Excerpts from Sohu Education, original author 沪江英语:
打水漂
Means: a game in which a flat stone is bounced along the surface of calm water.打水漂游戏
Means: spend (esp one’s money) in a careless wasteful way
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88 Bar is about finding bits and pieces in virtual China and examining them from the various lenses of our authors: -
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DesignerJason Li has worked as an interaction designer, illustrator and researcher. Originally from Hong Kong, he has also lived in Canada, the US and Spain. He's writing a graphic novel in his spare time.
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Cultural anthropologistLyn Jeffery is a research director at the Institute for the Future. She has spent more than 20 years living, working, and doing research in China.
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3 Comments
I believe this refers to “skipping stones” in English.
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I believe that the phrase is meant to teach English phrases, not Chinese ones? In this case, they translate the English expression to Chinese, then explain the use of the English expression (which, in the case of “ducks and drakes”, does not translate directly into Chinese). See, e.g., WWW’s explanation of “ducks and drakes” here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-duc3.htm
I’d think you were right, except that I encountered the phrase 打水漂 when I was reading something in Chinese. And if memory serves, the latter definition actually made sense. So it does actually end up getting used in Chinese… at least sometimes