"Guess What?"

[zhenhui]

I was just wondering about this just now while talking to a fellow colleague.

Sometimes when you're speaking in English, you'd suddenly ask someone "Guess what?"

and that person's suppose to reply just for fun....

But in Chinese, is there an equivalent?

Suddenly asking "猜猜?“ and “猜什么?” to someone sounds really weird to me.

[semantic nuance]

zhenhui,

But we do say 你猜怎麼著 to mean guess what, and I think it is common in Chinese too.

Hope it helps!

[Sophia_Shang]

“你猜怎么着” is commonly used among Northeners, for alternative, you can try “猜猜看”instead. We do not use “猜什么”anyway. “猜猜是什么”sounds better, if you are asking others to guess for an object (not a person or an incident).

[zhenhui]

I was thinking that "Guess what?" is able to be used when you bumped into someone and the conversation has just started, instead of talking about a topic and asking that person to guess something.

semantic nuance:

But we do say 你猜怎麼著 to mean guess what, and I think it is common in Chinese too.

Hope it helps!

Does people use 你猜怎麼著 to someone they just bumped into?

Like A bumped into B somewhere:

A: "Guess what?"

B: "What?"

A: "I've got a new job!"

A: 你猜怎么着？

B: 怎么啦？

A: 我找到了新的工作了！

Sophia_Shang

“你猜怎么着” is commonly used among Northeners, for alternative, you can try “猜猜看”instead. We do not use “猜什么”anyway. “猜猜是什么”sounds better, if you are asking others to guess for an object (not a person or an incident).

In the above situation, I think asking someone “猜猜看" sounds really weird, unless there's another dialogue before it like:

A: 我很高兴。

B: 为什么呢？

A: 猜猜看！

thanks ^_^

[semantic nuance]

Does people use 你猜怎麼著 to someone they just bumped into?

I don't see why not. But of course someone you bumped into should be someone you've known, otherwise, it will be a bit out of nowhere. Isn't it?

Hope it helps!

[roddy]

Bear in mind that 'Oh, guess what' in English is entirely rhetorical, it's not a request for anyone to actually guess. It just signals a change of topic, to something which the speaker thinks is interesting / surprising.

[zhenhui]

Thanks semantic nuance, i've never did ask a Guess What in Chinese before heeehee

roddy Bear in mind that 'Oh, guess what' in English is entirely rhetorical, it's not a request for anyone to actually guess. It just signals a change of topic, to something which the speaker thinks is interesting / surprising.

Yeap, we never expect in an answer (or a correct one) when we ask "Guess What"