Wow. Quite surprised with the 'zai jian' . I know about the overuse of 'ni hao ma'. The 'nali nali' response to a compliment being replaced by 'mei you mei you' is certainly interesting. But 'mama hu hu' is way too much fun not to say. I think I'll keep that one. 😁🤣
As a native speaker, I would say many of what’s mentioned are regional differences. People in the northern provinces do say these phrases. But people in the south which I think where Grace is from, especially Taiwan use a different set of phrases.
When my parents were in China to adopt my sister, they saw basically everyone use the word “Wei” as a greeting, and we used this word almost every day when my sister was littler, so she could still hear her native language being used, and so she didn’t feel left out of her own culture. I still say “Zaoshang hao, mei mei, or Zaoshang hao, bei bei, as a greeting. And I call her “mao,” bc she loves kittens! 😍
This is an important video for Chinese language learners to use, and definitely reflects everyday language better than what's in some books. Something that I had trouble understanding were degrees of bad to so-so/ok to good. A line with lots of these expressions for comparison would be great if there isn't already a lesson/video about it. For example, I used to think hái hǎo 還好 was ok (pretty good), but was told that it is more on the negative side, so if you say something's hái hǎo 還好, it's more of a criticism than neutral thought. But where on the negative to positive spectrum does it fall compared to other expressions such as bùcuò 不錯 or hái kěyǐ 還可以? It's like how in English, people may interpret subtle differences between ok, so-so, not bad, average, pretty good. Edit: I originally said that I'd consider the first 4 to be similar, but after thinking about it more (see below), in terms of better to worse, I'd say pretty good is better than not bad, which is better than ok, so-so, and average.
@@chenkiwi0211 Interesting! My wife tends to use hái hǎo 還好 when she doesn't particularly like something, but wants to be polite about it, so my impression was that it'd be like a 40 or so. I think people can have different feelings about "not bad," but now that you're making me think about it more, I think I would put it at like a 60, so a little better than ok, so-so, or average. I'd say "pretty good" is more in the 70 to 80 range. I'll edit my original comment and flip things to traditional Chinese :)
@@chenkiwi0211 不錯 is more similar to "pretty good" in English. 還好 is more similar to "not bad". (Consider "Not good, but also not bad") Of course, everyone interprets these slightly differently, but I'd put them as: Great > Good > Pretty good > Not bad/Alright > Okay/Fine > Not great/Not good > Bad
@@chenkiwi0211 for the English equivalents I think tone matters a lot. Just saying okay with different intonation can change the meaning from negative to positive. I wonder if it's the same in Chinese?
That’s why I prefer youtubers like you over textbooks. Learning through a textbook is great for grammar, but for words and phrases, I just have more trust hearing directly from a native speaker. Thx for explaining all this! Also, I hope you had fun hanging out with Andrew! So cool that you met up. He said that he even showed you my discord message that day🤓lol
I think I'd only used zai jian when I'm saying bye to teachers in school. It seems more formal and you actually see them again the next day in school so the meaning of the word fits. But you really dont use zai jian for friends/family because it just sounds so formal/uptight.
No to do with the film, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed since youtube did this new look, I don't get pinged when I would before. I haven't been pinged for the last at least 4 films on your channel Grace laoshi. I'll watch them now. And I've clicked on the bell again!
So interesting, we have the same in French, "comme-ci comme ça" is never used by native speakers, who would prefer to say "bof" (very familiar) or "moyen" :D
Much appreciate the dual text presentation, i.e.; simplified and traditional characters and both pinyin and bopomo. Most happy if I find more like that since I am too dull to learn the bopomo by myself， and I really like the elegance of the fántǐzì. I'm pretty lazy about learning Chinese and haven't watched your clips before. You might just be the thing that gets me back on the old horse. Like the man sez, 多謝多謝
Thanks Grace! I always thought it was weird that I've never heard anyone use zai jian. One of the first phrases that they teach us and nobody uses it lol
Especially because, as new learners, we want to use these new phrases when speaking with Chinese people (for practice as well as to show goodwill), but then they just say “bye-bye” to each other. Saying it back makes me feel like I’m NOT putting in effort to learn the language, since it’s a borrowed English phrase… but oh well 🙃 (Not to mention “hi”, “hello”, and “hey”! But at least 你好 is still plenty common; I imagine I’ll use that one most.)
I heard it used over the phone by a middle aged Taiwanese man yesterday… he just said “nali”. It threw me off because I haven’t heard anyone use it in a long time.
My take on so-so: "so so" is used, but only when evaluating a state (how is it? hmmm...so so) but I agree it is quite rare. One thing though, is both syllables have to be stressed but the first one is stronger. I you de-stress the second syllable, many native speakers will not understand cos it sounds like you're saying or mispronouncing "social"
As foreigners, we think of 你好嗎?, as also saying "How are you?", since we usually say that right after saying hello anyways. How can we say that then? I have never heard anyone say 你(過得)怎麼樣？So how?
