Even Greener Pastures

Thanks Susan.

@Erik
I always find it strange when someone asks me to get something out of their bag or coat pocket for them. Makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.

Thanks SuKi.

I don't think he is but he might write a novel about it.

Oh, your discussion on pocketbooks/purses reminds me of my childhood trauma. When I was 13 or 14, I listened to "Panic! At The Disco" and after their "Build God, Then We'll Talk" () I decided that "purse" was a dirty word because for the line "She spilled her purse and her bag, and held a purse of a different kind" in the Russian translation there was a note, "sexual innuendo". So I decided to stay on the safe side and never to say "purse" at all, just in case :)

Anyway, here's my take on Chinese bag names. Basically, in Chinese, there's a 包(bāo)/袋(dài) dichotomy, so here goes:

1. 包包 (bāobāo)
2. 手袋 (shǒudài; 手 = hand)
3. 背包 (bèibāo; 背 = back) or 书包 (shūbāo; 书 = book) for schoolbags (they are a bit different, though; in Russian the latter would be ранец)
4. Not sure about this one, but I'd say 运动背包 (yùndòng bèibāo). Technically it means sport rucksack, but I think it's possible to use it to say "sport bag". Maybe I'm wrong (hopefully someone will be able to correct me)
5. 袋子 (dàizi) - this is the most common term, I think. I'm pretty lazy so I usually call 5-10 袋子 even though I know that sometimes it's not exactly right (shame on me!)
6. 袋子 (dàizi)
7. I think the right term is 垃圾袋 (lèsèdài) but in Walmart it's 黑色塑料袋 on price tags (hēisè sùliàodài; lit. black-coloured plastic bag), and as I said, I usually just say 袋子.
8. 塑料袋 (sùliàodài; 塑料 = plastic)
9. 纸袋 (zhǐdài; 纸 = paper)
10. 纸袋 (zhǐdài)

@Kseniia

Bāo? I don't know how important the line above the a is or whether there's any connection or not but I immediately thought of these:



They do look like tiny bags.

ранец? That is so funny. We have the word ranec. It's a type of sack, one that Hloupý Honza (Stupid John), the famous Czech fairy tale character, would carry with him while on a quest for a beautiful princess. It was just folded fabric attached to a stick and it had buchty (traditional sweet pastry) in it. It's not really used in this context anymore, other than in fairy tales. It has become a colloquialism meaning "lots of money".

@Kseniia

So bāozi is what you call the buns? And it consists of one character from No. 1 bāobāo and one from No. 5 dàizi. So half a bag and half another bag make a bun?

Oh I see, we call the school bag aktovka, which is also the word for a briefcase. Comparing Slavic languages is like playing associations, don't you think?

Yes, Hloupý Honza is a positive character. It usually turns out he's not stupid at all and he wins the princess and half a kingdom.

So half a bag and half another bag make a bun?

Not quite. Actually 子 (zi) doesn't mean much here because here it is used as a noun suffix. In Chinese nouns tend to be multisyllabic, and one-character nouns can be "harmonised" by adding 子 (zi). However, you don't have to add any suffixes if there is something (e.g. an adjective) that makes the word a bigram, for example:
盒子 (hézi) = box
but
木盒 (mùhé) = wooden box

Comparing Slavic languages is like playing associations, don't you think?

Absolutely agree! Plus, it's always nice to hear that in another Slavic-speaking country there's such a nice character that is happy enough with just half a kingdom :)

Okay, if we're trying to get a full set here, then Spanish is still missing, isn't it?

It's almost as simple as in English, but it still took me ages to get it right:

"bolso", -o being the masculine ending, is always used for a woman's handbag - thank you, Spanish.
 
Everything else can be called "bolsa": bolsa de plástico, bolsa de viaje/deporte, bolsa de papel, etc.

Except of course for the backpack, which is "mochila".

And if it's Sack in German (big, no handles), then it's "saco" in Spanish (mind you, that's also the word for a man's jacket, which happens to be Sakko in German  ).