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Basically I am looking for words in common usage which are roughly synonymous with English "cool", "wicked", "awesome", "sweet", and related positive slang adjectives.

I would also like to know how common these kind of words are in Chinese (because in English there are so many).

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3  
In Shenzhen I heard some Chinese speakers actually say "cool" in English. This doesn't answer the question, but I thought it was funny to hear :D – Coltin Feb 18 '12 at 2:14
When you hear someone saying "cool", they may be acutally saying "酷". And yeah, when "cool" means "awesome" or something like that, it is translated to 酷. – coolcfan Feb 20 '12 at 1:58
Could you give some example when you use "wicked" and "sweet"? No one answered these words yet and maybe because it's hard to translate directly. – M. Gao Mar 26 '12 at 10:01
@MdGao Wicked means great, impressive, skillful, incredible, amazing. youtube.com/watch?v=ksHPZE1yJ94 Some people use it as an adjective ("His car is wicked fast!") I think that is more American than British though. "Sweet" means more like "top quality". Both are slang. – trideceth12 Mar 26 '12 at 11:45

5 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted
  • 酷！= "Cool!", transliteration from English
  • 酷毙了！= "Cool to die for" (was a popular phrase in the 90s)
  • 牛！ = literally means bull, but here means "genius"; used to describe people only

他数学太牛了！He's so good at math!

这个杂技演员太牛了！The acrobat is so talented!

  • 太棒了！= literally "Too great!", or "Fantastic!"

爸妈下周带我们去海边。Mom and Dad will take us to the beach next week.

太棒了！Awesome!

  • 帅！= "Handsome!" ("帅翻了" is also a popular phrase used among teenage girls. I don't know how much adults understand/like this usage.)

  • 帅呆了！(was a popular phrase in the 90s)

周杰伦已经过气了，现在最火的是许嵩。你看了她新出的MV了吗？Jay Chou is passé. Xu Song is what everybody's been talking about lately. Have you seen the music video he just posted?

一个字，帅！(Literally:) I can only use one word to describe it - handsome!

  • 爽！= what you say when you are feeling refreshed and comfortable (after having some ice-creams on a hot summer day, taking public revenge on your long-time enemy

  • 爽死了！

  • 真好！= "Really/truly good!"

  • 真不错！= literally "really not bad"; "Really good!"
  • 厉害！= used to express admiration of someone's skill (If you want to use it in a sentence, remember to say "他很厉害/他特别厉害/他超级厉害"; "他厉害" is incorrect.)
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Can you please provide explanation for all of those expressions? For example, meaning (I suppose they don't just mean "cool!"), when they are used, etc. As is, this answer is not very useful. – Alenanno♦ Feb 18 '12 at 22:28
1  
Someone added the translations but it can still be (greatly) improved. – Alenanno♦ Feb 19 '12 at 20:09
up vote 8 down vote

他很酷 (tā hěn kù) means "He is cool".

This is a transliteration of "cool" using the sounds found in the Chinese language. I'm sure there are other ways to say it, but that is the most direct that I know of.

他很帅 (tā hěn shuài) is closer to "He is handsome". This could also be used to say someone is "cool-looking", I believe.

棒 (bàng) means great, awesome, etc.

这个电影的音响效果很棒！ = This movie's sound effects are great!

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up vote 3 down vote

Try 牛逼 (niú bī).

It's almost the omnipotent slang-style compliment in Chinese, and the most frequently used.

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牛逼（originally 牛B) is more close to awesome than cool. but still a great cool translation. – M. Gao Mar 26 '12 at 9:52
up vote 2 down vote

赞！ It means awesome. You could also use 真赞！ which has the same meaning.

And me and my friends often use 屌爆了, which mainly used among young people oral language and Internet discussions, the text representation is not standardized, someone write as 碉堡了, when we (me and my friends) use this word, we roughly mean "awesomeness explodes", though it has many other meanings. 屌 and 真屌 is also valid and used.

For "wicked" and "sweet", above words can be very suited sometimes, but not always, since "wicked" and "sweet" have so many meanings. "Wicked" is more close to 屌 and "sweet" is more close to 赞.

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up vote -2 down vote

"cool" 醋，不错 "wicked"没道德的，不良的 "awesome"太棒了 "sweet" 好，甜

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