中 文 怎 麼 說 "visit?"

[Long Zhiren]

What Chinese verb vocabulary do I want to use if I wanted to

"visit" a friend

or

"visit" a city?

How about for a doctor who "visits" a patient?

I learned this term 拜訪 in my Chinese studies but have never been sure how to use it. Is it a noun or a verb? What's an example of it in a sentence? I don't notice anyone saying it in public! I've never seen dictionary entries that have made much sense to me either for translating the English language term.

Thanks.

[skylee]

You can use 探訪, 探望, 看 for "to visit" a friend. Or simply 去 XX 家 (go to XX's home).

For "to visit" a place, you can use 到/去 (a place) 旅遊/觀光/參觀/遊覽.

For a doctor visiting a patient, I think you can use 看.

[ameliasj]

"visit" a friend 拜访/造访 某人

e.g. 改天一定登门拜访。

(Though in many cases we regard it as too formal that we simply use 去某人家做客)

探望 is more likely used for some one who is ill or weak. 探望病人

"visit" a city

I fully agree with Skylee on this point. "visit" here is used as 旅游/参观/访问/视察, depend on the situation.

For example, visit a museum(参观博物馆), visit Shanghai(去上海旅游), and for some important person's paying an official visit for some place(访问/视察某地)

for a doctor who "visits" a patient, yes, you can use 看.

[war0060]

Moreover, 拜訪 is rather formal, it shows the respectation to your friend

[weiming]

I'm a little shaky on this, as I'm still uncomfortable with the interpretation of this word in Mandarin, but I believe your problem is the idiom itself, evidenced in your examples.

"visit" a friend/"visit" a city/"visits" a patient

Thinking of these together may lead you to believe that there should be some sort of equivalent suitable in Chiese for these situations, but there really isn't (in my experience).

If you think about it objectively, there shouldn't be either.

In my impression, the basic meaning of 'visit' in English is to briefly go to a set place, for the purpose of spending time with a person and then come back to your original position.

When you mention a doctor visiting a patient, it makes it sound like the patient and him are friends, and the doctor has nothing to do. I'll assume you're talking about attending to a patient euphemistically.

I also find it unusual that you would 'visit a city'. Is it waiting for you? But obviously this is an English convention. Picking at these details makes me seem semantic, but in translation, you have to be.

The Chinese have no reason to pick up on these conventions in English, since the origin of the words 拜 and 访 have completely different origins from the word the dicitionary suggests as an equivalent.

What is 拜? It is an action, one hand being placed in another as a form of respect when you greet this person. When you go to visit this person, you will [or should] 拜 him.

访(问) is 'visit' in the sense of go to see someone to gather information. "How have you been...when you gonna pay me my money [beotch]" and the like.

Like others mentioned, the inclusion of 拜 implies respect, making this term a little too formal. For friends and close family members, we just 'go to see them' exactly like in English. Though in English the subjective verb barely makes sense, I suppose it conveys our degree of certainty that we will succeed.

去看我的朋友/去见我的朋友

探访/望----is for visiting someone in a hospital.

访视 is for a doctor to visit a patient outside of the hospital for medical purposes (house call).

I believe you would just 'go' to a city, or formally 赴(fu4).

So there you go.