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English has take the weight off your feet or cop a squat as a colloquialisms meaning take a seat. I've heard Canadian-French has the expression to grab some wood, or more literally to pull oneself a log (tire-toi une bûche!) meaning to take a seat.

What colloquialisms exist in Chinese to ask/tell someone to take a seat? (if any(?))

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    Even in classical Chinese,it use . So I can't think up the replace of .
    – zzy
    Jan 27, 2015 at 11:07
  • I've never heard "pop a squat," only "cop a squat". There is some contention on the internet, but many are saying "pop a squat" means to squat and urinate/defecate. Just ... putting it out there.
    – Ming
    Jan 28, 2015 at 0:12
  • @Ming fixed. Thx.
    – Mou某
    Jan 28, 2015 at 2:34
  • I mostly wanted to write a comment about urinating and defecating ... but thanks :P
    – Ming
    Jan 28, 2015 at 2:36

3 Answers 3

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There is no colloquialisms equivalent of 请坐 in Chinese.

Best I can think of are: 请入座, 请坐吧, 坐下吧, 入座 In ancient china, the emperor would say 赐坐

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歇脚, lit. "rest one's feet". Usually this word is used when someone has been on their feet for a long time.

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  • On line this usually refers to a stop over, or a pause from shopping. Jan 28, 2015 at 2:05
  • 找个歇脚的地方 means to find a hotel while travelling.
    – PdotWang
    Feb 4, 2015 at 19:22
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briefly , in chinese there are two words with the same pronouciation , "坐" and "座" . 坐 means "to sit" and 座 means "seat" ( notice the common structure ) . and the word 请 ( as of modern use ) means "allow me let you do xxx" in a polite manner .

so 请坐 is literally "allow me let you sit down" but is generally interpreted as "please sit down" . and 请就座 is literally "allow me let you move yourself approaching some seat" i.e. "please take seats/a seat" .

more often in daily conversations we say 请坐 .

a typical usecase 请就座 is , when the speaker is host of some gathering , and plural people are entering through a door , the speaker may say 请就座 after greeting them . this sounds more formal .

both terms are used not affected either for lower class speaking to higher class , or for higher class speaking to lower class .

though syntactically by 请坐 the we assume the listener(s) is(are) close to the seat(s) and by 请就座 we assume the listener(s) is(are) away from the seat(s) , this is not usually a big factor of how we determine which phase to say .

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