Tgeric

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2008-11-13
Language : None
Posts : 2
Responses : 0
Comments : 0

From :   Eric Thomas

Date : 2008-11-14 / 03:17PM

Hey! Benny I have more questions for you? In one of teachings on YouTube you say that yào means : To want but there’s a website called www.yellowbridge.com This website says that xiāng/xiàng means to want too! Could you tell me the difference and maybe where I could find an online list of chinese verbs? PLEASE!!
XIE XIE

Views (856)   Replies (2)  

Latest Responses

Aquedita

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2008-10-23
Language : None
Posts : 2
Responses : 5
Comments : 0
 Agata / 天舞 interia.pl 
2008-11-14 / 08:21PM

Hi! :)

Both of these verbs can mean “want”, depending on the context. However there is a difference.

When you say: “Wo yao mai yi ben shu” you mean that you want to buy this exact book, you need it and know when you will purchase it.
When you say “Wo xiang mai yi ben shu” means that you want to buy the book, but maybe don’t have the money at the moment or want to look around some more and your mind is not quite set yet; this verb is less precise.

Remenebr that YAO also means “should” or “need”, while “XIANG” can mean “to think”, depending on the context. Hope this helps somehow.
Here you can read more examples with those 2 verbs: http://www.nciku.com/search/all/examples/%E8%A6%81
http://www.nciku.com/search/all/examples/%E6%83%B3

Reply  
benny

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-01-01
Language : English, Mandarin Chinese
Posts : 0
Responses : 2359
Comments : 75
 Benny the Mandarin Teacher bennysland.com 
2008-11-14 / 09:16PM

To be simple, ’Xiǎng" means would like to which is more polite than “yào”

Benny



Learn Chinese, Learn Mandarin from AskBenny

Reply  

Membership

Enjoy all the learning features & content by upgrading your membership to a Royal Member.

Make Me A
ROYAL MEMBER

AskBenny
Every Brick Counts

Donate to help build a better Chinese learning site

Spread the word and share the love of Chinese Language Learning!
Follow askbenny on Twitter