之嘛

Chinese

		's; him/her/it; this	(a modal particle)
trad. (之嘛)		之	嘛
simp. #(之嘛)		之	嘛

Pronunciation

• Cantonese (Jyutping): zi¹ maa³

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• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)⁺
    • Jyutping: zi¹ maa³
    • Yale: jī ma
    • Cantonese Pinyin: dzi¹ maa³
    • Guangdong Romanization: ji¹ ma³
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /t͡siː⁵⁵ maː³³/

Particle

之嘛

1. (Cantonese) Final particle used to indicate unimportance or triviality.

   佢當然唔識揸車；佢係十四歲之嘛。 [Cantonese, trad.]
   佢当然唔识揸车；佢系十四岁之嘛。 [Cantonese, simp.]

   keoi⁵ dong¹ jin⁴ m⁴ sik¹ zaa¹ ce¹; keoi⁵ hai⁶ sap⁶ sei³ seoi³ zi¹ maa³. [Jyutping]

   Of course he can't drive, he's only fourteen.

Synonyms

Dialectal synonyms of 而已 (“(sentence-final particle) just; simply”) [map]

Variety	Location	Words edit
Classical Chinese		而已, 云爾
Formal (Written Standard Chinese)		而已, 罷了
Northeastern Mandarin	Beijing	罷了
	Taiwan	而已
	Malaysia	罷了
	Singapore	而已
Jianghuai Mandarin	Yangzhou	罷了
Cantonese	Guangzhou	啫, 咋, 之嘛
	Hong Kong	啫, 咋, 之嘛
	Jiangmen (Xinhui)	啫, 之嘛
	Taishan	之嘛, 咋
	Kaiping (Chikan)	之嘛, 逸, 咿
	Enping (Niujiang)	之嘛, 咋
	Singapore (Guangfu)	啫, 之嘛
Hakka	Miaoli (N. Sixian)	定定
	Pingtung (Neipu; S. Sixian)	定定
	Hsinchu County (Zhudong; Hailu)	定定, 定
	Taichung (Dongshi; Dabu)	忒等
	Hsinchu County (Qionglin; Raoping)	定定
	Yunlin (Lunbei; Zhao'an)	定
Southern Min	Xiamen	爾爾, 爾
	Quanzhou	爾爾, 爾
	Zhangzhou	爾爾, 爾
	Tainan	爾爾
	Penang (Hokkien)	爾
	Singapore (Hokkien)	爾, 爾爾
	Jieyang	定

References

• 鄭定歐 Cheng, Ting-Au (2022) Cantonese Conversation Handbook 粵語會話寶典‎^[1], Hong Kong: 三聯書店 (Joint Publishing HK), →ISBN, page 169