我们, 咱们

[Esurient]

A lurker here. ...Just a basic question: the difference between 我们 and 咱们? I know 咱们 is more colloquial, and something about "includes the speaker"... But why does 我们 not include the speaker? (Okay, that's more like 2 questions.)

Thanks.

[seagate]

Both 我们 and 咱们 count the speaker in. The difference is, apart from that 咱们 is somewhat more colloquial, 咱们 also includes the listener, while 我们 can either include the listener, or exlude him/her. So generally, you can say 我们 covers the usage of 咱们( that is, 咱们 is generally can be replaced by 我们, with possible exceptions though).

Examples:

1. 咱们/我们 走吧。(includes both the speaker and the listener).

2. 你先走，我们随后就到。(here 我们 includes the speaker and some other people, but exluding the listener, so 我们 should not be replaced by 咱们 here).

[cutty]

For me, I think they are the same.

But I think 咱们 should be only in oral language. When you are writing a report, you can not use 咱们 ...

[Altair]

I have read the same as what Seagate has explained, but have also heard that 咱們 is more characteristic of northern speech, than southern speech. Can anyone confirm this?

[marcopolo79]

I previously lived in Harbin, currently living in Taipei. In Harbin, I'd often hear people say 咱們兒.... I have yet to hear it here, so I'd assume that it is mostly a Northern expression.

[roddy]

More common in Harbin, hear it a lot less in Beijing

[seagate]

Yes, it seems in northeastern dialects (辽宁，吉林，黑龙江) they use 我们 and 咱们 interchangably. They may say 咱们东北...... to you though you are not from northeastern area.