When addressing a female, do I have to use 妳 instead of 你?
How common is the usage of 妳?
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Sign up to join this communityWhen addressing a female, do I have to use 妳 instead of 你?
How common is the usage of 妳?
Mainland China doesn't use 妳 anymore. 妳 is mostly used in Hong Kong and Taiwan where they still use Traditional Chinese.
As you mentioned in the question, 妳 is used to address a female person. In mainland China, people use 你 for both males and females.
Note: the right hand side of 你 or 妳 is 尔. In Traditional Chinese, 尔 is written as 爾. However, as far as I know, 你 and 妳 in Traditional Chinese are not written as 儞 not 嬭 but just 你 and 妳.
You (God)
, 您 --> You (higher)
They are still used in China. In China, we don't use 你 for both male and female.
– Derek 朕會功夫
Jun 14 '12 at 20:36
妳 is used more in Taiwan and Honk Kong where traditional Chinese is the official language while 你 is used generally to indicate both genders in mainland China where simplified Chinese is used. Actually, nowadays in Taiwan and Honk Kong more and more people use 你 for both male and female, unless in a particular situation that a man or boy is writing a love letter to his lover, 妳 would be used to show more uniqueness and respect and so forth.
In mainland China, no dictionaries have the Chinese characters 妳, only 你 is valid. 妳 is not acceptable at all.
In Hong Kong and Taiwan, 你 is for male while 妳 is for female.
Notice: 儞 and 嬭 are wrong, no such characters at all.
Not sure if it is a standard character in mainland Mandarin. I never use it in my life and have only seen it in very limited situations.