Using 那 instead of 哪

[renzhe]

I've recently found that the comic that I'm reading right now consistently uses 那 instead of 哪. So the questions are asked in the following form:

你去那里？

我那里是。。。什么的？

You can tell that it's a question because of the question mark, but it still throws me off regularly.

I haven't heard a good explanation from native speakers, short of "they don't know Chinese", but this is a bit strange as the thing was published in China. Other than that, there are no blatant errors in language that I was able to detect.

Anyone seen this before? Did they miss the 哪 character when printing? Is it some sort of artistic statement? Do they simply don't know Chinese?

[adrianlondon]

This has been asked before on here, and I commented that Taiwan often does this (uses 那 instead of 哪). I still stick by that, but at the time I think someone said they didn't believe me ;)

Of course, the questions could be "Are you going there?" and "There ... something?". Context. 上下文 (my new word, from another thread!).

[monto]

It definately a mistake if it is in honework or exams.

But in every-day life, many people even native use them incorrectly, of which both carelessness and lack of knowledge may be the cause.

Same story for use of 的-地-得 in Chinese.

[Jose]

The character 哪 (apart from its use in some names like 哪吒) is a recent development of the written language. Both nà and nǎ are words that didn't exist in Classical Chinese, and at the beginning of the 20th century, when the báihuà movement gave rise to the modern standard language, both words where commonly written as 那. As this could lead to some ambiguity, the modified character 哪 eventually took up the role of the interrogative pronoun nǎ (around the mid 20th century, I think), and this has become the standard usage today. I have found this interesting article on the web: “那”与“哪”的区别及其他.

So, using 那 for 哪 may reflect an older usage which, as Adrian said, occasionally still crops up in materials from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Even in those places, however, it is usually regarded as non-standard today.

[renzhe]

That's a very good explanation, thanks.

[skylee]

Very good explanation indeed, though I don't really agree with " So, using 那 for 哪 may reflect an older usage which, as Adrian said, occasionally still crops up in materials from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Even in those places, however, it is usually regarded as non-standard today."

[monto]

So, using 那 for 哪 may reflect an older usage which, as Adrian said, occasionally still crops up in materials from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Even in those places, however, it is usually regarded as non-standard today.

I think it's been fruitful discussion, though I don't agree to the assumption above.

If that be true, the percentage of the usage should be same all over the Chinese circle including mainland, Hongkong and Taiwan, or even higher in mainland side, because those who were able to run away when the CP take the rule over China is only small percentage of educated Chinese.

It's against commenly accepted logics.

What ever happens after that, Hongkong and Taiwan,as always been in history, are never centers of Chinese culture. And with influences by many other cultures, they graduately loose some ability in own language. That is main reason why such mistakes occur more often in these areas.

[skylee]

What ever happens after that, Hongkong and Taiwan,as always been in history, are never centers of Chinese culture. And with influences by many other cultures, they graduately loose some ability in own language. That is main reason why such mistakes occur more often in these areas.

Very interesting comments.

[msittig]

monto, you crack me up.

[adrianlondon]

的得地 is a grammar error, whereas 那哪 could be considered a usage error, a traditional/simplified error, or an acceptable variant.

[Lu]

I don't really agree with " So' date=' using 那 for 哪 may reflect an older usage which, as Adrian said, occasionally still crops up in materials from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Even in those places, however, it is usually regarded as non-standard today."

[/quote']You don't agree that it occasionally crops up, or that it is regarded as non-standard? I don't recall often seeing it in Taiwan, seems 哪 is usually used when a question is intended.

If that be true, the percentage of the usage should be same all over the Chinese circle including mainland, Hongkong and Taiwan, or even higher in mainland side, because those who were able to run away when the CP take the rule over China is only small percentage of educated Chinese.

It's against commenly accepted logics.

I'm missing the logic here. Monto, you're mostly among foreigners here, logic obvious to many Chinese might not be seen as logic for us, so I hope you can explain yourself further.

[skylee]

Thanks for asking the question, Lu. I've just re-read my post and I think I mis-read Jose's post. Actually I agree with what he said.

[monto]

I'm missing the logic here. Monto, you're mostly among foreigners here, logic obvious to many Chinese might not be seen as logic for us, so I hope you can explain yourself further.

Logics is the same both for Chinese and foreigners. As matter of fact, the logics as a subject of science was "imported" from the West.

So I think, what I need to do is to add facts and data to facilitate the application of the logics.

First, the population: it is 1,300,000,000 in mainland, 22,970,000 in Taiwan and 6,900,000 in Hong Hong. The data may not be very accurate some way, but would have little effect on the rough ratio 1300 / 23 / 7.

Second, All Chinese dialects spoken nowadays in diferent places came down from the same root (or say origin), especially when the written Chinese concerned --- traditional Chinese.

And, as I know, teaching of the tradition Chinese have never stopped either in mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan ( recently I watched a TV programme, in which someone was complaining the cutting of the teaching in Taiwan, but that means what I say is true there).

with the data and fact, I think one can get the conclusion that: The phenomenon of mixing up 那 with 哪 is not the result of influence of tradition.

[Guest realmayo]

Monto, couldn't some people say that HK and/or Taiwan could have acted as repositories of certain aspects of pre-1949 Chinese culture -- aspects which were changed in the mainland over the last 50+ years?

[Lu]

Monto: while you're probably right that all Chinese fangyan are related, when a people gets separated to the point that the two (or three) separate groups rarely communicate anymore, the common language of the three groups tends to start to develop in separate ways. Hence the differences between Taiwan, HK and Mainland Mandarin. With the same logic, it's quite possible that while the mainland uses mostly 哪, Taiwan or HK uses 那. Or look at a word like 妳: it's probably in use on the mainland as well, but more common in Taiwan.

[rob07]

Noticed it in in the 红楼梦. For example, from Chapter 23:

只见林黛玉正在那里 , 宝玉便问他:"你住那一处好?"林黛玉正心里盘算这事,忽见宝玉问他,便笑道:"我心里想着潇湘馆好

[grantjerry]

no.no..哪 can be only used in question..and the tune of 哪 is "/"..那 is "" （you know there are 4 kinds of pronouncing tune..."—“ ”/" "/" ""...

if you ask 你在那? instead of 你在哪？...not only the grammar mistake but also sounds weird....

you'd better buy a chinese dictionary and check the definition on it...

[grantjerry]

Noticed it in in the 红楼梦. For example, from Chapter 23:

只见林黛玉正在那里 , 宝玉便问他:"你住那一处好?"林黛玉正心里盘算这事,忽见宝玉问他,便笑道:"我心里想着潇湘馆好

this book "the Story of the Stone (one of the four most famous Chinese classical literature works)" is written in Qing dynasty and that is classical Chinese...(even ancient prose )...

today's Chinese has already made the rules to distinguishe 哪 from 那....so that quotation could not be a proper example..

[adrianlondon]

Don't assume only people in mainland China speak and use Mandarin.

[monto]

Monto: while you're probably right that all Chinese fangyan are related, when a people gets separated to the point that the two (or three) separate groups rarely communicate anymore, the common language of the three groups tends to start to develop in separate ways. Hence the differences between Taiwan, HK and Mainland Mandarin. With the same logic, it's quite possible that while the mainland uses mostly 哪, Taiwan or HK uses 那. Or look at a word like 妳: it's probably in use on the mainland as well, but more common in Taiwan.

This sounds reasonable to me, I can't deny this possibility.

Same language put in different environments can result different changes.

So far, I just tried to rule out the possibility of the "TRADITIONAL" being the main reason for the phenomenon.

The same language was influenced differently in different places. Is it close to what we are getting agreed upon?