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想起来 or 记得


bossidy

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xiang qilai is used when you have to make an effort to remember something - it's often used in sentences like 'What's his name, wo xiang bu qilai . . .ah xiang qilai le, it's Zhang'. I always thought of the 'qilai' bit meaning the memory was coming up from the depths of your brain, which is cute but wrong. More often used for details like phone numbers, names, so on

jide is simply remember. Could be used for anything.

Am I right folks?

Roddy

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I think they mean pretty much the same thing. If there is a difference in the shades of meaning, 想起来 and 记起来 mean "have begun to remember" (the emphasis is on the process of remembering) whereas 记得 just plainly means remember (so the emphasis is on what is remembered). It's right to translate both to English as "remember".

However, there is a difference between the two: the way you form the negative is not the same: 想不起来..... and 不记得......

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