# 你真小气！



## indigoduck

Hi,
I had a tough time translating "小气" in english or the english culturally equivalent use of this expression. 

For example:

A: Can you lend me 5 bucks?
B: No, why should i lend you 5 bucks when you didn't give me a ride to the office the other day ?

Is there such word in english ?

I thought that this means "hold a grudge", is that accurate ? Then what to call the person ?
Thanks in advance.

Answer:

I got the answer from English Forums. Resentful or "(Chronically) Resentful".
Resentful means "feeling resentment"
Resentment means:

*–noun *
the feeling of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc., regarded as causing injury or insult.


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## xiaolijie

You seem to have been off track there . "*小气*" simply means "petty, stingy", so "*你真小气！* " is "You're really mean/ petty!". (It can also mean "petty-minded", depending on the context.)


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## Ghabi

In Cantonese 小器/氣 can be used to describe someone who seldom forgets nor forgives, or someone who is touchy like hell. On the other hand, "resentful" is more like 懷恨在心. So, everyone can be resentful (when sufficient wrong has been done to him), but someone who's 小器 has more than his fair share of resentful moments.


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## Razzle Storm

indigoduck said:


> Hi,
> I had a tough time translating "小气" in english or the english culturally equivalent use of this expression.
> 
> For example:
> 
> A: Can you lend me 5 bucks?
> B: No, why should i lend you 5 bucks when you didn't give me a ride to the office the other day ?
> 
> Is there such word in english ?
> 
> I thought that this means "hold a grudge", is that accurate ? Then what to call the person ?
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Answer:
> 
> I got the answer from English Forums. Resentful or "(Chronically) Resentful".
> Resentful means "feeling resentment"
> Resentment means:
> 
> *–noun *
> the feeling of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc., regarded as causing injury or insult.



The meaning has been covered by xiaolijie. As for a translation, I would go with the adjective "cheap" or noun "cheapskate".


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## Ghabi

Razzle Storm said:


> The meaning has been covered by xiaolijie. As for a translation, I would go with the adjective "cheap" or noun "cheapskate".


In the context given by the OP, B is unwilling to lend A money not because he's miserly, but because he thinks B has wronged him before.


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## ngphuocdai2401

you are a litter


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## xiaolijie

For the Cantonese meaning, I'd use some ad hoc description, depending on the occasion. For example: "He's an-_ungenerous, grudge-bearing_ type of person, so I don't think he'd help"


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## snooprun

indigoduck said:


> Hi,
> I had a tough time translating "小气" in english or the english culturally equivalent use of this expression.
> 
> For example:
> 
> A: Can you lend me 5 bucks?
> B: No, why should i lend you 5 bucks when you didn't give me a ride to the office the other day ?
> 
> Is there such word in english ?
> 
> I thought that this means "hold a grudge", is that accurate ? Then what to call the person ?
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Answer:
> 
> I got the answer from English Forums. Resentful or "(Chronically) Resentful".
> Resentful means "feeling resentment"
> Resentment means:
> 
> *–noun *
> the feeling of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc., regarded as causing injury or insult.


 You can safely say "You are so mean".


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## Razzle Storm

Ghabi said:


> In the context given by the OP, B is unwilling to lend A money not because he's miserly, but because he thinks B has wronged him before.



Er yeah, I should've read the OP's post more carefully.


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## Ghabi

By the way, in Cantonese folklore a pregnant woman is often advised, by the elderly, not to tell her acquaintances (her families excepted, of course) about her pregnancy during the first three month of it, lest the to-be-born baby becomes "小氣" and refuses to be born (i.e. causing a miscarriage). I don't know if this don't-tempt-fate belief and this special usage of "小氣" are also found in other regions of China.


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## GamblingCamel

Ghabi said:


> By the way, in Cantonese folklore a pregnant woman is often advised, by the elderly, not to tell her acquaintances (her families excepted, of course) about her pregnancy during the first three month of it, lest the to-be-born baby becomes "小氣" and refuses to be born (i.e. causing a miscarriage). I don't know if this don't-tempt-fate belief and this special usage of "小氣" are also found in other regions of China.


That's a useful adage for this day and age.  There are too many moms uploading sonograms of their to-be-born-babies on Facebook.  No privacy for the unborn. Lots of in utero anger, I'm sure.

I've been googling 小氣. There are youtube videos of a tv game show involving money and gambling that's called 小氣大財神.  I know titles often play off idioms that are hard to translate, but can anybody tell me how 小氣 is being used? I see the characters for doctor, wealth, god, but I can't tie it all together.


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## indigoduck

GamblingCamel said:


> I've been googling 小氣. There are youtube videos of a tv game show involving money and gambling that's called 小氣大財神. I know titles often play off idioms that are hard to translate, but can anybody tell me how 小氣 is being used? I see the characters for doctor, wealth, god, but I can't tie it all together.


 
Not sure if this answers your question.

大財神 - someone who struck it rich "and makes money as if they were like a money tree".  Not sure about that last part in quotes "". (literaly: "Big rich god")
小氣 - stingy or cheap

小氣大財神 - someone who has a lot of money but not willing to share it that easily. ie: they're cheap (the opposite of generous)

By the way, where do you see the character for Doctor ?

