很久没见了

[Vitas]

很久没见了 is a common way to greet people ( usually acquaintances ) in chinese.

lately i saw an chinese movie in which an english speaker said "long time no see" as friendly greeting to his chinese friend.

do english speakers really say something like that in their daily conversations? ( even if he is not talking to someone from china)

I know this might not be related to chinese learning. but can any of you guys help me with this

thx

[skylee]

I think it actually comes from Cantonese 好耐無見 . Some info ->

http://www.answers.com/topic/long-time-no-see

http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?tid=502924

[Vitas]

thx for your quick reply and the useful links.

i really have no idea about whether or not "long time no see" originates from cantonese. but 好耐无见 is indeed frequently used in cantonese

in mainland china, we seldem use traditional chinese characters, and i never learned anything about that either. yet, i have no trouble at all understanding them ( don't know why...), although i know little about how to write chinese in the traditional form.

also, i am curious about whether people from hk like you can understand simplified characters as well as us.

[skylee]

i am curious about whether people from hk like you can understand simplified characters as well as us.

Personally I have no problem understanding simplified script. Generally speaking I think many HK people are capable of understanding simplified script because a) we travel there, B) we do business there, c) lots of HK men marry mainland women, d) lots of mainland people move to HK, e) it is taught at school (but it is not the official script here).

But frankly I prefer traditional characters unless I don't have a choice.

[HashiriKata]

"Long time no see!" is also commonly used in the UK among friends.

By the way, apart from "很久没见了", I've also seen "好久不见" but is "好久不见" also a correct way to say ??

[Vitas]

both 很久没见了 and好久不见 are correct ways to say "long time no see" in chinese

generally, 很 can be replaced with 好 when it it is used as an adv, but i think taiwaness use 好 more often than mainland chinese people.

in addition, as 很 is a rarely used word in cantonese, when a native cantonese speaker tries to learn mandarin, he probably prefers 好 to 很

Apparently long time no see is grammatically incorrect in english. so i used to doubt whether english speaking people would really use this "broken english"

[Vitas]

Personally I have no problem understanding simplified script. Generally speaking I think many HK people are capable of understanding simplified script because a) we travel there, B) we do business there, c) lots of HK men marry mainland women, d) lots of mainland people move to HK, e) it is taught at school (but it is not the official script here).

But frankly I prefer traditional characters unless I don't have a choice.

i think i also figure out that i maybe unconsciosly picked up some knowledge about traditional characters in hk movies. in my mind, hk movies have an great impact on chinese speaking people, even on asia people as a whole, although hk's movie industry is not as influencial as it used to be

[HashiriKata]

generally, 很 can be replaced with 好 when it it is used as an adv, but i think taiwaness use 好 more often than mainland chinese people.

My question was actually about the difference in the verb 没见 vs 不见. I'm curious because the difference in the verb doesn't seem to make any difference in the greetings:

好久没见了! =

好久不见了!

[gougou]

Once I used something like 好久没见，or 好久没见了， and was corrected that I should say 好久不见。A textbook I use has 好久没见啦，though.

[Vitas]

My question was actually about the difference in the verb 没见 vs 不见. I'm curious because the difference in the verb doesn't seem to make any difference in the greetings:

好久没见了! =

好久不见了!

没见 and 不见 really don't make any difference in the meaning of the two sentences.

by the way, 没 and 不 are usually used to make a word or statement negative, so in fact 见 is the only verb in the above greetings

Once I used something like 好久没见，or 好几没见了， and was corrected that I

should say 好久不见。A textbook I use has 好久没见啦，though.

The expression "long time no see" has various different ways to say in chinese.

see

好/很久没/不见(你/您/other personal pronouns apart from "i"...)（了/啦）

i think you can understand it. (/) is used to show alternatives, while words in brackets can be taken away. so i don't know why you are corrected when you said something like 好久没见, it is indeed perfect chinese.

but 好几没见 is a wrong chinese sentence, but i think you probably had mistyped "几" as "久")

besides, 啦 is a modal particle, and i think you alread know that.

[gougou]

but 好几没见 is a wrong chinese sentence, but i think you probably had mistyped "几" as "久")

Woops. Corrected!

[Lu]

'Long time no see' is an existing expression in English, even though it's grammatically incorrect. I read somewhere that actually the English comes from the Chinese, the Chinese translated their Hao jiu bu jian into pidgin English, and the English borrowed the expression.