Kouyu 口语 help!

[Huang Jialuo]

Hey everyone,

I have a test tomorrow. Actually more like today; it is 口语 as a matter of fact.

I wanted to ask a few things that remain unclear to me. When in class my teacher always entonates or gives special pronounced focus to some words in class, but I notice that actually this focus is mainly given to adverbs, as opposed to other kinds of 词。

比如说：她可漂亮了！

你真厉害！

他怎么这么累！

你太懒了！

Also, I don't understand very well when to use 吧，呀，嘛，etc.

What about the difference in the use of these: 也，又，还，再。

I have yet other questions but these are the ,most demanding.

[dufresne]

也 means "too"、"also"。

examples:

A:你吃了吗？（Have you had your meal?)

B:我吃了，你呢？(Yes ,and you?)

A:我也吃了。(I had too.)

A：你多大了？(How old are you?)

B：我23岁。(I'm twenty-three.)

A：我也23。(me too.)

C（may say）：我也23。(I'm twenty-three too.)

又 means "again"

examples:

你又迟到了。(You are late again.)

还 means "still" and 还没 means "not yet"

还 means stay in some state and have not change yet.

examples:

我还很饿。(I'm still hungry.)

他还没走。(He has not left.)

再 meas "do it again" or "something happens again"

如果再下雨，我就去买把伞。（If it rains again,I will buy a umbrella.)

你的考试再不及格，你就要留级了。（If you fail your exam again, you will fail to go up to the next grade.)

再给我一杯咖啡。(Give me a cup of coffee more.)

I dont know wether the English expression is right.

[LaoZhang]

you can find 真 and 太 in a dictionary, both kind of mean "really" or "very." 太 also means "too" when it has a negative sense (you're too lazy=negative")

他怎么这么累！

this one is a little more tricky because it uses 怎么 (how, why) which is usually used in questions. So this one's like saying "Why you so tired!?" (declarative statement) or "You so tired!" or "Dang you tired"

Good luck on your exam

马到成功

[LaoLiang]

This is indeed 口语 and is quite difficult to define, you can be sure it changes within different areas in China. Here's my general "intuition" about these four examples:

比如说：她可漂亮了！

Mostly in Positive context, "enhances". You an also use to state that something is very full etc.

你真厉害！

Used in both contexts but can also be used as a double meaning depending on intonation as in a sarcastic manner "you are really good" meaning that you are in fact a wanker.

他怎么这么累！

Again, depending on intonation it can be seen as if the speaker is "disagreeing" with the subject's state of being and rebukes them about it. You know you were supposed to work today, why are you so tired?

你太懒了！

Again the 太 can be used in both contexts of positive and negative.

[Huang Jialuo]

oh cool! thanks very much for helping me determine the various uses of these words.. I already knew some, but yeah.. now I know more.. actually my problem is sometimes finding the right part of the sentence in which to make the intonation.. I figured this stressed intonation was only applied on adverbs, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the exam.. aced it. I mean I guess it is not that much of an achievement considering there is much harder chinese than what has been taught to me, but it at least gives me a stone with which to start stepping forward.. thanks y'all!