大 means big or in this case, super.


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## GamblingCamel

indigoduck said:


> 大財神 - someone who struck it rich
> 小氣 - stingy or cheap
> 小氣大財神 - someone who has a lot of money but not willing to share it that easily. ie: they're cheap (the opposite of generous)
> 
> By the way, where do you see the character for Doctor ?



Thank you, Indigo.
Chinese-tools.com listed first 大 dài = doctor, then 大 dà = big.

Why do you think that the tv producers choose 小氣大財神 as the name of the show? 
What's the message? Maybe, _Stingy person strikes it rich! Overnight millionaire!_


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## indigoduck

GamblingCamel said:


> Thank you, Indigo.
> Chinese-tools.com listed first 大 dài = doctor, then 大 dà = big.
> 
> Why do you think that the tv producers choose 小氣大財神 as the name of the show?
> What's the message? Maybe, _Stingy person strikes it rich! Overnight millionaire!_


 
I haven't seen the show, but I think it's more of the opposite. Is this a taiwanese show ? I recently learned that cantonese speakers never uses 小氣 in this manner. Can someone confirm this ?

Typically a comment like this refers to someone who is rich (first), but stingy.  I imagine Rockefeller's name wouldn't be in this show since he was a philanthropic person.


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## indigoduck

GamblingCamel said:


> Thank you, Indigo.
> Chinese-tools.com listed first 大 dài = doctor, then 大 dà = big.
> 
> Why do you think that the tv producers choose 小氣大財神 as the name of the show?
> What's the message? Maybe, _Stingy person strikes it rich! Overnight millionaire!_


 
Be careful as you use chinese-tools.com as it is based on putonghua chinese. Were you thinking of the cantonese prononciation ?

There are only 2 listings for 大 dài (putonghua) which is based on the word 大夫 which means doctor. I've never heard anybody refer to "大" alone as doctor in modern times (except when watching soap operas with a backdrop in Dynasty China where the common folk will call the "doctor"/"alchemist" as 大/大夫), so i find it depressing that they've listed it on the website as a separate entry.  Personally, I see it almost as slang. Today, doctor is known as （中/西）医师 or 医生.

The official pronounciation in putonghua for the character is 大 dà, which is why you'll find many more listings for vocabulary for the character 大.

Unless it's medical or "doctor" context, 99% of associations of the character 大, you should reference it to meanings associated with 大 when pronounced as "dà" which as chinese-tools.com indicates means _big / huge / large / major / great / wide / deep / oldest / eldest_.


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## kobe888

Well, as for 大夫. In Putonghua, the 大 only pronounces as Dai in 2 situations, as far as I know. One is for daifu， which means the doctor, as you listed. And another is 大王, daiwang, which means king. 大王 can be pronounced as dawang too, with approximately the same meaning. But daiwang is more like the king of a tribe, NOT the king of a country. (Like the fellow monkeys called the Monkey King in the novel, Journey to the West.)

As for 小气. I'm not sure about cantonese, but in putonghua. It means cheap in English. 

For example, if there's a donation, and u only donated like 1 dollar. This is 小气. It just means you cares too much about money.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the Novel "Eugenie Grandet" wrote by the French writer Honore de Balzac. The character Eugenie Grandet is the exact person that we call 小气.

That's the best I can explain. Hopefully it helped.


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## samanthalee

In my region, 小气 also means "easily offended" and "petty/ungenerous".


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## Ghabi

Reviving this thread ... May I ask whether the usage of 小器/氣 described in Post#3 also exists in Taiwan?


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## 南島君

Hi Ghabi, I personally take these two *characters* as a same *word* when we come to describe someone who is 不落落大方= a.處事上，記仇、b.使錢上，吝嗇。
As 小氣 is a latter written form of 小器, its semantic is rather restricted; 
小器 has another meaning which is quite ancient that i'd never heard it in daily conversation, better leave it in the dictionary. 

lc

ps. there is a discussion on 小氣/器 right here.


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## viajero_canjeado

Ghabi said:


> Reviving this thread ... May I ask whether the usage of 小器/氣 described in Post#3 also exists in Taiwan?



I might not be catching the precise nuance of the word, but to me [when I hear it] it usually seems to be more like what samanthalee described in post #17，就是說，台灣人用小氣平常等於「吝嗇」，不願分享。一個不願原諒或想開的人可以說是心胸狹窄。"touchy like hell"。。或許「很急躁」吧。那個我不太確定。


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## Ghabi

@南島君：謝謝！因為我印象中台灣國語中也有廣州話這種用法，所以想確認一下。

@Viajero：廣州話裡的siu2hei3「小氣/器」，專是用來形容人心胸狹窄、愛記恨，即便是雞毛蒜皮的事，那怕只是無心之失，也會記在心裡；形容人「吝嗇」，我們只會說gu1hon4「孤寒」，「孤寒鬼」跟「小氣鬼」意思完全不同喔。


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## 南島君

Ghabi, 是呢。不過Viajero 說得沒錯，小氣/小器使用作吝嗇義的頻率比較高，也許可以說：對於許多人，吝嗇是它目前的第一義。


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## Ghabi

再次謝謝！以後我用這個詞的時候會注意這點。


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