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Could you guys and gals clarify how you use Email as noun and verb please?

My textbook uses 电子邮件 as a noun and 发电子邮件 as a verb (send an Email). I have also found 伊妹儿 in a dictionary, which looks like transliteration.

So my questions are:

  1. Is transliterated version used only as a noun or as a verb as well?

  2. Which one of them is used in general?

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3 Answers 3

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I guess you should avoid 伊妹儿 (that almost looks like a girls' name or person name). 电子邮件 is the preferred and widely used term.

If you need a verb to express 'to send an e-mail', use 发 with 电子邮件:

E.g. 请给我发个电子邮件。 Please send me an e-mail.

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  • I'm sorry, I did use a wrong stroke. It's 发电子邮件 in my textbook. I updated my question accordingly
    – UVV
    Commented Aug 18, 2015 at 16:36
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    @UVV Some more info: for 伊妹儿 you get around 300k results on Google, for 电子邮件 about 50 million. That alone should convince you. Besides, 伊 is a valid surname (Yi), 妹 is 'sister' and 儿 is 'son', it might confuse people who are not familiar with the term. 电子邮件 on the other hand is widely known.
    – imrek
    Commented Aug 18, 2015 at 16:43
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I think some people also just say 发个email。电子邮件 though is definitely used more than the transliterated version. I'm not sure it's used more than just the English word.

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伊妹兒 is just a translation of the word email. The pronunciation (pinyin: yī​mèir) is very similar to email. But avoid it when writing stuff. I think it's just for informal conversations.

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