About qing ....where to use please in a sentence

请给我一个面子。qing gei wo yige mianzi. =Show me a face please! 请帮帮我。qing bangbang wo. =Help me please! add 请qing can shows polite

Casie, Thanks for getting back to me on this, according to the Newbie lesson on "Paying the bill" it means give me face, and the face they mean is like in "saving face" in english "Face" meaning more like honor or reputation. My question is more about placement of the word "qing" in a sentence if you just want to be extra polite. Let's use Wo xiang he y dian dong xi. Can you place "qing" Before the Wo ...or after the xiang...to add please to this sentence and is it necessary? Appreciate all input Jeromy

From what I experience, (and actually this was just brought up in our class), 请 is used at the beginning of the sentence, or I should say at the beginning of the subject (which can be obmitted if it is 你) if using the topica object form (see below), and never at the end like in English. It is the form: 请sb. do sth. or 请do sth. ex: 请你替我洗我的衣服。(please you watch my cloths for me) 请洗碗。（Please do the dishes/do the washing up) (can you tell I need someone to come clean my flat, now?? ha ha) can't say: 洗衣服请。X When 请 ends up not being in front is when you do the topical sentence structure, putting the object first, then 请 and then what you want them to do: 衣服请(你)洗一洗。(the clothes, please give them a wash) 你妹妹请给她打个电话。(your sister, please giver her a call) BUT, the reason this was brough up in class, using the 把 (ba) structure, the 把－object goes before the verb that works with/modifies the object. 请(你)把衣服洗一洗。 cannot say: 把衣服请(你)洗一洗。X Also, remember it is not just enough to say 请 asking someone to do you a favour, at least to some of my Chinese friends! In English, if I were to say to my mom "pass the butter" she would (like most of you know) say "What do you say?" And of course I have to make my sentence polite "PLEASE pass the butter." So I go to China, have friends there, and I say something as best as I could in Chinese at the time, like "请给我酱油" (Please give me the soy sauce), yet my friend, quite western, said "Not unless you ask politely." Frustrated, as I was proud of myself for even saying that, I'm like "I said 请！！！", but she wanted "好吗？" at the end of the sentence, "请给我酱油，好吗？“ I don't know how picky Chinese are about that, or how necessary, but just thought it was a cute story on my experience with 请。After that I started making sure to say “好吗“

Forms of the sentence you studied, not sure if they are correct in usage (may be strange way to say it), but I am guessing they are grammaticly correct unless (I hope) someone corrects me. 请(你)给我一个面子。 一个面子请(你)给我。 Uh, really sounds strange to use the 把 structure in this context, but would like to hear from anyone in this would be ok: 请(你)把面子给我。

err... of course I meant "wash clothes" in the above example...

thank you all for the input, I am very new to studying Mandarin( less than 3 weeks) so if you would please use pinyen in future answers, I would appreciate it, although your answers have been understandable and helpful. Xie xie nimen

bassman835, personally, I wind up using qǐng (请/請）too often in conversation because of the common (for me) mistake of taking English and directly translating it over into Chinese. I think that's partly what Rich was alluding to above. Where in English one would say, "Please pass the salt", in Chinese the please/qǐng would likely be omitted. Thus, though qǐng's meaning is similar to "please", its (fluent) usage is somewhat different. Maybe a topic for a future Qǐng Wèn (请问/請問）?

That's kinda the feeling I have been getting, that it's not really rude to not say it. Thanks for the input

Sorry for not using Pinyin... I'm on a Mac (school) without my normal tone making tools, and typing characters are hard enough, but I should have known you were new (or not familiar with characters) since you used pinyin. Here are the examples from above in Pinyin: qing3 sb. do sth. or qing3 do sth. ex: qing3 ni3 ti4wo3(for me, in my place) xi3 wo3 de yi1fu (please you wash my clothes for me) qing3 xi3 wan3（Please do the dishes/do the washing up) can't say: xi3 yi1fu qing3。X (wash the clothes, please) Topical sentences (can't remember the correct grammar term, and grammar guide is down... I blaim JohnP): Both the following are ok: yi1fu qing3 (ni3) xi3 yi xi3。(the clothes, please give them a wash) ni3 mei4mei qing3 gei3 ta1 da3 ge dian4hua4 (your sister, please giver her a call) BUT, the reason this was brough up in class, using the 把 (ba3) structure, the 把－object goes before the verb that works with/modifies the object. qing3 (ni3) ba3 yi1fu xi3 yi1 xi3. (please [take/use] clothes give them a wash) cannot say: ba3 yi1fu qing3 (ni3) xi3 yi xi3。X ([take/use] clothes please give thema wash)

wow how kind of you to repost the whole thing in pinyen, I appreciate such generosity of your time and desire to be helpful. My most sincere Xie Xie Ni