gill Posted February 11, 2013 at 02:34 AM Report Posted February 11, 2013 at 02:34 AM Hi all, I don't understand one word in the following sentence: On the textbook, a photo shows a man fixing some faucets in a kitchen. And we hear the below dialog: 女：小心点儿，你一个人可以吗？ 男：你放心吧。我们的厨房又不是第一次出问题。 As I understand, this means something like: Woman: Take care, can you do that alone? Man: Don't worry. This is not the first time our kitchen has a problem. I don't get the meaning of 又 in我们的厨房又不是第一次出问题. I know that又 is used in sentences like 又漂亮又聪明 to list up adjectives. But it seems that here it has a different meaning... If anyone has some clue, please share! PS: Or... Is my translation wrong? Is it more like "this is our kitchen, moreover, this is not the first time there is a problem" Quote
skylee Posted February 11, 2013 at 02:56 AM Report Posted February 11, 2013 at 02:56 AM Take a look at Adverb 2 on this page - http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%53&category=wholerecord 1 Quote
gill Posted February 11, 2013 at 04:21 AM Author Report Posted February 11, 2013 at 04:21 AM Thank you Skylee! Again! ;) Understood! The site (http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/) you gave us is great! It seems to gather a lot of information about Chinese language. However I couldn't do any search on it: http://avs.itsc.cuhk...cuhk.edu.hk&kl= I get an error each time I try. How did you find this page? http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%53&category=wholerecord Quote
skylee Posted February 11, 2013 at 09:24 AM Report Posted February 11, 2013 at 09:24 AM Use this website ->http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/ Please note that it uses the traditional script. And it is an older dictionary so sometimes its explanations might be different from more updated dictionaries. 1 Quote
lingo-ling Posted February 17, 2013 at 04:46 AM Report Posted February 17, 2013 at 04:46 AM 又 conveys a sense of "yet again". In the above context, it reinforces the sense that the kitchen has experienced repeated problems over time. Quote
XiongNu Posted February 17, 2013 at 11:13 PM Report Posted February 17, 2013 at 11:13 PM 女：小心点儿，你一个人可以吗？ 男：你放心吧。我们的厨房又不是第一次出问题。 Your translation is quite wrong and the point of using this 又 structure is sort of for emphasis, saying "这不是第一次我们厨房出问题“ would be fine as well but the structure from your book sounds a lot more 口语。 I would simply translate it as "This isn't the first time something's gone wrong in the kitchen" or something to that effect, no need to translate every little word! Quote
gill Posted February 19, 2013 at 07:35 AM Author Report Posted February 19, 2013 at 07:35 AM Hi Lingo-ling and XiongNu, Thank you for your kind message. Well noted. Quote
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