SuperGoose Posted August 10, 2011 at 04:15 PM Report Share Posted August 10, 2011 at 04:15 PM I was slowly mowing through my Weibo feed when I came across a repost that was a list of things some individual never wanted to do. One point was "和情人结婚" which I took to mean "getting married with a lover". This confused me because I thought getting married to the person you love should be the ideal. My friend then corrected me and told me that in this case 情人 carries a negative meaning, like a lover of someone else, so for this case, getting married with someone in another marriage or relationship. No dictionary that I have carries this definition, although some cursory googling lead me to the possible definition that my friend mentioned. Does anyone have a dictionary that contains this alternate, negative definition? Who else has had experience with this word? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowpower Posted August 10, 2011 at 04:54 PM Report Share Posted August 10, 2011 at 04:54 PM this is a good question about cultural differences/meanings of chinese words. Different countries where Mandarin is commonly spoken/different regions of China have 'localised' or attributed other meanings to words other than their original meaning, some of it positive others negative. So it's hard to say what is right. it all depends on the situation and context, relationship of the speakers..sometimes people refer to their spouses as 'ai ren' literally translated as 'lover' but it does not carry a negative meaning. Yet the same word can be used to describe a lover (male or female) outside of marriage which is bad. And yes there are many different words and phrases to describe the likes of 情人, both good and bad. to be more neutral, I'd say "he wo de nan peng you jie hun/he wo de nu peng you jie hun" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creamyhorror Posted August 10, 2011 at 06:35 PM Report Share Posted August 10, 2011 at 06:35 PM I was slowly mowing through my Weibo feed when I came across a repost that was a list of things some individual never wanted to do. One point was "和情人结婚" which I took to mean "getting married with a lover". This confused me because I thought getting married to the person you love should be the ideal. I'm guessing that individual is talking about marrying his/her lover after getting divorced. Doing that, according to some advice, might have disastrous results. It's counterintuitive advice that goes against the ideal you speak of. I don't think your understanding is wrong; the advice just lacks context. Alternatively, the person could really be giving strange, counterintuitive advice to not marry anyone you love. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperGoose Posted August 11, 2011 at 12:30 PM Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2011 at 12:30 PM Thank you for the helpful insight creamyhorror and yellowpower. It's a little frustrating to have so many dictionaries, but still none of them contains the definition or alternate meaning I'm looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.