(shá) - what (dialectal/colloquial) in Mandarin
sháTraditional: 啥
Translation
what (dialectal/colloquial)
Word origin
啥 (shá) is a colloquial and dialectal character for 'what', formed with the mouth radical 口, marking it as a spoken-language word, alongside 舍 supplying the sound. It is often a fused contraction of 什么 (shénme).
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound
- Root
- 口 (mouth radical) + 舍 (shè, phonetic)
Stroke order
啥
Examples
？
What did you say?
？
What are you doing?
，。
It's nothing serious, don't worry.
？。
What did you say? I did not hear clearly.
。
He did not bring anything back.
啥 (shá) is a colloquial, northern-dialect equivalent of 什么 (shén me, what). It is informal and commonly heard in everyday spoken Mandarin, particularly in northern China. 啥 appears in questions (你说啥, what did you say?), negative contexts (没啥, nothing much), and casual expressions. It is not used in formal writing but is very frequent in natural speech and dialogue.
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Go to my review queueThis word is part of lesson 11.