User Comments - suntzu8
suntzu8
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 12, 2008 at 6:24 AMI'm probably at elementary level right now and I have found two other "you3" related verbs to be handy. yǒuyìsi (有意思） - interesting yǒuyòng （有用） - useful
Posted on: Name-Calling, Chinese-Style
April 12, 2008 at 3:31 AMI found a list of Mandarin slang on Wikipedia, believe it or not, complete with pinyin translations. Some of the words there are quite nasty! If you go to Wikipedia and search for "mandarin slang" you should find it . (I didn't want to paste the link here because I am not sure about what the discussion forum policy is regarding linking to outside websites).
Posted on: Ending your sentence with 嘛 （ma)
April 14, 2008 at 12:46 PMWow. Thanks for this QW! I also take Chinese lessons with a tutor (we use a textbook as the foundation) and I own a bunch of different texts, dictionaries etc. However, you never find this sort of daily occuring and useful stuff in texts. The "filler" / delay ma is very interesting. Although it doesn't seem to have the functionality of some of the other patterns (ex. yue...yue lai...), I think that for a person like me at the humble elementary level its really useful. As I try to construct longer and more complex sentences, I sometimes have a pause as I try to find the right word. Like Clay mentioned, it might be nice to have something to substitute "ummmmmmmm" with. The filler/delay pause reminds me of the word "na4me" (which means so or in that case) as I hear used at the beginning of a sentence in the same sort of delay pause fashion. I guess the difference here is that the filler "ma" doesn't get used at the beginning of the sentence, only in the middle.