第两百六十三天

[nnozomi]

语法
最好 + V etc., "had better/best to~" (top of page)
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22had_better%22_with_%22zuihao%22

词汇
说, 说话, speak/talk 说 shuō, 说话 shuōhuà, speak/talk
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-1-word-list/

Introductory grammar, day 48

Guardian:
你们最好告诉我，否则... you had better tell me. Otherwise...
你最好记住今天说的话, you'd better remember what I said today.
猫说话了，the cat spoke!

Me:
汤还非常烫了，最好等一会儿就吃. (or 喝?)
我跟你说，你最好快点辞职吧。

Comments

[grayswandir]

你最好记住今天说的话

Huh! This is my first time realizing that the 住 in 记住 is not the progressive-aspect suffix 住 that Cantonese uses in place of Mandarin 着 for ongoing/continuous verbs (as in 听住, 向住). I didn't know you could say 记住 in Mandarin! I assume this usage of 住 is "a suffix indicating firmness"?

In context I'm having some trouble seeing how that's different from progressive aspect. >_> Does anybody have any other examples of 住 as a verb suffix in Mandarin? Like, does it work with verbs other than 记?

[sakana17]

I've only encountered 记住 and 居住 but Wiktionary has an example sentence with 买住.

[grayswandir]

Oh, huh. I've heard 居住 but I assumed that was the basic use of 住 for "dwell/reside" rather than as a verb suffix.

I hadn't heard 买住. In the Wiktionary example (契丹分明是被金帛买住了) where they translate it as "buy off," the meaning of "firmly/securely" does seem to make the most sense, so that's helpful.

I just checked Baidu, and there are a couple of examples there that they say mean "firmly/securely," with 带住 and 抱住:

1) 众人向前，一个带住婆子，三四个带住唐牛儿，把他横拖倒拽，直推进 郓城县里来。——《水浒全传》

2) 贾政还欲打时，早被 王夫人抱住板子。——《红楼梦》

I've definitely heard 抱住 before (usually for someone holding a baby), but I always assumed that one was progressive aspect as well, since the holding is continuous rather than just a hug. Wiktionary tells me 抱住 is a word in Mandarin and means "to hug," though, and Google is giving me plenty of hits if I try to make 抱住 progressive by adding 着 (e.g. 紧抱住着她). So I guess "firmly" is the meaning there, too. I still feel like it's progressive aspect in Canto but I should probably ask a native speaker about it!

[sakana17]

I've heard 居住 but I assumed that was the basic use of 住 for "dwell/reside" rather than as a verb suffix.

Yeah, that makes sense.

[nnozomi]

Really interesting, thank you! The ones that come to mind immediately for me are 记住 as above and 站住, stand still, which seems to come up a lot in dramas; I think of 住 there as "well fixed in place"? (抱住 is too cute.) Let us know what Cantonese has to say about it when you find out more.

[grayswandir]

Ah, 站住 is new to me too. Hopefully with enough examples I'll start getting a sense of where 住 works in Mandarin and where it doesn't!

(I did get the chance to ask a native speaker about 記住, and their answer was that in Cantonese it can have either the Mandarin meaning of 記住 as its own complete verb or the Canto meaning of 記+住 as a suffix. They added: "I think it's confusing because almost every instance of [記+住] can be interpreted as using [記住] and the difference is mostly minimal." XD I guess at least I know now!)

[trobadora]

I assume this usage of 住 is "a suffix indicating firmness"?

Huh, learned something new again!

Though 记住 confuses me because according to the dictionary the 住 is neutral tone here. I wondered if it was a pronunciation difference between semantic 住 and 住 as a suffix, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[sakana17]

Lost Tomb Reboot, episode 29:
你最好抓紧时间

The Rebel, episode 1:
你刚刚说了嘛

[nnozomi]

抓紧时间 is such a useful phrase! (Much to the point for Wu Xie, oh dear.) Also so nice to be able to look up the Rebel quote in your Google doc and find out the context...

[elenothar]

... And now I'm trying to figure out whether there's a difference between this one and 还是. Different grammar formation, so maybe that's how you decide which one to use?

[nnozomi]

I feel like 最好 might be slightly stronger because of the superlative 最, but maybe not? It's like trying to distinguish "ought" and "had better" in English...

[elenothar]

See, this is interesting because the main difference between "ought" and "had better" in English in my head is that "ought" is older, verging on archaic, and not much in usage anymore (and tells you quite a lot about the person using it in speech). When I think about it more, there is also a difference in strength, but that's very much the second thing I think of.

[nnozomi]

Oh interesting! I think I would use "ought" fairly casually in something like "I ought to go to the post office later today if I have time," probably meaning, like "should be done but isn't 100% mandatory"? "You ought not to do that" does sound a little bit more old-fashioned to me. aaah, individual languages are bad (fun) enough before we even start mapping one onto another...

[elenothar]

*bangs drums* Idiolects!

[nnozomi]

你叫我什么？ :) no seriously, idiolects are wonderful.

[presumenothing]

I think the constructions are effectively the same? Unless there's something I'm not thinking of. But yeah I'd say it's mainly an extent difference, somewhere along suggestion/advice vs strongly recommend (and possibly even all-but-imperative, if it's something like 你最好向她道歉 by context).

[elenothar]

Ok, that makes sense. And also, as I look at this sentence, my brain is going 'how the hell am I this far into vocab learning and the verb apologise has never turned up???'. So that's doubly useful

[presumenothing]

how the hell am I this far into vocab learning and the verb apologise has never turned up???

Heh, I guess 对不起 is the too-obvious tick for the "sorry" box…?

In a similar vein of various directions you get:

• 致歉 when you're 道歉ing but more formally
• 抱歉 as in (recorded phone voice) “很抱歉，您拨打的用户暂时无法接通…”
• Also, similar constructions: 道别, 道谢…

[elenothar]

In my head 对不起 isn't a verb (it's what you say when you're sorry, but it's not to be sorry?), but I frankly admit that the whole word form jumble in this language makes my head hurt so I might be wrong about that 😅

These similar vein ones are really helpful, thank you!

[nnozomi]

somewhere along suggestion/advice vs strongly recommend
好用，谢谢啊。