That’s one way of putting it. (Photo: Craig Silverstein)

One of the most perplexing language issues at the Olympic games is how to translate the all-purpose Chinese cheer, “加油!” (jiayou!), into English (or any other language).

加 means to “add.” 油 means “oil” or “fuel.” (And technically gas stations are often called 加油站, or jiayou stops). But it’s almost never chanted in the context of a gas station. Instead, you’ll hear it often chanted at these Olympic games when the audience wants the competitors to dig deep and put in an extra effort. Here is a YouTube video explaining how to chant 加油 to go with the official Olympic civilized chant hand gestures).

But around the Web you can find a variety of struggles as the Chinese try to translate this all-purpose cheer into English. (On some chat boards it even makes it into the category of most frequently asked translations.)

At the nail-biting China-Spain basketball game on Tuesday, thousands of Chinese fans performed the wave, which they call the “Mexican wave.” (Are Mexicans known for doing the wave? They are in China, and apparently in Britain and among scientists too). The fans also cheered “加油! 加油!” In that context the chant would seem best colloquially translated as “Go team! Go!” Except that 加油! can be used in contexts where there is no team to do the going, like a marathon or judo match.

So at the game, the big Jumbotron screen flashed “Let’s go!” in green when it had 加油! That seems like a good, all-purpose translation.

But at an Indian restaurant in China (with a buffet!), the staff handed out flags that said “加油”, where it was translated at “Come on!” One translation blog offers “come on” (as well as “go go go” and “hop on”). But Come on! doesn’t have the same sportsy chanting rhythm to it.

Another blog offers to translate it into different languages like Spanish (Vamos!) and Korean (파이팅! which apparently is rough transliteration of the English world “fighting” — bringing back fond memories of the last two World Cups, where “Korea Team Fighting!” was a popular, and much remarked-upon refrain).

But the tricky thing is that 加油 is not just used in sports contexts. It’s also a way to encourage people to persevere through other sorts of difficulty. For example, after the Sichuan earthquake in May, 中国加油 (zhongguo jiayou, or China jiayou) and 汶川加油 (Wenchuan jiayou, Wenchuan was one of the hardest hit areas) became rallying cries in China. It’s a way of expressing sympathy, support and solidarity that “Let’s go” doesn’t quite capture.

But leaving the China-Spain basketball game, I saw a bunch of middle-aged Chinese men in white T-shirts that said 加油中国 in red lettering. They must have used an automatic translator for the English (perhaps Google’s), because it read: “Refueling China!”