哈囉，大家好！I’m Grace.
In this video, I’ll be talking about some Chinese words
that people might find offensive
and I will suggest some alternatives on what to say instead.
It’s really unfortunate if someone is offended by you
when it wasn’t even your intention.
Language has its own charm,
through the words you choose to use,
people can feel your emotions and your opinions behind them.
Now let’s talk about 5 words with negative emotions or underlying meanings.
我們開始吧！ 我们开始吧！ Let’s get started!
The first one is 不可以
不可以 means “can’t”
In daily life, you would often hear people ask “可以嗎？”
and it means “Is it okay?”
I’ve personally asked this question to a foreign friend,
and he replied “不可以”. When I saw the message I felt a bit slighted,
but I knew that he just wanted to say he can’t.
So let me tell you where “不可以” is often used:
It’s often used when parents are talking to their children
or even when dogs are being trained,
and in both cases it’s used to express that
something is not allowed to be done.
So, usually in daily life,
if someone gives you a request and you want to say no,
you can say “不行”, it still sounds direct,
but it’s much more acceptable than 不可以.
If you want to be indirect,
you can just state the reason why you can’t do that thing.
Now let’s move on to the second one: 嗯
In Chinese, we can use 嗯 to mean “Yes” or “Okay”
and if you say this word in daily life with a polite tone:
This is totally fine.
But if you type this word when texting, like this:
When texting, if you type 嗯 by itself as a response,
it sounds pretty indifferent, so the other person might get upset.
So in texts, if you want to answer “yes”, you can type “對”.
And if you want to answer “okay”,
you can type “好” or more formally and politely, “好的”.
But if you want to sound more casual and cheerful,
you can type 好啊 or 好哇.
OK, the next one is 不要
不要 means “to not want”,
so when you don’t want to do something, you say「我不要......」, right?
要 is a strong word.
I guess you’ve learned that 要 and 想 can both mean “to want”,
but 要 expresses a stronger will.
It’s okay to use 要 when you want something.
That’s totally fine. But when we give a negative answer to others,
we try to be as polite as possible,
so we usually don’t use 我不要 to express “I don’t want to ……”
because it sounds too strong and kind of childish.
However, 我不想（I don’t want to……） sounds less direct.
So in daily life, we usually use “我不想......” to express “I don’t want to……”.
For instance,
But if someone asks you whether you need something,
like, if you go to buy bubble tea in Taiwan,
the clerk might ask you “你要袋子嗎？Do you need a bag?”
you can reply “不用，謝謝 No, thanks”.
“不用” means “no need”.
The fourth one is 呵呵
You might see this word sometimes in online posts or in comments,
and it’s often translated into English as this: “hehe”
but actually this is not mischievous laughter.
It’s like this:
呵呵 is to laugh coldly.
People use it to express contempt or to be sarcastic.
So if you use it, people might get offended.
In text, If you want to have mischievous laughter, you can type “嘿嘿”.
OK, the next one is 欸
欸 can be used to call other’s attention.
It’s like “Hey” in English.
欸 is okay to be used among people that are close to you,
but using this word to address people who are older than you,
such as your teacher, it’s quite impolite.
So if you want to ask your teacher questions,
the polite way is to say “老師，請問 + your question”
OK, now let’s do a quick recap:
Today we’ve talked about 5 rude Chinese words.
The first one is 不可以,
when someone asks you “可以嗎 is it okay?”, don’t reply “不可以”.
The second one is 嗯,
in text messages, don’t use this word by itself to reply to others
as it might offend people.
The third one is 不要,
when you want to say “I don’t want to……”,
saying “我不要” sounds too strong and direct.
The fourth one is 呵呵, 呵呵 actually indicates malicious laughter,
people use it on the internet to express contempt or sarcasm.
So unless you want to irritate people, don’t use it!
The last one for today is 欸,
using 欸 to address your close friends is totally fine,
but don’t use it to talk to your teachers or people who are older than you.
OK, that’s all for today!
I hope you enjoyed today’s video.
如果你喜歡今天的影片， 如果你喜欢今天的影片， If you liked today’s video,
記得幫我按讚、訂閱和分享喔！ 记得帮我按赞、订阅和分享喔！ Remember to like, subscribe, and share!
BTW if you want to learn some daily expressions in Mandarin,
check out my Instagram: @GraceMandarin
OK 那我們下次見囉！掰掰！ OK 那我们下次见啰！掰掰！ OK I’ll see you next time! Bye!