{"id":114,"date":"2016-07-10T22:29:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T20:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.duchinese.net\/blog-wp\/2016\/07\/10\/35-usages-of-not-found-in-textbooks\/"},"modified":"2016-07-10T22:29:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T20:29:57","slug":"35-usages-of-not-found-in-textbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/2016\/07\/10\/35-usages-of-not-found-in-textbooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Usages of \u90a3\u4e2a Not Found in Textbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

If someone were to ask you \u201cDo you know how to use \u90a3\u4e2a?\u201d your answer would probably be \u201dyes\u201d.
\nOf course, \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d is a very common word in Chinese, and everyone who has studied for a while has come across it. A lot of Chinese grammar books will explain the basic usage of \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d, but there are some usages you might not know. Many of these only appear in spoken language, so many textbooks and dictionaries will not mention them.<\/p>\n

In this blog post, we take a look at some of these spoken language usages of \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d. Learn them, and you will be able to speak more like the Chinese.<\/p>\n

\u90a3\u4e2a has two pronunciations: \u201cn\u00e0 ge\u201d and \u201cn\u00e8i ge\u201d, with \u201cn\u00e8i ge\u201d being more common in spoken language. The basic meaning of \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d is \u201cthat\u201d. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

Now that we’ve reviewed the basic meaning of \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d, let’s take a look at some other useful everyday usages.<\/p>\n

Used to fill pauses. Like \u201cuhh\u201d or \u201cwell\u201d.<\/h4>\n

Sometimes you get stuck in the middle of a sentence, perhaps because you\u2019re looking for the proper word or expression to use. In English, when you are thinking you might use \u201cuhh\u201d, \u201cumm\u201d, or \u201cwell\u201d to fill up the pause, right? In this situation you can use \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d in Chinese. For example: <\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

In this sentence, the girl just wanted to say \u201c\u6628zu\u00f3<\/rt>\u5929ti\u0101n<\/rt>\u6211w\u01d2<\/rt>\u4eecmen<\/rt>\u53bbq\u00f9<\/rt>\u6e38y\u00f3u<\/rt>\u4e50l\u00e8<\/rt>\u56edyu\u00e1n<\/rt><\/ruby>\uff0c\u5750zu\u00f2<\/rt>\u4e86le<\/rt>\u65b0x\u012bn<\/rt>\u5f00k\u0101i<\/rt>\u7684de<\/rt>\u8fc7gu\u00f2<\/rt>\u5c71sh\u0101n<\/rt>\u8f66ch\u0113<\/rt><\/ruby>\uff0c\u53efk\u011b<\/rt>\u597dh\u01ceo<\/rt>\u73a9w\u00e1n<\/rt>\u4e86le<\/rt><\/ruby>\u201d, but she forgot the name of the attraction and filled the pause with two \u90a3\u4e2a after \u201c\u5750\u4e86\u201d and \u201c\u65b0\u5f00\u7684\u201d until she recalled it.<\/p>\n

Used to soften an expression, or to express something you don’t want to say directly<\/h4>\n

For example:<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

In this sentence you can see that B wants to refuse A, but doesn’t want to say it directly. So B used \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d to make the expression softer.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

In the same way as above, the girls wants to say \u201cYour attitude is too rude\u201d, but didn\u2019t want to use the word \u201crude\u201d directly. Instead she uses \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d to represent \u201crude\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sex, Period<\/h4>\n

Many Chinese do not feel comfortable talking openly about things like sex, and don’t like to use words like \u201c\u505azu\u00f2<\/rt>\u7231\u00e0i<\/rt><\/ruby> (make love)\u201d or \u201c\u6708yu\u00e8<\/rt>\u7ecfj\u012bng<\/rt><\/ruby> (Period)\u201d. Instead of them, of course they use \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

Do you understand how to use \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d now? Try it out and I\u2019m sure your Chinese friends will think: \u201cWow, your Chinese is like that of a native speaker!\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

This is the accompanying blog post for our newbie lesson “Is that Daddy?<\/a>“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If someone were to ask you \u201cDo you know how to use \u90a3\u4e2a?\u201d your answer would probably be \u201dyes\u201d. Of course, \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d is a very common word in Chinese, and everyone who has studied for a while has come across it. A lot of Chinese grammar books will explain the basic usage of \u201c\u90a3\u4e2a\u201d, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/7a3c4b7885743c07fd632f24a8f73d0594bbdc33-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duchinese.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}