It’s the time of the year for list making! This Youku video clip named the nine hottest lines on China’s web this year. The Yangtze Evening Post, an influential newspaper, is the original list compiler。

　　又到了一年盘点的时候了，扬子晚报上传了一段名叫今年中国网络九条最热流行语的视频，盘点了如下几条流行语。

　　According to the list, ge (哥， older brother, big brother) is without doubt the hottest net word of the year. Both of the top two cited lines use the word. In Chinese, ge here is used more like the first person pronoun (like the English, “Can a brother get a break?”)

　　根据这个盘点，“哥”无疑是今年网上最流行的词。最热的两条流行语都提到了“哥”。在汉语里，这个“哥”被用来指代自己。

　　1. What big brother is eating isn’t noodles, but loneliness。

　　1.哥吃的不是面，是寂寞。

　　It’s ironic that in a country as populous as China, a meme about loneliness would be so popular. This seemingly irrational line has been repeated in every possible permutation, on every possible occasion, e.g. “What big brother is reading not a book, but loneliness。”

　　像中国人口这么多的国家，关于寂寞的病毒式模仿会这么流行实在是件很讽刺的事情。这句看上去很无厘头的话被用在了所有可能搭配的排列中，用在了所有场合，比如，“哥看的不是书，是寂寞。”

　　2. Don’t fantasize about big brother: I am only legend。

　　2.别迷恋哥，哥只是个传说。

　　The most popular variation of this line is “Don’t fantasize about big sister: I am only legend。”

　　这句话最流行的变体是“别迷恋姐，姐只是个传说。”

　　3. Jia Junpeng, your mom wants you to go home for dinner。”

　　3.贾君鹏，你妈妈喊你回家吃饭。

　　If you haven’t heard about this, you probably haven’t been on the Chinese Internet in the last year. This simple line was left on a World of Warcraft BBS, and somehow — some are claiming it was an online agency stunt and was helped along — managed to attract over 7.1 million views and 300,000 comments in just the first 24 hours。

　　如果你没听过这句话，你去年绝对没上过中文网。这句简单的话是留在魔兽BBS上的，不知道什么原因——有说法是有网络公司是幕后推手——这句话吸引了710万人点击，在发布后24小时内产生了30万条评论。

　　4. We can’t go into detail on this matter。

　　4. 这事儿不能说太细。

　　This quote is the only one picked for the list that didn’t come originally from the Web, but rather from the real world. A government official evading a journalist’s persistent question about the annual total of car loans repaid in Tianjin simply said, “We can’t go into detail on this matter,” which apparently Netizens found really laughable。

　　这句话是唯一来自现实世界而不是网络的。一位政府官员在回答《焦点访谈》记者“天津市每年要偿还公路建设的贷款量有多大”的问题时，回答到“这事儿不能说太细”，网民们觉得这句话很有意思，于是流传甚广。

　　The rest of them, he goes over quickly:

　　剩下的流行语，我们列在这里：

　　5. Life is like a coffee table: it’s got tea sets and dinnerware all over it. (beiju, 杯具， is a homophone for tragedy, 悲剧， and dinnerware, canju, 餐具， a homophone for disaster, 惨剧)。

　　5. 生活就像一个茶几，上面摆满了杯具和餐具。(杯具是“悲剧”的同音词，餐具是“惨剧”的同音词。)

　　6. It’s not that the story ended badly; it’s that we expect too much of the story。

　　6.不是故事的结局不够好，而是我们对故事要求太多。

　　7. Love is like two people holding two ends of a rubber band: it’s always the one who doesn’t let go who gets hurt more。

　　7.爱情就像两个人拉橡皮筋，受伤的总是不愿意放手的那一个。

　　8. A lovely flower doesn’t belong to the one who appreciates it, but to the dunghill it grows on. (“To stick a lovely flower in the dunghill” is a popular Chinese saying, normally used to describe the common social phenomenon of a pretty girl marrying an ugly but rich guy)。

　　8.鲜花往往不属于赏花人，而属于牛粪。

　　9. You can’t spell BELIEVE without the LIE。

　　9. 就算是believe里面，也有lie。

　　10. The difference between a lie and a promise is that the believer of a lie is the listener and the believer of a promise is the speaker。

　　10.谎言和誓言的区别在于，一个是听的人当真了，一个是说的人当真了。