Need help with this phrase : WO XI HUAN SHANG HAI

[SeyzCN]

Wo xi huan shang hai

我喜欢上海

I am having trouble with the whole usage of XI and HUAN. I thought XI was like and I was not sure what HUAN was. But then I heard that HUAN can also mean like. Can anyone clear up this grammatical problem for me? Thank you

[imron]

The problem is that you are treating individual characters as words which is not really how things work in modern Chinese.

Individually 喜 means happy, and 欢 means joyous; merry. When put together though, they mean 'like'.

Rather than going character by character, it's probably better to go by words, e.g.

Wǒ xǐhuan Shànghǎi

我 喜欢 上海

我 - I

喜欢 - like

上海 - Shanghai.

[msittig]

I remember waaaay back when an early Chinese teacher of mine told me that "the Chinese like characters in pairs". It stuck with me even through today.

[HashiriKata]

an early Chinese teacher of mine told me that "the Chinese like characters in pairs"

It's a nice way to put it but it's not just a matter of "like", it's in fact a necessity to have as many of them in pair as possible to reduce the chance of mishearing and misunderstanding: xi-huan will tell clearly what is meant; but if just xi alone or huan alone, there will be occasions one needs to ask what xi or what huan is meant.

This is not just Chinese but in all languages and in different ways, there's always a large amount of redundency built in to aid communication.

[msittig]

But why pairs and not triples?

[HashiriKata]

Then it'd become greed and no longer a necessity .

Actually, another principle is also at work in languages: the principle of economy (= don't over do it! )

(Now, Are you going to ask then why there are so many 4-character phrases in Chinese ? )

[msittig]

(Now, Are you going to ask then why there are so many 4-character phrases in Chinese ? )

You are one step ahead of me!

Actually four is understandable, 2² = 4.

Why no 8-character (2³) phrases?

[HashiriKata]

Why no 8-character (2³) phrases?

If you look up a 习语 （成语，谚语，俗语） dictionary, you may find a few of them, but on the whole a fixed long string of word is not practical to remember and to use, so they are normally regarded as spices, and not the everyday necessary ingredients for normal language use.

[bottledpoetry]

interesting. I never thought about that. That "characters like to sit in pairs" explanation is a neat way to look at it:mrgreen:.