what is the corresponding Chinese for "what's up"

[chichi]

what is the corresponding Chinese for "what's up?"?

And how should I respond if someone say "what's up" to me?

I'm studying in the US but whenever some one greets me with this, I don't know how to respond.

[Ncao]

Just say "nothing much".

[Ferno]

hah it's almost lost it's origional meaning of "how are you doing"

just say "sup" right back

[chichi]

shouldn't it be yup instead of "sup"?

[Ferno]

what's up --> wassup --> sup

[Xiao Kui]

Possible replies to "What's up?":

nothing much, whassup with you?

OR

same old, same old

OR

Actually tell the person what's going on in your life.

A friend of mine in Chengdu who was sick of teaching "Hello. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. And you? " which no one actually says, taught her kindergarten students the following dialogue:

"Hey Harry, what's up?

Nothing much, What's up with you?"

It was pretty cute seeing them talk this way around the school.

Back in the day (1980s) we would respond to "What's up?" with "the ceiling" or "my pants", answering the question quite literally. How cheesy!

[chichi]

谢谢大家，下次别人再和我打招呼，我就不用装作没听见了，

[Mugi]

what is the corresponding Chinese for "what's up?"?

最近混得怎么样?

[adrianlondon]

You have to just learn all these different greetings by heart, really, and understand that the original meaning behind the question has gone.

When I first visited Australia (I'm from England) it confused me that people kept saying "see you later" when I left a shop or restaurant, even if they knew I was never coming back. Say "see you later" in the UK and you're meant to mean it

I guess it's like asking "have you eaten yet?" in Chinese. You don't really want someone to start explaining what they've just had for dinner.

Being reserved and British, I usually respond to the American "wassup!!!!" with "Hi".

[amego]

I guess it's like asking "have you eaten yet?" in Chinese. You don't really want someone to start explaining what they've just had for dinner.

Haha, true 吃饱了没有 = How are you?

Being reserved and British, I usually respond to the American "wassup!!!!" with "Hi".

I usually say "Yo".

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Heh one of my favorite pastimes is to translate idioms from english to chinese and the literal translations are hilarious!

[chichi]

How I wish I knew someone like you when I was pursuing a BA in English so that I could always provide such a "pastime" for him/her which was actually endless homework.

[nipponman]

An increasingly common way to reply/replace 'whassup' is with, 'whas good wit u?' or 'whas good'.

[parasite]

怎么是你？

[count_zero]

It's true, the culturally correct response sould be 'nothing much'. Or if someone asks you what you did last night you should also say 'nothing much' or 'not a lot'. If you start launching in to how you read a dostoyevski or translated a short story from Chinese to English or something people will look at you like 'Why are you telling me this?'

If I ask a Chinese person 'how are you'. They often say 'so so'. In fact the correct response is 'fine' or 'good, good'. Even if you are dying of prostate cancer the appropriate answer is still 'I'm fine'.

[owshawng]

To reply to "wassup" you could say "How u doing" short for "How are you doing?"

It's the New Jersey/New York City english version of Ni hao. People don't really expext a detailed answer to this. Most likely you would say good, good; Hanging in there; How you doing? etc as a reply.

[Kong Junrui]

Personally, I don't like when I ask people "What's up?" and they answer with "not much" and the like. When I'm asked that I usually just tell them what I'm doing at the moment or whatever, such as downloading programs or looking at forums.

But that's just me.

[mind_wander]

chichi,

I can answer the question about how to respond to "what's up", since your in the Northeast, while I am from NY; the same cultural respects are the same. In order to respond it correctly, it really depends:

A) African-Americans, you just respond back as "what's up" back to them as an acknowledgement, then say "nothing", "not much", "ok", "chilling-stand still"etc. All this must me SHORT term conversation response, anything longer will result in a negative response(making you look stupid). This is there cultural thing!

B) Others, you just respond back as "I am doing ok", "alright", "Doing great", etc. Something close to this, it can be alittle longer, but don't make it too longer than 5 words.

I hope this helps, been in the US for a long time, during high school, populated African-Americans had tested me with "whats up." The same difficulty in which your having, on how to approach this.