in the garden of old sentences
There are so many lines in Black & White that are really interesting to me. I keep a number of them in a file that's just Black & White quotes because I've noticed so many structures in the dialog that are fun to study.
I just found one in my notes that isn't in that file, and it's kind of interesting.
我现在就需要一个这样的地方，把自己丢掉，让自己都不要想起自己。
Wǒ xiànzài jiù xūyào yīge zhèyàng de dìfāng, bǎ zìjǐ diūdiào, ràng zìjǐ dōu búyào xiǎngqǐ zìjǐ.
Right now I need a place like this, to lose myself, forget myself.
(I can't remember who said that... seems like it might be Chen Lin in her bar conversation with Yingxiong. That was a particularly fertile conversation from a learner's viewpoint.)
The first "self" comes after the object particle 把. I think 丢掉 can also be "throw away" or "discard", which makes it seem similar to 丢下 diūxià "abandon". I don't know what the difference is.
"ba (noun) (verb)" is a really basic ba structure, so that makes sense. But the next "self" comes after 让... which I always have trouble recognizing in its more intimidating traditional form 讓. Anyway I'm staring at that last part...
让自己都不要想起自己
And "forget myself" doesn't help me... it's more "let/allow self all not recall (think of, call to mind) self". If I were trying to create that phrase starting with the English thought "forget myself", I don't think I would have put it together like that. I'm not sure I would have even known how to say that. I might have tried the more obvious 忘记自己, but I don't know if that works.
想起 xiangqi is interesting because both of those characters are so rich in meaning... but when I see them together it makes perfect sense that it would mean... that your thoughts about something/someone are standing up in your mind.
I love it when this happens, when looking at a line of dialog makes me realize that its deceptively simple structure hides the fact that I wouldn't have known how to say that.
I just found one in my notes that isn't in that file, and it's kind of interesting.
我现在就需要一个这样的地方，把自己丢掉，让自己都不要想起自己。
Wǒ xiànzài jiù xūyào yīge zhèyàng de dìfāng, bǎ zìjǐ diūdiào, ràng zìjǐ dōu búyào xiǎngqǐ zìjǐ.
Right now I need a place like this, to lose myself, forget myself.
(I can't remember who said that... seems like it might be Chen Lin in her bar conversation with Yingxiong. That was a particularly fertile conversation from a learner's viewpoint.)
The first "self" comes after the object particle 把. I think 丢掉 can also be "throw away" or "discard", which makes it seem similar to 丢下 diūxià "abandon". I don't know what the difference is.
"ba (noun) (verb)" is a really basic ba structure, so that makes sense. But the next "self" comes after 让... which I always have trouble recognizing in its more intimidating traditional form 讓. Anyway I'm staring at that last part...
让自己都不要想起自己
And "forget myself" doesn't help me... it's more "let/allow self all not recall (think of, call to mind) self". If I were trying to create that phrase starting with the English thought "forget myself", I don't think I would have put it together like that. I'm not sure I would have even known how to say that. I might have tried the more obvious 忘记自己, but I don't know if that works.
想起 xiangqi is interesting because both of those characters are so rich in meaning... but when I see them together it makes perfect sense that it would mean... that your thoughts about something/someone are standing up in your mind.
I love it when this happens, when looking at a line of dialog makes me realize that its deceptively simple structure hides the fact that I wouldn't have known how to say that.