地道英语表达｜newbie

To kick off today’s episode, I’d like to ask you a question first. Is there anything that you are newbie at?

「newbie」

新手

Here, the part to pay attention to is ‘new’. If you are just starting out, if you have no experience in the task that you are doing, then you can say that you are a newbie. However, when newbie is in used, it implies something. If I call somebody a newbie, I am sort of talking down to him, meaning making fun of him. It’s just not a person new to doing something, but also bad at doing that thing. 这里newbie不仅仅可以表示一个人的新手，还可以表示一个人不擅长的事。

We should also mention that this expression ‘newbie’ has been shorten, and it’s really common to say ‘noob’. And on the internet, you’ll sometimes see it spells as ‘n00b’.

So when people play online games, if someone makes a bunch of mistakes and dies right away in the game, other players can say ‘Oh, you are such a noob’, ‘get out of here’, ‘no noobs’. Sometimes you’ll see some online computer game rooms, and they’ll have a ‘no noobs’ rule. So they don’t want anybody that new to the game, or inexperienced with the game in that room because it makes no fun for everyone else involved. Or sometimes, you’ll see noobs only room, so only newbies are allowed to play the game. Let’s look at some examples.

Example I

A: How long have you been snowboarding?

B: Er…not long at all. This is only my third time trying it.

A: Ah, so you are just a newbie. That’s all right. That’s cool. How do you like it so far?

B: I love it. It’s such a rush. (It's very exciting非常刺激)

In this example, we see a newbie snowboarder and he’s a newbie because he’s only been doing it for just a short time. This is only his third time snowboarding. Because he’s inexperienced at this activity, we can say that he is a newbie. But again, remember, connotation(隐含意义) of this expression is that you are talking down to someone when you call them a noob. So just be careful that you don’t offend someone by using this expression correctly.

Example II

A: Hey, you want to play basketball on Saturday?

B: Maybe, where? Down at the park?A: Yeah, it will be fun.

B: I don’t know. I’m just a newbie though. Those guys down at the park are really good.

A: Come on. It will be fun.

In this example, we see someone say ‘I am just a newbie though’. This means that this person is not experienced or is not good at the game of basketball. So he doesn’t want to play with other experienced players. This is a great example that you can use this expression to describe yourself whenever you are talking about something you like to do but you are not confident about doing. It’s a nice to say that you are interested in doing something, but you are not good at it.