shao and xiao

shadow22
 November 22, 2011 at 07:23 PM posted in I Have a Question

I am having trouble with sorting out between the use of shao and xiao, they seem to be somewhat interchangable? xie xie,thank you

Cody

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westend
 November 22, 2011 at 08:50 PM

People use "shao" to count number. For example, if a class has few students, you can say "zhe ge jiao shi de xue sheng hen shao."  People use "xiao" to count a material is big or small. You can say this is a small room (zhe ge fang jian hen xiao).

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shadow22
 November 25, 2011 at 06:15 PM

我明白 wo mingbai

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toianw
 November 23, 2011 at 06:03 PM

That's right. You can use xiao3 (the same character as small) followed by a person's family name. It's used to address someone younger than you (though usually only once you have a reasonably close freindship/relationship with them).

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shadow22
 November 23, 2011 at 03:46 AM

Is it xiao that is used in front of a name sometimes? If so why? Xie xie ni