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Belgium flagPatko
吧 and how to use it? Hi I had to put my chinese on hold for a while as it was quite stressful at school the last couple of months. However with all the free time I have in my vacation It was itching to get back to what I love most, learning chinese. I was watching 绝望的主妇 on a chinese website, its the perfect medium to learn. It has english and chinese subtitles and I just pause the video each time and analyse a sentence to the best of my abilities. Now the character 吧 has been popping up for some time and my dictionary app has this to say about it: "Modal particle indicating suggestion or surmise". So my guess is its usually used in sentences like: - Will you get out of my house? - Are you done eating? Is it only used in unsure instances or can it be used in more ways? For instance, in the series I was watching a guy asks another guy wether he is crazy? The other guy responds with 有点吧. Is the use of this character in this sentence simply a fluke of bad translation or can it actually be used like this and why? There is no uncertainty in that sentence or is there? Thanks in advance for any response, hope life for you guys is going well, take care.

Corrections · 2

0

well, the translation is right. there are so many different uses for this word "吧".

-to check the information
e.g.
你吃飽了吧 i think you're done eating, right?

-to show that you're just assuming
e.g.
1.他不會來了吧 i guess he's not going to show up.
2.你忘了吧? you forgot, didnt you?
3.A:那個人不是jason嗎? isnt that jason?
   B:不是吧 i dont think thats him.
4.A:你瘋了嗎? are you crazy?
   B:有點吧 maybe a little bit. (he's not really crazy.)

-sometimes you say 好吧, when you dont really wanna do something at first, but someone begs you or something, so you decide to do it anyway.
e.g.
A:你可以替我載孩子回家嗎? could you help me drive my kids home?........ please? please? please?
B:好吧..我會幫你 fine... i will help you.

-to soften the sentence.
e.g.
1.你再考慮看看吧 you just think about it.
2.你還是不要去吧 i think you'd better not go
3.走吧 lets go! (we use it a lot in imperative sentences.)

 

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