胡说八道

Pronunciation: hú shuō bā dào Literal meaning: Reckless speak eight ways

Origin & Usage

胡 originally names the northern and western peoples beyond the Chinese frontier, so 胡说 is talking the way a foreigner talks — unintelligibly, and by implication without sense. 八道 is generally taken as a garbling of the Buddhist eightfold path, which would make the phrase doubly dismissive of foreign doctrine. It is blunt, entirely colloquial and rather rude: it accuses the speaker of nonsense rather than of error, and no polite conversation contains it.

Examples

English: "The conspiracy theorist's explanation lacked any factual foundation"

Chinese: 阴谋论者的解释毫无事实依据