垃圾

• Pinyin: lā jī
• Hanzi breakdown: 垃 = 土 (earth radical) + 立 (phonetic component); 圾 = 土 (earth radical) + 及 (phonetic component)

Meaning

Garbage; rubbish; trash. Refers to waste or discarded material, and figuratively to anything of poor quality or uselessness.

垃圾 is used both literally for household waste and figuratively in informal speech to describe something worthless or of very low quality (e.g. 垃圾游戏 means a terrible game). Waste sorting (垃圾分类) became a major civic initiative in Chinese cities from 2019, making vocabulary around 垃圾 especially relevant.

Examples

1. 请大家把垃圾扔进垃圾桶，不要乱扔。 Please put your rubbish in the bin and don't litter.
2. 这部电影太垃圾了，我看了十分钟就关掉了。 This film is absolutely terrible — I turned it off after ten minutes.
3. 城市里的垃圾分类越来越严格，大家都要学会区分。 Rubbish sorting in cities is getting stricter and everyone needs to learn how to separate waste.

Usage Guide

Context: everyday, environment, informal

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 记得出门时把垃圾带出去扔掉。(Remember to take out the rubbish when you leave.)
• 垃圾分类对保护环境非常重要。(Rubbish sorting is very important for protecting the environment.)

Don't Say

• 你这个人真垃圾 (Avoid calling a person 垃圾 — it is a serious insult even in casual speech; use more measured language to express criticism)

Origin & History

垃圾 is a phonetic loan compound with no standard character-by-character meaning; it is believed to have entered Mandarin from Cantonese or local dialects. The characters 垃 and 圾 are used purely for their sound in this compound.

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal