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In a sentence like:

“你给我那一杯水” You would translate it something like: Get me a glass of water.

How is the "给我" in the sentence “你给我滚” supposed to be translated?

Should it just be "Get lost / P*ss off" and just ignore the "给我" part?

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1  
** don't work for Chinese words unless you put spaces around them. See this question on meta. meta.chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/11/… – StarCub Dec 15 '11 at 10:42
I corrected it and also something else... – Alenanno Dec 15 '11 at 10:45
Ignore 给我 is good, just keep the same mood – AntiGameZ Dec 15 '11 at 13:28
Maybe "take a hike" means the same thing? I'm not sure how strong that phrase is, though. – gonnastop May 24 '12 at 0:44

6 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Adding to Ciaocibai's answer:

"你给我滚" could be same to "给我滚" and then further reduced to "滚".

In both "你给我滚" and "给我滚", personally, I think the "给我" part is used to make emphasis on strong emotions, such as contempt or strong anger. It will therefore depends on the tune/context to translate it.

E.g. "给我滚一边去", can be used by a gangster head to someone else who is not important, to show his/her contempt and therefore show his/her superiority in the gang.

Or when a father is really angry at his son who commit a crime, he is furious and shouts out loud "给我滚!"

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On grammar, “你给我 [doing something]” means: I am ordering you [doing something].

你给我做点儿什么! --- Do something useful for me!

你给我说清楚! --- Let me get this straight! Now!

你给我老实交代! --- Tell me the truth!

你给我看清楚一点儿! --- Watch carefully!

你给我去死吧! --- Go to hell!

That's natural Chinese:)

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Very much agreed. An alternative explicit translation could be "said me". 你给我滚 = "You get away, said me." – NS.X. Oct 21 '12 at 19:06

I see the 给我 as essentially having the same meaning in both sentences, a meaning which could be summarised as 'for me' . That is, the literal meaning of the sentence is 'Fuck off for me!', or 'I want you to fuck off!'. But this is not being polite, not at all. When you shout at someone in English, 'I want you out of here!', adding 'I want you...' isn't an attempt to be nice; it's a strong expression of the speaker's will.

In translation the 给我 can be safely ignored.

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I agree. I think "给" can be glossed as something like "为 (wèi)" in this sentence if the OP is still unclear about this (common) usage. – Jon Jan 9 '12 at 5:41

Too many options, other possible candidates are:

  • F**k off!

  • Scram!

给我 used in such context is really just for emphasis and not required to be explicitly translated, just note the essence of it.

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A LITERAL translation would be something like: "Give me space!" But its real (impolite) connotation is more like "get lost" or "buzz off."

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I'd say it is like 'you get away from me', with the 给我 part just meaning get away. I suppose if you were being polite you could translate it as 'give me some space', but to be honest I think it's pretty subjective.

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I don't think this sentence is polite to begin with... – Orion Dec 15 '11 at 17:38
To whoever downvoted, if you could leave a comment why, that would be great :-) – Ciaocibai Dec 30 '11 at 22:21
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"给我" does not mean "get away", that's the "滚" part. And "你给我滚" is never polite. – fefe Jan 8 '12 at 9:15

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