尴尬 gāngà embarrassed, awkward

[phoneticsem]

他虽然显得尴尬,但总算消了气。Although he appeared embarrassed, but anger disappeared.

 

尴尬 gāngà embarrassed, awkward; 尢 "a person who has lost the ability to walk,"; 监 jiān supervise, jail;

 

显得 xiǎnde to appear; 显 xiǎn to make visible;

消 xiāo to disappear;  

can I assume the above 2 are opposite words?

总算 zǒngsuàn finally;总 zǒng always; 算 suàn to calculate;

 

any suggestions to improve the understanding of the  above sentence?

 

 

[anonymoose]

On 6/26/2022 at 6:07 AM, phoneticsem said:

any suggestions to improve the understanding of the  above sentence?

 

Suggestion 1: Don't try to deconstruct the characters. There may be some etymology behind them, but it is unlikely to be of significant help in your understanding of modern Chinese.

 

Suggestion 2: Don't try to deconstruct words. Words formed from combinations of characters assume a new meaning which usually cannot be accurately gleaned from knowing the individual characters.

 

虽然......，但...... Although...... (In English, we don't use "although" and "but" simultaneously.)

显得 seem

尴尬 embarrassed

总算 finally ("finally" is one translation, though in this specific sentence, I would say "at least" would probably encompass the meaning better)

消气 cool off (anger dissipates)

了 signifies completion of the action, so 消了气 would be "calmed down" or as you said, "his anger dissipated". The tense of 显得 also has to be interpreted with this in mind, so in this sentence, it would only make sense to interpret is as "seemed".

[phoneticsem]

On 6/26/2022 at 8:03 PM, anonymoose said:

The tense of 显得 also has to be interpreted with this in mind,

 

Thanks for the tense correction and for using 总算 as at least.

 

Although he seems embarrassed, but anger at least/ finally dissipated.

 

On 6/26/2022 at 8:03 PM, anonymoose said:

Suggestion 2: Don't try to deconstruct words.

 

Some times, it was very difficult for me to remember the meaning, without deconstruction of word/characters, so to recollect I used to deconstruct, let me try whether I can use other methods to recollect, so that no need to deconstruct.

[889]

尴尬 is a very common word in 口语 and very useful because it describes precisely how you feel speaking Chinese at first.

[abcdefg]

For your next project, learn when and how to properly use 尴尬 vs. 不好意思。Learn when you should say "我太尴尬！“ and when you should you say "我真不好意思！“  

[phoneticsem]

@abcdefg thanks for sharing your own experience using "我真不好意思！“