Talk:中间人

Synonym?

Is 中间商 a synonym? 24.93.170.200 00:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's see if you can answer your own question. What is the difference between 商 and 人? I see that Wiktionary is not much help in this regard, so I'll give you another link for the purposes of this exercise. Take a look at definitions two and three of this link. Also, did you get a chance to take a look at the Chinese print dictionary that I recommended? -- A-cai 12:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you--it looks very good and I will order it when I have sufficient funds. Regarding the definition, the Internet shows that, although the final character is different, 中间商 is also used for "middleman." Google search. This is why I asked the question above. 24.93.170.200 18:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

If you really want to progress in Chinese, you're going to have to start thinking in Chinese. Don't focus on the English definition at this point. You already know that 中间 means middle, yes? Ok, so in these two words, 中间 is an adjective which modifies one of two nouns: 商 and 人. The key to understanding the difference is to understand the difference in meaning between 商 and 人. What is the basic meaning of 人? How does that basic definition differ from 商? Could it be that 商, among other things, can refer to one type of 人 (or possibly, another noun which is not a 人 at all)? -- A-cai 22:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

hint: I have added information to the Mandarin section of 商 (look at noun definition #2). -- A-cai 23:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting! Without you having added that, it would have been difficult to determine this. Yes, without knowing conventions of character use and abbreviation in Mandarin, it's easy for the non-native speaker to mistake something like 中美 (referring to Chinese-U.S. relations) for "middle beautiful" or whatever. 24.93.170.200 01:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)