How aggressive is 干嘛?

[vellocet]

I ask because a couple of times I've said this, the Chinese person has jumped and had a greater reaction than I intended.  My meaning was "what's going on" or "how's the situation coming along".  This is for someone with whom you are already conversing, and is possibly performing a service or needs to do something for you.  干嘛 seems a bit too aggressive for what my meaning is?  The meaning of "progress report, please" or "what's the current status, and by the way merely by the act of me asking this makes it a reminder to make some positive moves in my direction". 

 

I know 干嘛 can also be used aggressively, based on how you emphasize the syllables.  For example, if someone spills a drink on you and you're mad about it.  "干嘛！ "

[roddy]

I'd see it as more of a 'what are you up to' - and if (as it sounds) you're the boss or employer, there's maybe an implication of 'because it doesn't look like you're doing what I told you to do'. Might make someone a bit jumpy...

[889]

What a mother says to a child she catches messing around.

 

Too curt for normal friendly conversation, unless you really know what you're doing.

 

By the way, that startled reaction when you say something should be evidence enough you're on slippery ground.

 

But at least it gives you the satisfaction of knowing they understood your Chinese.

[gato]

You should be saying “干嘛呢", which is like "what's up".

"干嘛" by itself is more like "what are you doing!"

[renzhe]

Yeah, 干嘛 alone typically implies that they are doing something they shouldn't be. It can also imply surprise on your part.

你在干什么 is the more neutral form.

[yueni]

干嘛 alone (especially if intonation isn't just right which is a normal non-native problem) is used as follows:

- by somebody of higher rank to somebody of lower rank asking what they're doing with the implication that they aren't doing it right and/or are in trouble for doing something they aren't supposed to do.

- to a person of equal or lesser rank indicating they are doing something that irritates you, and they'd better stop.

- to a person of equal or lesser rank as an informal way of "yo, 'sup"

As a non-native speaker getting the nuances right can be problematic with this phrase as the natural tones of it make it sound more aggressive. And it is also mostly used in an informal aggressive manner. So the default, when the tones or intonation is unclear, is to assume you are annoying somebody, and you'd better stop doing whatever it is you're doing.

[oceancalligraphy]

As a child, I was told to not say 幹嘛, since as 幹 has the slang connotation similar to the f-word in English.

 

Now, I rarely say it in anger, more like in annoyance, so it's more like 幹嘛~~, emphasis on the 嘛.

[Messidor]

It depends on the context and your tone. When a close friend pat on your shoulder, 干嘛 can mean what's up; when someone you are not familiar comes to you, 干嘛 means just shoot ( use 什么事？to show you wanna know what the matter is).

for information of current status, you can use 怎样了（how's it going?）、发生什么了（what happened?）、怎么了（what's the problem?/what happened to you?）

 

btw, if someone spills a drink on you, 干嘛 may be too soft   ---- or if in a bad tone, the situation may get worse or others may think you're quite emotional. It might be better to simply state the situation 哎呀！你把果汁泼到我身上啦！---- politely remind the guy that you're upset and he/she should apologize

[Kamille]

你在干什么 is the more neutral form.

 

"你在幹什麼啊 你?!"

 

From my experience 幹嘛 is used in different ways even between native speakers and not everyone uses it the same way, thus giving way to easy misunderstandings. It's about your personality, your speaking habits and who you're talking to.

幹嘛 is never polite. It either means you're reproaching someone with something either you're talking to a friend, and in this second situation, if it's not striclty speaking "impolite", it's no less relaxed.

 

On the other side there's also what yst said: in 幹嘛 there's 幹, that's also the reason why if I want to avoid taking a risk I won't say 幹什麼 because the problem is still there. Actually I'd even say that 幹什麼 sounds worse to me because at least 幹嘛 can at least sound relaxed if said between friends, but if I'm told 幹什麼 I'll be like "what have I done wrong?" in most cases. 幹什麼 just sounds serious no matter how I look at it (the only exception would be like when I'm sure it's part of a joke). If I want to stay on the safe side I'll say 做什麼.

[gaogaozhan]

You should consider 有何贵干

 

 

For example, if someone spills a drink on you and you're mad about it.  "干嘛！

 

If you say this, you will probably get 你白痴啊！in reply

Ha... But I'm not sure if I can teach you how to swear naturally in Chinese here.

[edelweis]

I'm not sure if I can teach you how to swear naturally in Chinese here.

Well, you can always do it in that thread

[gaogaozhan]

Ha ha.. that's for beginners though.

No c-word in Chinese?

Oh it's b-word, right?

[oceancalligraphy]

 

Now, I rarely say it in anger, more like in annoyance, so it's more like 幹嘛~~, emphasis on the 嘛.

 

If it were not for this thread, I probably wouldn't have taken note of the way I say 幹嘛 when I said it recently. I did not say it in anger. It was in response to someone joking around. But I noticed that I didn't even pronounce 幹 in full. It sounded more like g'嘛, with a long ending of 嘛. The g' part maybe sounded similar to the g' when saying g'morning.