mao3

[devi9]

Hi guys... I came across another character I can't find in Simsun or Simsun Founder Extended. Maybe I didn't search right? Who knows. If anyone can help me find the character mao3 (it looks like 有 except it doesn't have the two horizontal lines in the 月) it would be a huge help. It means 'none, nothing'. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[fenlan]

that's a canto dialect character. It is 冇

[devi9]

Thank you fenlan! It's Cantonese?

[fenlan]

Well the pronunciation mao3 must be Mandarin, but this character is mou meaning "meiyou" in Cantonese.

[wai ming]

Strangely enough, if you type "mou" using the Taiwanese (Big5) Hanyu Pinyin IME, you can find the character 冇, whereas I'm pretty sure my 新汉语词典 lists the pronunciation as "mao3".

[fenlan]

I think mao3 is just a reading pronunciation for Mandarin speakers to read the Canto dialect. I don't think this mao3 actually means anything in Mandarin.

[skylee]

It should be written as 無, and it has the same meaning as 無. But lazy people like us simply invented a new character from 有 by taken away what it has, so that it has nothing.

[chenpv]

'冇' is widely used in Sichuan Hubei and other provinces. we students use them occasionally for fun.

[devi9]

waiming, that must've been why I couldn't find it! Maybe it is also pronounced mou? Strangely enough though, my dictionary always indicates when a word has more than one pronounciation, so I wonder why that is...

chenvp, would you say this is kind of a slang term in those regions?

[chenpv]

Maybe it is also pronounced mou?

maybe, but we always say it like 'mao2'

Strangely enough though, my dictionary always indicates when a word has more than one pronounciation, so I wonder why that is...

while, there are some characters in chinese having more than one pronunciation. I think it happens in english too such as: minute, tiny, record.......

chenvp, would you say this is kind of a slang term in those regions?

maybe, anyway whats the difference between 'slang' and 'dialect'?

[devi9]

maybe, anyway whats the difference between 'slang' and 'dialect'?

hah! The age old question. It's what I've been trying to figure out. A lot of dialect terms become widely accepted slang terms like 哇塞 and arguably 没门儿. I guess the difference is how widely they're used in China .

[wai ming]

devi, I guess the "mou" pronunciation is used to represent the cantonese pronunciation (mou5)...

I wonder how it's pronounced in Taiwan (if it is in fact used there)...

[fenlan]

Devi9, what do 哇塞 and 没门儿 mean?

[liuzhou]

A lot of dialect terms become widely accepted slang terms like 哇塞 and arguably 没门儿.

Or a lot of slang terms become dialect terms, although both your examples are pretty widespread.

BTW. 哇塞 could be "wow!" and 没门儿, "forget it, impossible."

[devi9]

As I understand it (feel free to correct me!):

哇塞 -wow; awesome

没门儿 -no way; impossible

[自由翱翔]

Oh,but I cannot understand the exact meaning of the term"slang"in mandarin,because I have never heard of the word in Chinese languistics terms before.I learn it in my English studying.

So I think the term "slang" exist in English but not in Chinese.中文里面有俚语吗?

I think mao3 is just a reading pronunciation for Mandarin speakers to read the Canto dialect. I don't think this mao3 actually means anything in Mandarin.

Maybe this word mao3 was used in the ancient China.But I never come across it in the modern written Chinese.It seems that this word is only used in spoken Chinese(especially in some dialects of some regions)frequently.Don't pay much attention on it.

'冇' is widely used in Sichuan Hubei and other provinces. we students use them occasionally for fun.

Exactly,perhaps it is widely used in my hometown dialect in 江西.

[chenpv]

哇塞 -wow; awesome

This is ususally for girls(MM), I suggest '我靠' '我操' for boys(GG) to express the same feeling.

NOTE:

(1). MM: It's the two first-letters from the Pinyin of "美眉(charming eyebrows)", which refers to a beautiful girl, the same for GG from '哥哥'.

(2) The correct form for 'wo3cao4' is '我肏'，and I changed the second because '肏' is not that elegant. This word is equal to 'f**k' in english though used when 'friendly opposing' somebody in chinese.

(3) Other colloquial expressions for surpise include '不会吧？' ‘真的假的？’‘天啊！’‘我的（老）天啊！’‘苍天啊！’‘我昏（倒）！’‘鬼！’.......

[fenlan]

Chen - interesting information. But why 我靠 wo3kao4? This isn't the same as wo3cao4...

[chenpv]

But why 我靠 wo3kao4? This isn't the same as wo3cao4.Nice question, fenlan, it stems from 我肏，and i believe it is some natural mutation in phonetic sound from 'c' to 'k'. Just like the word 'city' foreigners pronounce, not 'siti' but 'sidi'. anyway this is my hypothesis.

[fenlan]

Well, English people do not pronouce city as "sidi". That is American