Ways of saying I

yours truly

Hi Changye.

I went the the www.baidu.cn site and there was an english about baidu link

Which I can't insert in a reply as the tools are not there (sometimes they are sometimes they are not!), but I did insert in the first reply at the top of the thread.

When I read this it mentioned the thirty eight ways of saying I

Hi trevorb

To be honest, I don't understand what you mean by "I just saw the above passage on Baidu's home page". Would you please show me the link?

Mmm many of the 38 are literary and/or archaic, many are regional (of those many are well known enough), but they are all words in Chinese referring to "I". We will see some of the literary ones more frequently used than others; wish I could be more specific but am not knowledgeable enough to say which ones.

I agree with Xiaophil about 自己 (note it isn't in the list of 38 Changye found for us); that would be "self", not "I". 你自己 = yourself

To rephrase your question I guess at this point I'd like to know, other than 我, which of the 38 are the more currently frequently used/seen ones. Not many, certainly.

BTW, not sure what you meant by "Nope"?

Nope, I just saw the above passage on Baidu's home page and wonderered. Looks like whoever wrote the blog thought the same but had the advantage of being chinese :-)

I's curious that not many show a meaning of I in chromes zhongwen (cdict?) suggesting most of these probably are not used in that way much.

Those of you that live in china, do you here any of these often or do you only ever hear 我 and 自己？

Okay, got it. Thanks.

They are all Chinese "I"s.

Wait, do you mean your examples above are Chinese or Japanese?

If you saw it written that way 咱不会说英语 then its gotta be pretty modern as its using simplified chars :-)

It could be that its an old use word that remains in common usage only as the inclusive we.

I see your point. I must admit, I am quite curious as to how 咱 is used as 'I' in modern times. My example above seems to be modern as I doubt that they wrote down 咱不会说英语 very often in ancient times. Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter. They just about never say 咱们 or 咱 in Shanghai, where I'm at.

Hi zhenlijiang

According to ancient Chinese dictionaries, the very original meaning of “咱” seems to be "I", but not "we".

Xiaophil, Orangina, I am not arguing that we ought to be familiar with 咱 to mean "I" or that that is current and occurs frequently. Fact is, it is there among the list of 38 words Changye found. I just thought it was topsy-turvy (that's from Mary Poppins), to think of 咱 as just an abbreviated form of 咱们 (a 们-less form of 咱们, maybe. but abbreviation ... ?).

I guess that Chinese feel like there is something missing if they don't add another character behind it to emphasize the plurality because in most of the examples at nciku.com, if there wasn't a 们 following it, there was a 俩.--sounds like a good guess to me.

The first definition for 咱 my dictionary gives me is "we". The second definition is "(Reg.) I".

The point of Trevorb's post is, what are all the 38 words Chinese has that can mean "I"? Naturally most of those are going to be unfamiliar to us.

BTW I bet we have more than 38 in Japanese, especially when you account for all the (well-known, often heard) regional words and their variants. And I think compared to Chinese we have many more of those in current frequent use.

I am almost positive 咱 is primarily plural. I guess that Chinese feel like there is something missing if they don't add another character behind it to emphasize the plurality because in most of the examples at nciku.com, if there wasn't a 们 following it, there was a 俩. However, there were quite a few examples where 咱 was just by itself and was translated as 'we'. I have also seen 咱 used this way in textbooks before.

I did find one example of it being translated as 'I':

咱不会说英语。I don't speak English.

So what is going on here is unclear to me. Is it antiquated? Is it regional? Is it as orangina says, kind of a 人家 kind of feeling? Or are these just translating mistakes?

For the life of me, I can't see how 咱 could be both 'I' and "we' at the same time with the exception if it was used in the 人家 way. It would just be too confusing.

By the way, I didn't look at all of the examples at nciku.com. If someone is curious, I stopped at about page 9.

Zhen, I see your point about 们 being the plural component of 咱们， but since 咱们 and 我们 have different meanings 咱 and 我 logically may not correlate exactly. And my roll over for 咱 says "we" as does my paper dictionary. Though the paper one also says "I" as the second definition. So I am sure 咱 means "I", but it isn't as intuitive to an English speaker, I think. Perhaps it is Queen's English: We are not amused. 呵呵

Surely 咱们 would be 咱 made plural by 们, not the other way around ...

I got my two words from a Japanese-Chinese dictionary (searching for the Chinese words for one of our "I"s, 俺 o-re). And while I have, in my limited experience and knowledge, sometimes seen 俺 (internet forums) in use I have never seen 咱 in use, so I certainly have no trouble accepting that 咱 is lower in frequency.

I kind of think that the dialects are key. To the Chinese people, 中文 encompasses all the languages of the Chinese people. But then again, I wouldn't be surprised if Changye pulls out his resources and makes a long list of 34+ equivalents. As for 咱 and 自己, I think those are pushing the limits of 'I'. In my mind 咱 is just an abbreviated form of 咱们, I guess 咱 could work if the person is talking to his or herself. 自己 usually means myself, oneself, herself, etc. I don't think we can say 自己去买东西, but we can say 我自己去买东西.

Even though 俺 is regional, I do think that it is still loosely considered Mandarin. It's like how only certain places in the US say howdy, but almost everywhere in the English world is familiar with the term.

By the way, there is a famous essay called 俺娘俺爹.

I do have one contribution:

人家 (although this doesn't exclusively mean 'I')

ah 咱 is interesting I'd not thought of that as I as I'd always thought of the 咱们 being an inclusive we and hadn't thought of 咱 as an inclusive I because all I's include the speaker!

I wonder if dialects are the key to some of the other 34? in the same way as 俺 is a Northern variation (which I had to look up to find out..!)

In the grey band at the bottom of these pages are five little columns of links--"Home", "Lessons", "Community", "Tools", "Help". Under "Community" you see Posts / Profile. Click on Posts and that will take you to a list of the posts you've made. There's a pencil icon at the right end for each post. Click on it to open and edit. And re-publish, or Save as Draft.

* Well I too hope this 奇怪 inconvenience is just a transition stage but wouldn't hold my breath. It's been this way for quite some time now. *

just tried this and I still can't access the original post only the reply bit. How do you access the original post...?

Ah, could only find a way to do it when replying! Cheers for that

By the way, you can add links after the fact. After you make the post, go to community and click on the post tab. You will be able to edit your original post and there is a complete toolbar.