I give you colour...SEE SEE!

[dalaowai]

I'm having a problem fully understanding the following phrase:

我给你颜色看看！

wo gei ni yan se kan kan.

I've been given a few translations, such as, "I will strike the fear of God upon you" or "you better watch yourself". However, I'm not content, as the literal translation differs very much from those explanations.

Does anyone know the historical link to giving someone a colour to look at?

[Quest]

It's an idiom, I never thought about such things, but my guess is that:

颜 means face, 颜色 = face color = facial expression = anger

so it translates into I will show you my anger, watch out!

颜色 = 厉害 here

[HashiriKata]

Here's another example of its use:

要给他们一点颜色看: We must teach them a lesson!

[dalaowai]

Thanks for the replies! Well I gotta go and dish out some colour now.

[Ferno]

quest, dict definition of 颜色 is just "color" tho..

[Ferno]

oh and what does 看 mean in that context?

[Quest]

quest, dict definition of 颜色 is just "color" tho..

颜 originally meant face (容颜,颜面), and 色 meant color, so 颜色 in the old days probably meant 脸色. The modern day definition of 颜色 is of course "color", but I was trying to explain the idiom...

Nowadays if you say "老子要给你点儿颜色看看”，people would neither think of color nor facial expression though. It only means "我要教训你“, so the literal meaning isn't that important.

[kudra]

I am reminded of the English idiom, "I'll give him a piece of my mind!"

which means I'm going to show my anger to him.

Ferno - Looking up the bits in a dictionary aren't going to explain this idiom in English either.

googling on "piece of my mind idiomatic expression" turns up

http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/e_mrsa.htm

search on "piece" there to see the example

[Ferno]

huh Kudra? The question was about 颜色 being the definition of "color". It has nothing to do with idioms - there is only the possibility of it being a pun if Chinese still have an association of "face" in "color" (but I don't think the Chinese give puns any special recognition due to them probably being very common)

jestes polakiem?

[kudra]

Ferno- OK I think see what you are getting at. I was just getting back to Quest's remark that it was an idiom. Initially Quest said he was guessing at how this evolved and his last post seemed tentative in places.

Given that it's an idiomatic expression, I was confused why you referenced the dictionary definition, and asked about the meaning of 看 in this context.

Anybody?-- Is there is some authority in Chinese like the OED is for English, that gives the history and evolution of usage?

Ferno- I'm guessing that jestes polakiem? asks whether I'm Polish. If it does, the answer is no.

[dalaowai]

You guys better cool it down 还是我给你们一点儿颜色看看！ 哈哈

Thank you everyone for trying to find out the root of this expression. I was originally intrigued by "wo yao qu mai dong xi" 我要去买东西

东西 meaning East-West meaning "something". It bothered me for a long time and I kept asking Chinese people...none of which knew the reason. I later found out that a long time ago, there was a city that would sell things at the East and West gates. Therefore, people started to use the slang, 我要去买东西, opposed to explaining that they will go to the east gate, then go to the west gate to buy things.

There are plenty of other words/expressions that I'd love to find out the original meaning. While others make me giggle like "owl" 猫头鹰 (cat head eagle) or my all time favourite "volcano". 火山。 Watch out! The fire mountain is about to erupt!!!

[Quest]

It has nothing to do with idioms - there is only the possibility of it being a pun if Chinese still have an association of "face" in "color" (but I don't think the Chinese give puns any special recognition due to them probably being very common)

The Chinese do recognize puns, and use them everywhere to make jokes and catchy commercial lines, etc.

"I'll give you color see see" is an idiomatic expression, not a pun.

看 here takes it's regular role as an action verb meaning "to look at"

[Desmond]

Yes! 东西 originates from the city of Xi'an "西安” in central China.

When we visited that city, my prof was showing us a map and told us that. It was pretty cool! I'd really like a dictionary that could explain all these things....

[dalaowai]

Desmond! Thanks for letting me know which city it was. It always bothered me not knowing which city, which made my explanation lose out on the coolness. Now I know! If you ever come across such a book, let me know.

[nipponman]

What's so hard to understand about 火山? It makes sense to me:-?

[dalaowai]

I never said that I didn't understand 火山 Nipponman, I said that it made me giggle. I know that 火山 is the same in Kanji, so don't be all butt-hurt. That's why I like learning Chinese, cause there are always words that are funny to me that way.

[gougou]

I like 马上: "我马上过来。" - "I'm coming over on the horse."

[dalaowai]

That is also one of my favourites. I wonder if in the year 2200 they'll be saying 车上过来！and people like you and I will laugh at it. haha...cars... I find myself directly translating Chinese songs into English and let me tell you, the bilingual Chinese girls love it! haha

[Quest]

火山 can be broken down into fire mountain, but nobody reads it that way though. It's always interpreted as a whole word meaning volcano. 马上 is a northern idiom, 即刻 was the original word for immediately, just like how 物 was replaced by 东西. Chinese word roots are often very obvious, but they are not interpreted literally.

[dalaowai]

I respectfully disagree with you. It's becoming very popular amongst young people to literally translate Chinese words into English. I'm currently experiencing this in Shanghai, as most of the younger people have good English. They do it in a comical way to get a laugh out of bilingual friends. The two most common things I hear them joke about is 我给你一点颜色Look look! and I've heard quite a few people say "fire mountain" instead of 火山。

I grew up in a French speaking part of Canada and as we learnt English at school, we also often did literal translations while speaking either language, to be comical. I'm finding that this generation is doing the same thing as mine did.