Fate, love and a lifetime
Costume dramas are built on a handful of romantic formulas: fate that brings two people together, love at first sight, a vow that lasts a lifetime. