Translation: Street-Smarts/Street Smart?

Question

How to translate street smart into Mandarin?

Baidu gives:

n. 城市生活方式、生存能力

but that's can't be right...

As in: A street smart cop.

or

A cop with street-smarts.

Answer 1

Originally it means empirical wisdom gleaned from the streets.

市井聪明, 街市里积累的智慧

市井 [street]∶街市, [urban vulgar class] 指城市中流俗之人

Source: http://baike.baidu.com/view/849797.htm

聪明【英译】wise；sensitive clever；smart

Source: http://baike.baidu.com/subview/95047/11119951.htm

Answer 2

老江湖(neutral)

or

老油条(somehow negative)、老浆糊(somehow negative)

Answer 3

It seems that no exact word for it, we can say he is a 百事通。

Answer 4

iciba has １ example sentence with 他有都市人的精明劲儿，web search yields http://www.unsv.com/voanews/words-and-idioms/lessons/152/ Lesson 152 - street smart （two-way street）. Note that VOA流行美国习惯用语 Lesson １５２ concerns the noun ＂street smart(s)＂，there also is Lesson ２０ http://www.unsv.com/voanews/popular-american/lessons/20/ for the adjective which seems to indicate that the VOA people were not aware of a simple precise Chinese analog。

Answer 5

小聪明 that would work coz this is the closet expression 市井聪明 could work but it's more of a written style while my answer could used basically everywhere

Answer 6

I'm thinking maybe 能幹 or 經驗老道 has some similar meaning to it.

能幹: capable, useful.

經驗老道: have abundant experiences.

Answer 7

In Cantonese there's a saying called:

世界仔

meaning: a person that has street smart, excellent at social skill and dealing with people