Think it's also important to hear in mind the differences across the strait, however, the majority of what Grace said still applies on the Mainland, eg 你好嗎not commonly used and 馬馬虎虎 not meaning so so, it should be 還可以吧 你好嗎 is not commonly used anywhere, the best substitute is 吃了飯沒？(Have you had lunch/dinner yet?) 好久不見 is more commonly 好久沒見 on the Mainland 哪裡哪裡 and 再見 is more acceptable on the Mainland， though 哪裡哪裡 can be seen as sounding a bit pretentious 再見 however is almost never used in daily Cantonese other than greeting your teachers at school or if you are a TV reporter (in which case it would be the even more formal 再會)
1) Not to sound contentious, but factual & countrrfactual(hypothetical) are from Verb modes factual =!indicative mode Counter or hypo include imperative- mild suggestion to strong command conditional if situation, etc . becomes fact, then 2nd can also become fact subjunctive from mild to strong possibility of situation, etc could become fact. verbs also have aspects- to start, to continue, to repeat, to finish, verbs also have times time point (point in time, chronological) time length (duration) time no. (frequency) all these can overlap. For Chinese counter/hypo Li Tuo Kobe Comparison of .Subjunctive Mode in English & Spanish English version 3! parts, Chinese 2 parts Chinese Counterfactual Subjunctive (& Conditionsl) What IfbChinese Had Linguistic Markers for Counterfactual Chines & English Counterfactual etc, websites. I sincerely hope that Ms. Grace can fully understand &’explain/ use these-/ they appear very useful, but difficult to understand. Xiexie Grace Laoshi!! Zhu ni hao yunqi!!
Well.. This is my first time I watch a video for you little lady... So easy and so useful... It's encouraged me to know about Chinese language and even try to learn it. Thank you.🌹🌹🌹
That's so cool! It's very true that no native english speaker nowadays says "so so" as an expression for "kind of" or "maybe". Yet we all pretty much know what it means. Interestingly, I hear non native speakers use that phrase the most. Very informative video. Keep up the amazing work. This is useful and love that you enunciated the words clearly for us 谢谢你！
A lot of Taiwanese, if not every Taiwanese people I met, used "seldom" instead of rarely. I was so confused to why they all used such an advanced rare word even when they are beginners! 😅
another thing I noticed is that if you're Taiwanese above the age of 40 and learned English in Taiwan, you might pronounce the h in words like where, when, why, what, which (oh, I think that's all of them), like in old-fashioned English, whereas in most English speaking countries only 'who' is still pronounced that way nowadays.
@@jw1731 I'm a native English speaker in my 50s and only a tiny percentage of people pronounce the "h" in those words. I've never met anybody who does it for only some of the words and not others. There are other such words by the way, such as "white".
I would love to hear about some more words that are popular in Taiwanese Mandarin because of Japanese. I like to toss in 和製漢語 in my Mandarin for the fun of it, to see if people get it; but I'm sure there are some that are just normal words in Mandarin now.
Don't give up! I look at my daughter who spent 2 years to learn how to count to 20 and say the alphabet... why are we in such a rush to master a language in 2 months?
My students here in Taiwan constantly use "so so". It makes me crazy! 😅 Native speakers barely ever say it, so I always tell them, "So-so is a no-no." 😂 Maybe we can make a similar phrase for 馬馬虎虎... 【馬馬虎虎？啊！啊！不！不！】
when i use 马马虎虎 馬馬虎虎 for chitchat, its weird! (i feeling weird too when i said this) then my friend suggest for saying 还行/還行. althought at the past i still beginner , but i have feeling weird about horse tiger for say "still good"
My Mandarin reader book said Husband/Wife is Ai-ren (not lao-gong or lao-po)? ....and doctor is Daifu (not yi-sheng). I am Cantonese, and my reader seemed strange / confusing, so I ignored it.
Hi! This one is a bit tricky😅 Because in the dictionary, it should be "一 ㄅㄢ", but many people would say "ㄧˋ ㄅㄢ" (it might also be a regional difference). So I decided to write the correct Pinyin/Zhuyin spelling and pronounce it how I usually do.
The first is true, just as real-world English speakers rarely say "How are you". The next few items are not impossible to appear in the dialogue, but they are more old-fashioned.
So how, in English, do we ask someone how they are? Sure, maybe not exactly the words "How are you?" but perhaps, "How's it going?" or "What's up?" But surely there is a time when we do ask, "How are you?" when we are genuinely concerned about that person's condition or well being, especially when we haven't seen that person for a long time or if we know that he/she had been unwell or had been through a tough time. Really, "How are you?" is certainly still used and it's certainly not the same as "ni hao" (which only means "hello").
