来 vs 去

[Kangbachen]

I saw the following sentence in my textbook (實用視聽華語 2上 Practical Audio-visual Chinese):

 

 

纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民。

I understood it as "These few years New York has many new immigrants from Taiwan"..

The given translation also translates it like that. But if it weren’t for those 2 specific locations, I’d understand it the other way around: "These few years New York has many new immigrants to Taiwan", or more eloquently "These years many people from NY migrate to Taiwan"..

 

So I wondered what does  "纽约这几年有很多台湾来的新移民" mean then.. 

According to a Chinese friend, both 

 

纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民。

and

纽约这几年有很多台湾来的新移民。

 

mean then same thing (These few years New York has many new immigrants from Taiwan), but 来 is supposedly better.

 

So, by using this sentence structure (纽约这几年有很多台湾 X 的新移民)。 I cannot say "These few years New York has many new emigrants to Taiwan"?

 

Side question:

Does chinese distinguish between "immigrant", "emigrant" and "migrant"? Or is it lumped together with 移民？

[889]

Where is the conversation taking place? It sounds like it's taking place in Taiwan, or at least outside New York.

 

Normally, 去 and 来 indicate movement from/towards the speaker, but of course it can be more complicated than that sometimes.

[Kangbachen]

Quote

Where is the conversation taking place? It sounds like it's taking place in Taiwan, or at least outside New York.

 

Normally, 去 and 来 indicate movement from/towards the speaker, but of course it can be more complicated than that sometimes.

 

It is a stand-alone sentence. No context. It’s given as an example of how to use the word 移民 in a sentence.

[jobm]

I think it would be better if they used 有很多从台湾（去/ 来）的移民？

 

The use of 去 or 来 tells the orientation of the speaker and in this case, I agree with the above comment -- that they are at least outside New York.

 

I guess These years many people from NY migrate to Taiwan".. is equivalent to 纽约这几年有很多去台湾的移民？

 

I also think that 移民 encompasses the three English words.

 

[lips]

Difference is the position of 去/来 relative to 台湾：

 

台湾去

台湾来

 

vs

 

去台湾

来台湾

[TriplePicto]

纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民。 is totally wrong.

 

纽约这几年有很多去台湾的新移民。 is better, but is not clear.

 

One of the best translations is:

這幾年，很多人從紐約移民到台灣。

 

這this幾several年years，很多many人people從from紐約NY移民migrate到to台灣TW。

 

(Native Cantonese speaker from HK who also knows mandarin, traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters)

 

[陳德聰]

On 2017-04-06 at 9:37 PM, TriplePicto said:

 

纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民。 is totally wrong.

 

纽约这几年有很多去台湾的新移民。 is better, but is not clear.

 

I am in 100% disagreement with this.

 

The first means "There have been a lot of new immigrants from Taiwan to New York (where we could not possibly be having this conversation right now) in these few years." The crucial part being that 台灣去的移民 vs 台灣來的移民 simply expresses where the person speaking is (are they in New York, saying people are coming to New York, or are they outside of New York saying people are going to New York?) It is grammatically awkward to use 去 here, but it is entirely acceptable speech.

 

The second means something completely different and completely divorced from the original sense that was being conveyed by your original question. It is vague and ambiguous, meaning there could be lots of new immigrants to the US who have been going to Taiwan in recent years, or it could mean there are a lot of new immigrants to Taiwan coming from New York in recent years.

 

Edit:

移民 means both emigration and immigration and does not distinguish directionality. That is what words like "to" and "from" are for (從 and 到), but when you just have a place name, the words 來 and 去 give you a clear indication of where your speaker is standing and how they would perceive the movement as being towards themselves or away from themselves.

 

(從)台灣來的 - coming toward my location from Taiwan

來台灣的 - coming to Taiwan

 

(從)台灣去的 - going toward a location (that is away from me) from Taiwan

去台灣的 - going to Taiwan

[889]

I didn't understand the "totally wrong" objection, either. Perhaps the speaker could have used more elegant phrasing, but that is the way people speak Mandarin Chinese.

[TriplePicto]

My focus is always on what @Kangbachen raised at first:

On 4/7/2017 at 0:07 AM, Kangbachen said:

 

I saw the following sentence in my textbook (實用視聽華語 2上 Practical Audio-visual Chinese):

 

 

纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民。

I understood it as "These few years New York has many new immigrants from Taiwan"..

 

 

As a native Chinese speaker, I can tell you that this is not the way we speak. If somebody says it, we need to ask the speaker to clarify. It is not just awkward, it is illogical.

