How to use 那个
⋯⋯那个⋯⋯
那个 often fills a pause while a speaker searches for a word or decides how to continue. In this conversational role it resembles English hesitation sounds or “you know.” It can appear before a sentence or during an unfinished phrase, rather than occupying one fixed grammatical position every time.
The pronunciation nèige is common in this use, alongside the word's more transparent reading nàge in other settings. A pause and the surrounding context help distinguish hesitation from an actual reference to “that” item. Repetition may reflect the speaker's effort to formulate a thought. Recognizing the filler improves listening, but it does not need to be inserted into every sentence to make speech natural.
Examples with pinyin and English
那个 ⋯⋯ 我不跟你们一起去了，可以吗？
So, ummm... I won't go with you guys, OK?
我想吃那个 ⋯⋯ 那个 ⋯⋯ 湖南菜。
I want to eat that... ummm, you know... Hunan cuisine.
那个 ⋯⋯ 我明天不来了。
Ummm... I'm not coming tomorrow.
那个 ⋯⋯ 这样做不好吧？
Ummm, it's not good to do it this way?
What to remember
- Listen for pauses around the filler.
- Nèige is a common spoken pronunciation.
- Context distinguishes hesitation from pointing something out.
Practise the pattern
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Source and editorial notes
Explanation rewritten for Laowai. Examples are adapted from the Laowai English grammar curriculum, with editorial corrections where needed. The original curriculum credits AllSet Learning’s Chinese Grammar Wiki as used with permission. Read the retained source credits.
Difficulty labels describe the level of the explanation; they are not official HSK placement. Send a correction with this page’s URL.