p8nda
p8nda BETA
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嘛

ma
particle HSK 6 #237

Meanings

  1. 1 modal particle indicating obviousness
  2. 2 particle marking a pause for emphasis or explanation

Examples

HSK 3
他是学生嘛，当然要学习。
Tā shì xuésheng ma, dāngrán yào xuéxí.
He's a student, so of course he should study.
HSK 3
你慢慢来嘛，不着急。
Nǐ mànman lái ma, bù zháojí.
Take your time, no rush.
HSK 5
毕竟是自己的选择嘛，就得自己承担后果。
Bìjìng shì zìjǐ de xuǎnzé ma, jiù děi zìjǐ chéngdān hòuguǒ.
It was your own choice, after all, so you have to bear the consequences yourself.

Tips

usage
Toneless 嘛 is the obviousness particle, not the yes-no question marker 吗. It assumes the listener already agrees and softens the speaker's tone: [reason or fact] + 嘛 = 'well obviously, because...'. Casual and conversational; overusing it can sound whiny or impatient.
register
A rising-tone reading 嘛 exists but is niche. It appears only in the transliterated Tibetan mantra om mani padme hum (the second syllable) and as a Taiwan-colloquial 'what?' Mainland speakers virtually never use 嘛; on the mainland the same colloquial 'what?' is written 干吗 or 干嘛. For everyday speech, treat 嘛 as toneless.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Left mouth radical, a small square picturing an open mouth. It marks 嘛 as something said aloud - a sentence-final particle softening tone or signalling explanation. The mouth radical anchors a huge family of speech-and-sound particles and interjections: 啊, 吗, 呢, 啦, 嘿.
phonetic
麻 má
hemp; numb
Right 麻 supplies the sound - má lightens to toneless ma in the everyday particle use, and the older má reading survives in the niche mantra and Taiwan-colloquial senses. 麻 itself shows hemp stalks under a shelter 广, picturing the workshop where hemp was processed; that meaning is incidental here, the right side is read purely for sound. Same phonetic family includes 妈 (mother), 吗 (question marker), and 玛 (agate).

Stroke Order

嘛 ma