"how are you" chinese

[tooironic]

I get your point lingo-ling, but I think you mean 你吃飯了嗎？ or just 你吃了嗎？But even this expression is considered old-fashioned among some members of the younger generation.

I don't agree that 你幹嘛？is abrupt or forceful - unless you're saying it to your superior I guess. Between friends though it's perfectly common and acceptable.

[OneEye]

I hear "你吃飽了沒" (not 嗎, never 嗎) all the time in Taiwan, though as you might guess it's mostly from middle-aged and older people. In Taiwanese you say 你食飽未 (lí chia̍h pá bōe) or 你食飽無 (lí chia̍h pá bē), which may explain why 沒 is used instead of 嗎 in this sentence.

[lingo-ling]

I get your point lingo-ling, but I think you mean 你吃飯了嗎？ or just 你吃了嗎？But even this expression is considered old-fashioned among some members of the younger generation.

I don't agree that 你幹嘛？is abrupt or forceful - unless you're saying it to your superior I guess. Between friends though it's perfectly common and acceptable.

In Taiwan, I usually hear it from older folks and those who live outside the big city, and they usually say (你)吃飽了沒(有)? It's rarer among the young, the well-educated, and urbanites.

As for 你幹嘛, I did state that it depends on familiarity, tone of voice, etc. I would advise against approaching a stranger and saying it, unless they were screwing around with the lock on your car or something.

[Tiana]

I think I know what 你幹嘛 means but what does 你幹嗎 mean?

(That is, unless you consider 你幹嗎 as a non-standard way of saying 你幹嘛)

[Takeshi]

"你食咗飯未呀" is quite common in Guangzhou. It seems to be used when you meet someone by coincidence on the street mostly.

[lingo-ling]

I think I know what 你幹嘛 means but what does 你幹嗎 mean?

你幹嗎 is most likely a typo.

[陳德聰]

I always thought of "how are you?" as a thing that you say to people without actually wanting to know the answer. Nobody responds to a passing "how are you?" with "I'm pissed off" or "I am having the worst day of my life", the instinctual response seems to just be "good, and you?" or something like it. Sometimes people even say "how are you?" back without answering, which definitely rings 'greeting' more than 'question'.

I get 去哪裡 on the street a lot, and for what it's worth my Cantonese friends almost exclusively ask me "點啊?" Although(!) I think there may be some sort of weird inception deal going on where Chinese people know that learners learn "你好、你好嗎?、我很好、你呢?" as a set dialogue and so they will speak unnaturally to learners like that even though they wouldn't usually say those things.

As an aside: Somebody disagrees with kenny2006woo about 嗎/嘛, but the author doesn't appear to be listed. While we're talking about it though, I think it's interesting that google has 80 million results for 幹嘛 and about 1 million for 幹嗎, 130 million for 干吗 and only 85 million for 干嘛, while baidu has 100 million results for 幹嘛 and about 80 million results for 幹嗎... Taiwan-Mainland distinction perhaps? I'm pretty sure (not 100%, but almost) that writing systems came after spoken language and so were originally usage-based. Maybe if this trend of usage continues you will eventually see an entry for 嘛 má in the 現代漢語詞典.