of thing. It's basically you... I guess we call them 搭子 like健身搭子, 学习搭子, because they're not necessarily our, like bosom friend? They're not exactly like our best mate? It's just someone that would do these things with, we travel with, we go to the gyms with, that sort of thing.

I would say we have the same sort of thing in English as well. And I've kind of heard about学习搭子and喝酒搭子, those type of things.

Let's talk about that and how to say things like that in English.

So the normal translation for 搭子 would be buddy.

There's no way you can call it partner.

Nope. So, for example, we would say gym buddy, study buddy, drinking buddy, travel buddy and so on.

Buddy to me always sounds a little bit childish. You have the buddy system, like when you're little kids, you go out and your teacher said, you two should hold hands because there's a buddy system.

To be honest, if you say buddy on its own, it does sound very childish. But if you use it with, for example, gym buddy or study buddy, it doesn't sound as childish.

So it would be weird if I say 安澜 is my buddy. It feels like the two little kids.

That sounds really really weird,

But if I say 安澜 is my gym buddy, we go to gym together, that's okay.

That's absolutely fine, even though... come on, let's be honest we never go to the gym.

No, neither of us. But I mean, we can be drinking buddies.

That we are, definitely. So the idea of buddy as well, it's also a little bit American, for example, in British English we don't really say, buddy.

You say mate, right?

We would say mate, so classmate, schoolmate, and so on.

You even say workmate, flatmate. Workmate means colleagues, right, roughly? And then a flatmate is someone you share a flat with. 室友，合租那种室友.

By the way, growing up, did you have like these kind of buddies or mates? I'm sure you had friends.

Yeah, of course. So I had my best mates and I also had for example, study buddies as well. For example, when it was exam season, there were always a few of us that would go to the library together to study. And to be honest, we wouldn't really hang out outside of that.

So it's literally like a study group.

Yeah, pretty much. But we’re still friends, but it's like what 搭子actually means. It's kind of someone that you're not that close with.

By the way in English, in British English when you say mate, it doesn't mean if it's a man or a woman, right? For example, you can call me your mate.

Yeah. Yeah, I would say the first thing we think of would be between men. I guess for women you could say girl-pal or something like that.

It sounds a bit...

Yeah, but that's normally only between women.

I mean, I've said home girl before, like 闺蜜 is like best mate, best friend.

We don't say that, not in British English at least.

But I can just say she was my best mate, that's absolutely fine.

Yeah, that's absolutely fine.

And you gotta be very very careful don't use the word partner, because if you say she or he is my partner, people would think this is your life partner.

And because many people now are quite accepting of different sexual orientations. So it doesn't really matter if you're referring to a man or woman, if you say she or he is my partner, people think that you're in a long term relationship together.

Unless you say something quite specific, like business partner.

But if I don't specify, I say this is my partner, then it's life partner.

Then it's romantic.

By the way, growing up, did you use to have like lunch buddy?

Yeah, I would say there were always a few people you have lunch with and it's also the same in an office as well. I've worked in office before and I had a lunch buddy. And what about you?

You probably can guess I was always a bit of a lone wolf type of 独狼型的那种.

Does that mean you had no friends?

I had friends.

Really?

With plural.

You're my friend.

Oh, am I?

Anyhow, I mean, I didn't really feel the need to have like a lunch buddy. I mean, sometimes obviously I did go to lunch with people, but I didn't have like a steady lunch buddy or gym buddy or drinking buddy. Oh, maybe drinking buddy, from time to time.

That doesn't surprise me.

Okay. Now the next one let's move on to something quite interesting. It's the idea of wing man or wing woman. Wing as in w-i-n-g.

So this originally was used in dating, so a wing man or wing woman was there to help you find a new boyfriend or girlfriend or when you were chatting up a man or a woman in a pub or in a club.

比较书面的翻译叫僚机.

It's basically this is someone you take to the pub, but you're not dating them, you're not there to drink with them. This person you bring with you to the pub or to the club so that he or she will talk you up and try to set you up with other people.

For example, if we go to a public club together and I see a beautiful girl and I go, on your behalf and say, have you met my friend, you know, my mate 安澜? He's a wonderful guy. Do you want to have a drink with him?

You can do that if you like.

But perhaps I will say it more skillfully, because sounds of it desperate.

And I think you make a very good wing woman if you say it like that.

No, no, it does take some skill.

Yeah. But now it can also be used in a more general context. So just anyone who supports you during an activity.

But mostly I still hear it in the context of dating and hooking up.

That's true. But if we do use it in another context, it's in a bit of a jokey, in a bit of a funny way. So for example, I need a wing man for this work event or she's my brunch wing woman every Sunday.

It still sounds a bit weird.

It sounds a bit weird, but we would understand it.

Have you ever been anyone's wing man?

No, I'm not very good at that.

I guess...

I get too embarrassed.

You are the type that actually needs a wing man rather than being someone's wing man. Wing man needs to be very suave.

I can be very suave sometimes.

Okay, next time I wanna date I'll ask you, I'll designate you to be my wing man.

Okay, that's gonna be fun.

What are we joking about? I don't need a wing man.

So you think.

Yeah.

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文稿校对：Dongnia & Jenny

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