Comments on: Nǐ hǎo 你好: A Very Fake Greeting

By: Knee how! « The Plaid Bag Connection

Knee how! « The Plaid Bag Connection — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:57:03 +0000

[...] (Never mind that Chinese people find “ni hao” to be super fake!) [...]

By: misaifan

misaifan — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:16:12 +0000

That sounds suitable. But do they expect to be questioned back like 你呢？

By: Kaiwen

Kaiwen — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:43:45 +0000

@misaifan

When in doubt, say 嗯

By: misaifan

misaifan — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:26:20 +0000

There’s still one answer missing: What actually does someone respond to a person saying 吃饭了吗？

If he’s using it just as a set phrase, not really interested in whether you’ve eaten or not, then there’re must be a common set phrase for the responder as well!?

By: JoyFytz

JoyFytz — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:36:12 +0000

I guess there are several ways you could understand this “ni hao” thing and also depending on the tones you express this greeting, it might give people different feelings about it:
1. In a polite way of greeting people;
2.could be a way of showing a sense of distance to someone that you don’t really like. (which in the case, you could say it is very fake).

I think there’s still a lot of people using it by adding some emotional phrases before it: “ei, ni hao”, “hai, ni hao”, “you, ni hao” or similar stuff

Most of the time, people use “hai”(=hi), “ha lou”(=hello), “zao”(=morning)

By: How useful are Ni Hao (你好) and Ni Hao Ma (你好吗)?

How useful are Ni Hao (你好) and Ni Hao Ma (你好吗)? — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:47:39 +0000

[...] calls nǐ hǎo (你好) “A Very Fake Greeting.” He shared an encounter he had with a teacher in China. “Nǐ hǎo 你好,” I said. He stopped [...]

By: On the Limits of Ni Hao | Sinosplice

On the Limits of Ni Hao | Sinosplice — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:25:20 +0000

[...] also left a comment recently reminding me of a great post on the blog Laowai Chinese called Nǐ hǎo 你好: A Very Fake Greeting. The post is actually more exploratory than condemning, and has quite a few interesting comments [...]

By: stuffedtuna

stuffedtuna — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:04:28 +0000

I’m not sure but I think this is just very reasonable, because the same case happens in my native language – Vietnamese. The word for saying “hello” in Vietnamese which all the foreigners are told is “xin chào”, and I met a lot of them who using that word. But in fact, that word only exists in theory, and non of Vietnamese people ever use it in real life. I really can’t tell where it came from.
So, anyone knows the same case in any other language?

By: Chinese are not used to say “Thank You” to buddies « On the way

Chinese are not used to say “Thank You” to buddies « On the way — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:29:12 +0000

[...] It seems not only “THANK YOU’, but also “Hello (Chinese Pin Yin: Nǐ hǎo)” would be considered a fake greetings. Please read Nǐ hǎo 你好: A Very Fake Greeting. [...]

By: Quora

Quora — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 07:53:08 +0000

Do native Chinese speakers really find Nǐ hǎo 你好 to be a fake or insincere greeting?…

I was reading the following article and found it interesting.There seems to be many Mandarin speakers on Quora and was wondering what their perspective was? http://laowaichinese.net/n%C7%90-h%C7%8Eo-%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD-a-very-fake-greeting.htm...