5.8: Miscellany

Welcome

The dialogue at the end of this unit contains an expression used for welcoming someone to a place. Explicit welcomes are probably more likely to be seen written on signs in shops than spoken, but they are not out of place with foreigners. The verbs are huānyíng ‘welcome’ and lái ‘come’. With the verb lái, destinations (rather than locations per se) can follow directly without any equivalent to the English preposition ‘to’: lái Běijīng, lái Guǎngzhōu. Notice that in English, the people being welcomed (‘you’) are not mentioned, while in Chinese, they are (nǐmen): 

Huānyíng nǐmen lái Chéngdū!

Welcome to Chengdu.

In Chinese settings, explicit thanks are usually reserved for favors that go beyond the expected. But given the airport context, an expression of gratitude as a response to the welcome is not inappropriate. This one involves the verbs xiè ‘to thank’ – frequently repeated as xièxie – and the verb, jiē ‘to meet; join’. The order is like that of English, but Chinese eschews connective words like ‘to’ and ‘for’. (‘Thank you for coming to meet us’ appears in Chinese as simply ‘thank you come meet us’.)

Xièxie nǐmen lái jiē wǒmen.

Thanks for coming to meet us.

In China, shops and other business establishments often have a formal expression of welcome written near the entrance. This expression is: 欢迎光临 huānyíng guānglín, or xièxie guānglín (both with the preferred four syllables). Guānglín, literally ‘illustrious presence’, is a fancy word for ‘guest’ or ‘visitor’. Sometimes, especially at openings or sales, ‘welcome hostesses’ (huānyíng xiǎojie), stationed at the shop entrance wearing red costumes, will welcome or thank you with the same phrases.

[image with caption]

Particles

In addition to ma and ne, there are two other common final particles which have been encountered in the first two units. One is the particle a, which among its diverse functions, gives a hearty tone to statements or exclamations, and which slightly softens the abruptness of questions:

Lěng a!	[Wow, it]’s cold!
Máng a!	Busy, huh?!
Shéi a?	[Knock, knock.] Who [is it]?

The other is ba, which is associated with suggestion or consensus:

Zǒu ba.	Let’s go.
Nà hǎo ba.	That’s fine then.
Shàngchē ba.	Let’s board the bus.

Praise

Chinese will praise your efforts to speak their language (called Zhōngwén or Hànyǔ), and will typically make use of an expression involving the verb shuō ‘speak’ (or, in southern Mandarin, jiǎng) followed by the particle +de. If you wonder whether this +de is the same as the possessive de introduced earlier in this unit, the answer is that it is not. This +de is followed by SV expressions (eg an adverb plus a SV): shuō+de hěn hǎo. The other is either followed by a noun (wǒ de shūbāo) or has the potential to be followed by a noun (wǒ de [shūbāo]). Were meaning and distribution not sufficient evidence for positing two different de’s, we should cite the fact that they are also written with different characters, 的 (wǒ de) and 得 (shuō+de), respectively. So in order to make the distinction clear (and prepare you for writing different characters), we write the former as de and the latter as +de. You should do the same.

Zhōngwén shuō+de hěn hǎo. ~ jiǎng+de hěn hǎo.

[You] speak Chinese very well.

To which you respond, modestly, that in fact you don’t speak at all well:

Shuō+de bù hǎo. ~ jiǎng+de bù hǎo.

[I] speak very poorly.

The latter can be preceded by the expression nǎlǐ (often repeated), which is the [more formal] word for ‘where’, but which is also used to deflect praise, as if questioning its basis:

Nǎlǐ, nǎlǐ, shuō+de bù hǎo. ~ jiǎng+de bù hǎo.

Nah, I speak rather badly.

When you see more examples, you will find that nothing can intervene in the combination shuō+de. So if Zhōngwén (or Hànyǔ) is mentioned, it cannot directly follow shuō, but needs to be cited first, as shown in the examples above. Since Chinese are so gracious about praising one’s feeble efforts to speak their language, it is good to get used to this interchange early. For now, though, practice it only as it appears, and only with the verb shuō and its southern Mandarin counterpart, jiǎng.