誰叫……grammar point · tier 1 · rhetorical blame 誰叫… (who told you to / it serves you right)
Opens with a rhetorical who-made-you that pins a bad outcome on the listener's own earlier action; no answer is wanted.
字源 FORM what the parts do
誰 asks in words (言); 隹 gives the sound — who. 叫 is a mouth (口) ordering someone to act; 丩 gives the sound — to make, to order. Together they ask who gave the order, when the order was the listener's own.
故事 STORY a scene to remember it by
A finger swings round the room asking who is to blame, then stops, pointing back at the one being asked.
字源記憶法
框 · Frame
誰叫 [listener + the action they chose]，[the bad result that followed]。
觸 · Trigger
Someone complains about a bad outcome you have no sympathy for; their own earlier choice caused it, and you want to say so.
序 · The move
1Name the listener's own earlier action that set up the trouble, and put it after 誰叫.Is the action something they chose or did, not something done to them? If done to them, 誰叫 does not fit.
2State the bad result that followed as the next clause.Does the result land on the same listener as a consequence of clause one?
3Read it back as a question with no answer expected.If a real who-answer would be sensible, this is a plain 誰 question, not the blame frame.
例 · Examples
1誰叫who told you to — rhetorical blame你不早點來you didn't come earlier — the listener's own action，食物全都被吃光got eaten clean — the result了。
Who told you not to come earlier — the food's all been eaten.
因為…所以… states cause and effect flatly. 誰叫… states the same chain but throws the cause back at the listener as their own fault; it carries blame, not neutral explanation.
✗ 誰叫他生病了 → ✓ 誰叫你不吃藥 (the action after 誰叫 must be the listener's own choice, not something that merely happened to them)
✗ 誰叫你來？我等很久了 (used as a real question expecting an answer) → ✓ 誰叫你遲到，現在沒位子了 (rhetorical, with the consequence stated)
English who-told-you-to can be a genuine question; here it never is. Learners may also expect a single comma-less clause, but 誰叫… needs the consequence clause to complete the blame.