Tag Archives: interjections
Top 11 Mandarin Speech Particles
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 […]
11 Words for “Indeed” in Chinese
In natural conversation, one inevitably finds oneself agreeing with the other party, and yet at the same time, one does not want to just keep saying 是 shì (“Yes”), 嗯 ǹg (“Mmm/Yeah”), or even 同意 (“I agree!”) which is quite formal. 我也这么感觉 wǒ yě zhème gǎnjué (“I feel that way too”) sounds pretty good, but […]
A Comprehensive Guide to Western Transliterations in Chinese
Loan words from English and other Western languages in Mandarin have always interested me for a variety of reasons. However unlike Japanese, Chinese seems very cautious to import words directly into its lexicon via transliteration (that is, creating a new word by matching the sounds of the original one using Mandarin syllables). This post will […]
15+ Ways To Say “You’re Welcome”
It is true that we have quite a few ways to express “you’re welcome” in English – “no problem”, “no worries”, “forget it”, “my pleasure”, “not at all”, to name a few. But how about Chinese? Here, I think, is the most exhaustive list you’ll find on the web: 不客气 bù kèqi (variants: 不用客气 bùyòng […]
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