"LONG TIME NO SEE" is apparently not grammatical. It is said to be derived from Chinese, right? Is it commonly used in English speaking countries?
"LONG TIME NO SEE" is said to be derived fromChine
phrases such as Long time no see and my bad, they are originally from Chinese, Iv read an article about this several years ago.
Yes, it is derived directly from the Chinese phrase "好久不見".
好久 (hao-jiu) = long time
不 (bu) = no
見 (jian) = see
好久 (hao-jiu) = long time
不 (bu) = no
見 (jian) = see
Please read:
http://www.answers.com/topic/long-time-no-see
"My bad" arose out of 1970s African-American street slang and spread to the mainstream during the 1990s through popular teen-oriented movies like "Clueless" and television sitcoms like "Family Matters". Whether the African-Americans got that from the Chinese...who the heck knows.
http://www.answers.com/topic/long-time-no-see
"My bad" arose out of 1970s African-American street slang and spread to the mainstream during the 1990s through popular teen-oriented movies like "Clueless" and television sitcoms like "Family Matters". Whether the African-Americans got that from the Chinese...who the heck knows.
I suspect that most people aren't aware of the Chinese origin of "long time no see" because its use is so common now. It's become an English idiom, even though it has a foreign origin.
I had no idea it was Chinese... I always figured it was similar to the German "lang nicht gesehen."
Haha, I actually texted the literal translation of this to a German friend once, 'Lange Zeit kein Sehen', as a bit of a joke knowing that it wasn't correct. However it hadn't particularly occurred to me that it wasn't grammatically correct in English, I just thought of it as a bit of an idiom.