Criteria: common enough to be known by most native speakers, but special enough to only be used in specific situations.
1. 哼 hēng – “humph!” – cute, feminine, expresses disagreement in a pouting (撒娇) tone – 哼,有什么了不起!— Humph! What’s so special about that?
2. 咳哟 hāiyō – “heave-ho!”* – 咳哟,这货物怎么这么沉呢?— Heave-ho! How can these goods be so heavy?
3. 嚯 / 嚄 huò – “woah!” – 嚯,这东西够结实啊!— Woah, this stuff is strong!
4. 喏 nuò – “hey, look!” or “there!” – 喏,那不就是你的雨伞?— There, isn’t that your umbrella?
5. 嗬 hē – “ah!”, “wow!” or “woah!” – 嗬,你真行! — Wow, you’re really great!
6. 呸 pēi – “whatever!” or “bah!” – 呸,他算老几?— Whatever, you’re a nobody.
7. 咦 yí – “hey!”, cute tone – 咦,这是怎么回事?— Ah? What’s going on?
8. 嘞 lēi – cute, feminine, common online –走嘞!— Let’s go!
9. 喽 lou – feminine, teacher-like tone – 大家都坐好喽!— Everyone sit down please.
10. 咳 hài – “huh!”, apathetic or sorrowful tone – 咳,谁知道 — Ugh, who knows.
11. 噗 pū – sighing tone – 噗,你刚才说什么?— *Sigh*, what did you say?
* also used to joke about the sound of sex
Brilliant post. This sort of thing goes a long way to sounding more native. I’m always impressed when foreigners master things like this in English. And this list of example sentences will go nicely into Anki 🙂
yes, i remember when i was saying 哎呀 just to kind of make fun, and now i do it’s so natural i didn’t notice i said it, until my western friends pointed it out 🙂
Corrections:
1. 呸,他算老几?— Whatever, he’s a nobody. (I f you want to say “呸, 你算老几?“, “Who do you think you are, ah?” might be better, me thinks)
2. 嘞 doesnt have to be “feminine”. According to Baidu. Dic “助词,与“喽1”相似:别玩了,咱们回家~!”, so i guess this speech particle can be used by female(mostly kids) as well.
3. 噗 is not exactly a signing tone. To the best of my knowledge, this particle refers to a certain sound of laughter, like in the situation where you’re about to burst into langhter. See also, “噗哧”. Example: 只见噗哧的一声,众人哄然一笑。
Lemme know what you think.
Cheers
Interesting post!
May I point out one typo?
No. 9 should be “坐“(verb, which means “sit”)instead of ”座“(noun, which means “seat”).
Oh thanks for pointing that out, will fix it now. Cheers.
Great article! Do you know how these differ regionally? I’ve mainly learnt Chinese in Taiwan and I have seldom heard/seen “嚯 / 嚄 huò”. I think the others are more common, but I’m not sure how common. I suppose this will vary within Mainland China as well.