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- "你的家在哪里？"
"你的家在哪里？"
Translation:Where's your house?
24 Comments
1488
The northern Chinese dialects, especially the Beijing dialect, likes to add "er" sounds to the ends of words, represented by the character 儿 . The name of this process is "Erhua" (儿化), and 哪儿 is just the erhua version of 哪里.
I was wondering the same thing; Seems like it's mostly a dialect difference, with 哪儿 being more common in the north, and 哪里 elsewhere? With some footnotes and caveats in more advanced usage? This is what I could find: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9131/%E5%93%AA%E5%84%BF-vs-%E5%93%AA%E9%87%8C-difference-in-meaning
Exactly, while you might live in a home they are not the same. For learning it's best not to mix up nouns and verbs.
Also having 家= house is not quite right and can cause confusion. 家= home and 房子= house.
- 1488
The tones are different; 那 has the 4th tone (the falling tone) and 哪 has the 3rd tone (the falling-rising tone). Tones are definitely one of the hardest aspects of Mandarin for a learner to master. It's all in the intonation of your voice (which, in Mandarin, is just another aspect that determines meanings of words). The 1st tone is high and level; the 2nd tone is rising; the 3rd tone falls a little then rises; and the 4th tone falls. There's also sort of a 5th tone, which is neutral and just the syllable pronounced quickly (and neutrally). It's a little awkward to explain in writing without audio examples, so I'll link a quick youtube video that gives examples of the 4 tones:
No.
家 = home, 家庭 = family (the social structure), 家人 = family (members)
I disagree, as I understand from my studies at uni, 家 ca also be used mean family (the social structure e.g. 你家有几口人? As well as restuarant for some reason) but that means the original op can be correct.
In that case it means how many family members and in this case it means home or house, it cannot be translated as family members.
- 1488
那 = that/those, 哪 = which/what. For example, 那个男人吃米饭 is "That man is eating rice", and 哪个男人吃米饭? is the question "Which man is eating rice?" In spoken Mandarin, the only thing differentiating the two characters is tone...so be careful which one you use! :)
