Subtitles from a series question

[lafcardio]

Hello everyone,

My wife and I were watching a drama series and the subtitle didn't match what was said. I believe he said "你下手可真够狠的" but the subtitle had "那人下手可真够狠的." I had my wife listen to it a few times (she is Taiwanese) and she agreed that it sounded like "你." But then she said that the use of "你" is not correct in this case. So, I then asked her if he could have said "那下手可真够狠的," and omited the "人." Now we are both puzzled over this.

So, I have two questions:

1. Can "你" be substitued for "那人" and still be gramatically correct regardless of context?

2. Do mainland chinese shorten or omit the word "那人" to just "那?"

Thank you for your help.

[Koneko]

Re 1: Yes, you can replace 你 to 那人, however, the meaning of the whole sentence will not be the same. Both 你 and 那人 are pronouns, hence I see no reason why you can't replace them.

Re 2: I am not sure about Mainland China, but I don't think you can shorten 那人 to 那 elsewhere.

K.

[lafcardio]

Thanks for the quick reply Koneko.

I thought that pronouns could be interchangable.

Now, if "那人" can not be shortened to "那" then I'll have to think that "你" is correct or the actor just mis-spoke his line and it wasn't edited.

hmm:roll: , maybe "那位" can be shortened to "那" and that is what the actor said, which was then subtitled to "那人."

Does anyone have an idea about this? All opinions are most welcome.

[Koneko]

Yes, 那位 can be shortened to 那. This is simply because it's not a pronoun but rather than a measure word.

The is no difference between the following two examples:-

那位医生好。

那医生好。

Both mean "That doctor is good."

Now, let's look at 那人,

那人真好。

那真好。

The first sentence means "That person is really good"; whereas the second sentence means "That's really good"

Of course you may omit the word, 人, in the first sentence but you won't get the same meaning as the second one.

Well, I am not sure if this is going to get a little complicated for you...

Hmm, it really depends on how you see the context used in the sentence.

K.

[skylee]

Subtitles do not always tally with the dialogue 100%. And people make mistakes.

[lafcardio]

skylee,

Yes, I agree with your statement. I have seen plenty of them; and I could just dismiss it as a mistake and move on; however, I am learning from the wonderful people on this board by asking such a question. Thus I am welcoming all ideas at the moment.

cheers mate