Today in class, we were practicing giving directions, and I ran into some sort of problem that was not explained by my teacher. I’ll try to retell it as best as possible:
She asked me to tell her how to get from the classroom to the office, which is down the hall on the left. I figured that since I would start with “Go out the door and take a left” in English, I should say something similar in Chinese; so I said “出去教室, 往左拐…” She cut me off, saying that if I did that, I’d end up back in the room. She then demonstrated, walking out the door and facing to the left, saying “See? If I turned left now, I’d be going back into the classroom.” I said “But you just turned left,” to which she responded “Oh, so you mean 往左轉, 出去教室,” which I took to mean “turn left then leave the room,” so I said “no…” She then dismissed it, saying “沒關係” and moving to the next person.
I’m the guy who always goes to the teacher after class and asks what are probably annoying questions about little things that aren’t explained in the textbook, so I figured I’d give her a rest and see what you guys think. Was my word order wrong? Is there an important difference between 拐 and 轉 that I don’t know about? Do Chinese speakers just assume that you’ll be facing left when you leave a room? Would you have to say “turn around” if you wanted them to take a right at the door?
[quote=“Quarters”]教師 = teacher…I think you were trying to say class room?
I am a bit confused because what you wrote doesnt make much sense…the wife took a crack at it and she couldnt understand what you wrote either.
Sorry, wish I could help more[/quote]
Well, I tried to say “leave the classroom, turn left”: chu1qu4 jiao4shi4, wang3 zuo3 guai3, which would have been followed by yi4zhi2 zou3. 教師 was a typo – it should have been 教室.
I noticed that in my textbook, chu1qu4 is listed as a “directional compound” (whatever that is), not a verb. Should I have used something else for “exit/leave”?
After reading several times, i may guess what was going wrong. I think your teacher or you stop at the wrong period. But i’m not sure the situ. Did you say that fluently without repeating 左 twice? like 出了教室,往左,左拐. You know what i mean? If every thing goes like what you type here, your expression is totally okay to me. But i don’t know why your teacher followed the direction like that.
The expression she used may like this “往左轉出去 教室”, turn left out of the classroom, not what you took, turn left then leave.
拐 & 轉 means the same to Chinese. One possible of the facing direction, is your classroom at the end of corridor? So when you walk out of the classroom everyone should face left? If not, I don’t understand why she did that.
As far as I know, “出去教室, 往左拐” is exactly what I said. There are a few classrooms to the right of ours, so I wouldn’t assume that you would turn left as you leave the room. I guess she did understand what I meant, but I didn’t understand what she meant when she suggested that I say “往左轉出去教室.” I still don’t know what she thought was wrong with my original sentence, so I guess I’ll have to ask her about it anyway.
mmm… Better to ask her to replay your order step by step.
(One small thing, we may not say 出去教室, usually 出教室 is fine. And add some order words. 出教室後,左轉)
OK, try this. 往左, 轉出去教室 . this is what i can do to make it make sense. To your left, when(or after) you turn out the classroom . But these words sound not very natural to me. lol…
When you get the answer, please let me know what did she mean. I’m very curious about the Chinese structure that a Chinese teacher explain to you guys. THX
Enjoy your class.
I’ve never taken a Chinese class but sounds to me like nipple is setting herself up to win the battle but lose the war. They can challenge our face but you better not challenge theirs. It’s the new order.
This can be interpreted as “To leave the classroom, turn left.”[/quote]
Ah, maybe that was the problem. Would it have been better to say “先出去教室,再往左拐?”[/quote]
Well, i have the problem with the english! To leave the classroom, turn left. Does that mean if you want to leave the classroom, you have to turn left?
how can you turn in the classroom and get out?
To Nibble. I think you can use 出"了"教室,往左拐 to indicate the order or 出教室"後"往左拐.