So I must clearly point out that it is totally wrong. No offence to anyone, I just want to bring you the practical usage of Chinese language.

 

@陳德聰  It would be much appreciated if you could share with us your thoughts on the differences of these sentences:

 

紐約這幾年有很多台灣來的新移民

紐約這幾年有很多來台灣的新移民 

 

紐約這幾年有很多台灣去的新移民

紐約這幾年有很多去台灣的新移民
 

(hint: the use of 來 and 去 are not interchangeable)

 

 

[dwq]

7 hours ago, TriplePicto said:

As a native Chinese speaker, I can tell you that this is not the way we speak.

Perhaps not the people around you, but it is definitely the way some Chinese speak.

 

https://www.google.com.hk/#q="台湾去的人"

 

跑到上海的60萬台灣去的人

聽到台灣去的人講國語

還有我們台灣去的人

台湾去的人在美国买房子都是付全额

 

[陳德聰]

16 hours ago, TriplePicto said:

紐約這幾年有很多台灣來的新移民

紐約這幾年有很多來台灣的新移民 

 

紐約這幾年有很多台灣去的新移民

紐約這幾年有很多去台灣的新移民
 

(hint: the use of 來 and 去 are not interchangeable)

 

I definitely covered the first two lines in the two main paragraphs of my last post. Feel free to check it out again if you haven't already. That being said, you may be a native speaker of a particular variety of Chinese (definitely not the only native speaker and not the only variety of Chinese lol), but it seems you are misunderstanding the question as it is being asked, and I don't want to be too presumptuous but also potentially misunderstanding the specific grammar point being asked about.

 

No one has said 來 and 去 are interchangeable, just that they express direction toward and away from the speaker.

 

紐約這幾年有很多[台灣來的新移民] <- said by a speaker in New York: "New York has had a lot of [new immigrants from Taiwan] in recent years"

紐約這幾年有很多[來台灣的新移民] <- said by a speaker in Taiwan: "New York has had a lot of [new immigrants coming to Taiwan] in recent years" (ambiguous in that it could be understood to mean that the people coming to Taiwan are [new immigrants to New York from elsewhere], or that the people coming to Taiwan are new immigrants to Taiwan from New York)

 

紐約這幾年有很多[台灣去的新移民] <- said by a speaker not in New York: "New York has had a lot of [new immigrants from Taiwan] in recent years"

紐約這幾年有很多[去台灣的新移民] <- said by a speaker not in Taiwan: "New York has had a lot of [new immigrants going to Taiwan] in recent years" (ambiguous in that it could be understood to mean that the people going to Taiwan are [new immigrants to New York from elsewhere], or that the people going to Taiwan are new immigrants to Taiwan from New York)

 

The point that I am making, is that 台灣來的新移民 and 台灣去的新移民 both designate Taiwan as the country of origin and describe the exact same situation happening from two different speaker perspectives.

 

dwq has already provided a link, and naturally, I have run my own intuition by family members, friends and the boyfriend. Do I get to cash in on native speaker points yet?

[Publius]

 

18 hours ago, TriplePicto said:

On 4/7/2017 at 0:07 AM, Kangbachen said:

纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民。

I understood it as "These few years New York has many new immigrants from Taiwan"..

As a native Chinese speaker, I can tell you that this is not the way we speak. If somebody says it, we need to ask the speaker to clarify. It is not just awkward, it is illogical.

So I must clearly point out that it is totally wrong. No offence to anyone, I just want to bring you the practical usage of Chinese language.

This is ridiculous.

The sentence 纽约这几年有很多台湾去的新移民 is the only correct way to phrase it if the speaker is a Taiwan resident talking to a New York resident about the Taiwanese immigrants in New York. Period. Don't embarrass yourself and other native Chinese speakers please.

 

[lips]

"Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

- Carly Simon

[jobm]

Hmm here comes the subjectivity in the grammaticality of a sentence but for a textbook in learning Chinese, I think the author could have done better. 

 

I asked other native Chinese speakers that even though they can understand the sentence (in this case, it is grammatical), if they were the ones who uttered this sentence,  they would give a better sentence, like using the 从……来 construction. But we are all correct in our assumptions that the one who said ……台湾去…… is definitely not in NY. 

 

See my conversations in Wechat regarding this topic haha.

[陳德聰]

Do you mind if I ask how you posed the question? It seems most of your friends are commenting how they would translate from English into Chinese.

[jobm]

I just took a screencap of our thread here and asked: 大家怎么看呢？救命啊