Why are people ever using 你好吗 when there is 你怎么样? It feels incredibly strange, like why would you choose to word the question "are you good?" instead of "how are you?", when the literal translation for "how are you?" is just there 😂
Why do you want to replace "ni hao ma" with "ni hao"? They carry different meanings! "Ni hao ma?" means "Are you well?" or "How are you?" which can be replaced by "ni zenme yang?" or just "zenme yang?" But "ni hao" just means "hello" or "hi" so how could it replace "How are you?"?
Yes, they have different meanings, but they're both greetings. "Nǐ hǎo ma" is basically never used irl, so she's offering suggestions on things to say instead, but not necessarily as an equivalent replacement for "how are you". I think a way to carry a similar meaning would be a "zěnme yàng" = "what's up".... but if 怎么样 is also obsolete... please let me know haha
@@andrepark1797 Let me ask, is there not any situation when you want to or need to ask someone how they are? I can think of situations in English and I have asked people many times, "How are you?" so why not also in Chinese? Especially with older folks, I actually ask them, "nei ho ma?" (that's in Cantonese, by the way). Or if I haven't seen someone for a long time, "How have you been?" Or if I've heard that someone had not been well, "How are you?"
@@MisterHowzat “ni hao ma” doesn’t sound like you are asking how the person is doing. It just sounds like a greeting, kind of like “howdy”. It may not necessarily prompt the person to tell you how they’ve been. If I really wanted to know how they’re doing, I would ask 你最近好嗎 or 你最近怎麼樣. If they look visibly unwell I may ask 怎麼了 and 你還好嗎
This is such a good question and a rly interesting topic. It's logical to suggest that since the longterm goal of language learning is to understand and to be understood, one shouldn't worry about sounding native/normal as long as they can communicate effectively. I think the heart of the issue is that apart from its dictionary definition, a word also carries with it a connotation which has developed over the many times it has been used. I guess what makes my understanding of an english word 'native' is that its meaning, to me, is combination of every context I've heard it said. Regarding 'seldom,' I think it just wasn't a perfect example for this video. The problem isn't that seldom isn't used/understood by native speakers, the problem is that in modern english I think it tends to be more common in formal/written english, which makes it feel out of place in the context of a casual/spoken sentence, even if the meaning is understood. Also, to me at least it kinda carries a bit of a negative/sad connotation. Another point is that if 'seldom' fits just as well as 'rarely' or 'not often' in this context, then what is the point of having all the different words? Their value comes from the fact that they convey slightly different connotations, and I think that listening/reading to your target language until you can hear and feel those connotations is probably necessary to communicate with precision
@@tebby24 I agree for the most part, only I don’t think that a person has to understand every context, especially not words that have developed over time, also known as slang, if that’s what you meant. I write a lot, so I notice that at times, I can pick more intricate words, but people tend to see them for the base of what the are. They tend to never notice the intricacy, and just substitute it for the synonym that they TRULY know anyways. Ultimately, it chalks up to an,”If you know you know”, situation. I also constantly google words I hear, and save them. Basically, I don’t believe that the understanding of intricate connotations that a specific word conveys matter in terms of fluency. It only matters if you get the jist enough so that if someone says it, it wouldn’t become a stumbling block, and can still understand, keep up, and continue. Even natives have problems with definitions too.
As a Brit in 30s I would say I hear so-so much more from non native speakers using English than we do, and that's stood out to me. There's nothing wrong with using it but I'd think of it as pretty old fashioned, I don't think I've ever said it.
Hi as a native Chinese speaker who’ve met foreigners from different countries, I am actually surprised to find that Chinese is probably the only language without “How are you” in its everyday usage.. we just don’t greet people with 你好吗 except in one situation when something bad happened to the one you talk to and you ask him with 你好吗 to find out if he is ok but this is still rarely used. So we use 你最近怎么样，how are you doing lately as the most common used way to greet people and check out if they are ok. If it’s new friend you can just say “nice to meet you” after Nihao. Chinese people are just not used to check out people’s state of being upon meeting, even we know it may be just a way to greet to people in Western culture, we think 你好吗 is way too intimate in almost all circumstances.
I think it would be better if you state your channel is Taiwan specific and just get rid of the simplified, because i feel like most of these are used in China, but not common in Taiwan. Some i feel are pretty common too, i remember saying zai jian every day in china, but i never use in taiwan. I feel like the text books in taiwan really are WEIRD in that they include a lot of china chinese which is almost never used in taiwan, like, why fool the students like that? its super dumb.
In dramas when the overberaring CEO bullies the female she will get mad and leave playfully after saying 再见 emphasizing every character If they had a good time before she will very shyly say 拜拜 and the last bai will sound like a whisper.
