Ni3 you3 kong4 ma? (Sentences word by word)

[xuefang]

I'm learning Chinese by one book and there's that sentence: Ni3 you3 kong4 ma? I know the meaning of characters but what they mean together? Is it something like Do you have time?

[Alhazred]

Yes, free/spare time more precisely I think.

[xuefang]

Thank you very much for your help.

What about bu2 ke4 gi4? I know that it means Your welcome, but what does the characters ke4 and qi4 mean when they are alone or with some other words? I look from the dictionary that ke4 means guest or visitor and I can understand that. But when I looked what qi4 means there was words like air and gas and so on. So what has qi4 do with the sentence's meaning?

[skylee]

氣 (qi4) also means "manner", the way a person behaves, like 頭巾氣, 書生氣, 書卷氣.

客氣 (ke4 qi) means behaving like a guest, i.e. very polite/courteous, but not like one of us.

別客氣 (bie2 ke4 qi) means make yourself at home. If it is a reply to "xiexie", then it means don't mention it.

[xuefang]

Thank you Skylee for your help.

[Altair]

You can also think of "air" in the sense of someone who has a "princely air" about him or her. "Bu ke qi" then can be interpretated as "don't behave with the air of a guest."

[roddy]

Altair beat me to it. Often something that sounds odd in Chinese can actually be found in Chinese - think of 'airs and graces', 'an air of calm about him', etc . . .

[Quest]

Altair beat me to it. Often something that sounds odd in Chinese can actually be found in Chinese - think of 'airs and graces', 'an air of calm about him', etc . . .

".....be found in" English?

[Glenn]

".....be found in" English?

Haha. That's what I was thinking, too. I guess it's one of those cases where the brain is ahead of the fingers.