干 Gān Cào It’s Closer Chinese Gān  Fuck

干

gān 

Fuck. In reality, gān is slightly less offensive than cào (see above), partly because it isn’t visually graphic (like 肏). It’s closer in strength to “shit,” but most dictionaries translate it as “fuck.” It can refer to having sex, and the way it’s used grammatically is also closer to “fuck”—it can be yelled alone when you’re pissed off, as in 干! Gān! (gahn) or 干了! Gānle! (gahn luh), or like cào it can followed by a subject (usually someone’s mother). See the next entry for more on this. Also see chapter 5 for how to use gān in the context of describing sex. The character 干 also means “dry,” which has made for more than a few comical mistranslations on Chinese restaurant menus and supermarket signs. Now you’ll know what happened next time you come across “sliced fuck tofu” on a Chinese menu. 干 Gān is also used a lot in fighting contexts because it can also mean “to kill.”