to shout

The verb of "shout".... I think this might possibly be the word with the most amount of synonyms in Chinese (except "prostitute" of course).

Apparently we have:

• chìzhà 叱咤
  
• dàhǎn 大喊
  
• dà hè yīshēng 大喝一聲 (trad.), 大喝一声 (simp.)
  
• dàjiào 大叫
  
• dàrǎng 大嚷
  
• gāohū 高呼
  
• gāoshēng 高聲 (trad.), 高声 (simp.)
  
• hǎn 喊; hǎnjiào 喊叫; hǎnshēng 喊聲 (trad.), 喊声 (simp.)
  
• hēchì 呵叱
  
• hǒujiào 吼叫
  
• hū 呼; hūhǎn 呼喊; hūhuàn 呼喚 (trad.), 呼唤 (simp.); hūjiào 呼叫
  
• jiào 叫; jiàohǎn 叫喊; jiàorǎng 叫嚷
  
• jīnghǎn 驚喊 (trad.), 惊喊 (simp.)
  
• nàhǎn 吶喊 (trad.), 呐喊 (simp.)
  
• rǎng 嚷; rāngrang 嚷嚷
  
• sījiào 嘶叫
  
• yāohe 吆喝 (alternative form: 邀喝)
  
• zàorǎng 噪嚷
  

There's also some cool verbs which are similar but a bit stronger in tone, like dàhǎndàjiào 大喊大叫 - "to shout at the top of one's lungs" - and pòkǒudàmà 破口大罵 (trad.), 破口大骂 (simp.) - "to hurl abuse".

My questions to the lovely forum users:

1) What are the main differences between all the different synonyms?

2) Some dictionaries also list hǎnpǎo 喊跑, hǎnzǒu 喊走 and hējiào 喝叫. Are these weird?

Thanks!

Yesterday morning a taxi driver (here in Kunming) was complaining to me about a rude incident he recently had with a couple of Beijing guys. They sat in the back seat of his cab and shouted at him like he was deaf or far away. He used 大声叫 in his description.

Nice write-up.

Yesterday morning a taxi driver (here in Kunming) was complaining to me about a rude incident he recently had with a couple of Beijing guys. They sat in the back seat of his cab and shouted at him like he was deaf or far away. He used 大声叫 in his description.

Hahaha, I can imagine the picture...they are just typical Beijinger, the loud voice...and I think some people in Beijing, including the couple was kind of feeling themselves(首都人民) superior to people in other provinces, but most of Beijinger are friendly.

Yes I know 'shout' is often translated or expressed as 大声叫 but technically that is two words (大声 - loudly [adv.]; 叫 - shout [v.]) so it cannot really be considered a synonym.

Anyway, how can we read the differences between the words I listed?

chìzhà 叱咤

It not means to shout.

This word means a big shot.

Actually, you're thinking of the chengyu 叱咤风云 chìzhàfēngyún which means “all-powerful”. 叱咤 by itself means "to shout", though no one uses it anymore.

Anyway if anyone's interested I've drawn up a more detailed analysis on my blog. Cheers!