A few days ago
American Dreamer

Mandarin words “jie(4) shi(4)”?

An American visits China (for several months) and explains that she is used to everything except eating with chopsticks:

” Shenme(2) dou(1) hao(3), jie(4) shi(4) yong(4) kuaize(4) bu(2) tai(4) xiguan(1,4) ”

Supposed English translation:

“I can deal with everything except for using chopsticks.”

Question #1:

Why is it better to use “Shenme(2)” instead of “yiqiu(2,2)…”yiqiu” = “everything”?

Question #2:

What is the contribution (role) of ” jie(4) shi(4) ” in the Mandarin above? The english translation above includes “except”, but the Mandarin words for “except” does not appear in the Mandarin sentence!

To all Mandarin speakers out there (who answered), thank you for your help.

Top 2 Answers
A few days ago
China Guru

Favorite Answer

Because you don’t have characters [jie(4) shi(4)] I’m not sure what this is. I believe it is a typo. In my mind it should be “zhi shi”. 只是 (only/just).

“except” would be “chu le…yi wai” 除了。。。以外.

什么都 “shen me dou” means everything.

什么都好。shen me dou hao. – everything is good/fine.

他什么都喜欢。ta shen me dou xi huan. He likes anything/everything.

什么都不好。shen me dou bu hao. – nothing is good.

他什么都不喜欢。ta shen me dou bu xi huan. He doesn’t like anything.

yi qie 一切 has a vaguer meaning than “everything”, it’s more like “all things”.

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5 years ago
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Jian means piece in English. Role is to denote the unit of measurement.
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