About 嗯

[Pascal Ma 12]

大家好

As I was looking at the Beginner HSK vocabulary list, I came across the character 嗯 with the pinyin "ng". ( http://hskflashcards.com/browse.php )

A dictionary search gave me "ēn" instead, which would be valid Hànyǔ pīnyīn.

( http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=%E5%97%AF&searchtype=simp&where=start )

I understand this is just an interjection, an onomatopea. Is the site ( http://hskflashcards.com/browse.php ) just wrong or should I expect to see some more of these pinyin exceptions?

Ah, Wiktionary ( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/嗯 ) tells me "ng4" is the Wade-Giles mandarin romanisation of 嗯, unless there's a mistake in there too, weird as even the tone doesn't correspond. "ng" seems to be the cantonese prononciation...

Thank you!

[chrix 25]

Both are right.

Usually you have to type "en" to produce the character, but "ng" is probably closer to what you'd actually say (these are onomatopoetic expressions after all).

[lakers4sho 13]

Wiktionary http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%97%AF gives definitions for this particle, but can someone please provide concrete examples (perhaps corresponding to the wiktionary definitions) as to the correct usage of this particle? Thanks.

 

lakers4sho

[MeiMay 48]

嗯? oh... 嗯, someone can.