I have begun meeting with a language tutor. Today was our third meeting together. What I enjoy most about tutoring is that we not only get to speak in the language; we also get to speak about the language. Today, we talked about 说法 (shuō fǎ) and 歧义 (qí yì). 说法 has to do with the wording of a sentence. You can have many different ways of wording a sentence, but they all have the same general meaning (e.g. "I ate the food on the table" and "The food on the table was eaten by me"). On the other hand, 歧义 has to do with two different sentences with exactly the same wording... but with different meanings or interpretations (e.g. "She is my favorite wife.").Speaking of 歧义, my task today was to buy string. To fix the pull-down cord for the screen window, and so that my wife can truss a chicken. The goal: to buy basic... white... string.
The word for string is 线 (xiàn). For the astute blog readers, you will note that we have encountered this word before as it appears in 无线路由器, which means wireless router. That's right, while in English we have words for "string" or "wire" - in Chinese, the basic word is 线.
I started at the supermarket. Asked if they sell 线. It's in the aisle there, on the left. No no no, I don't want thread (also called 线). I want string. Not for clothes. For... umm... hanging... stuff (I don't know how to say "fix a screen window" or "truss a chicken"... so "hanging stuff" is the best I could come up with). Supermarket doesn't sell it.
Went to the electrical and plumbing hardware store. Asked if they sell 线. Are you looking for 电线 (diàn xiàn)? No no no, I don't want electrical wire. I want string.
Went to the little store that sells all sorts of household helps. Asked if they sell 线. Sure we do - over there. Hmm... no... that's... rope (also called 线). Do you have any 线 for... hanging stuff? Yeah. Over there. No no no... that's... link chain (not sure if it's called 线, but I guess it really is for hanging stuff).
In the end, I pointed to the mop... with all the clumped up white string at the bottom, like hair on a doll. Pointing... I say "线像这样的" (= string like this). That... was the key. I got my point across, and I got my string.
In the end... the success of my language task came down to pointing at something and saying, "I want... that." I still have a long way to go...
2 comments:
in cantonese, we have another word for the string that you need, it is called "siang", try it in Mandarin see if it means the same thing.
funny, conversations with my son are similar...he ends up just pointing to something so that I'll understand what he's talking about.
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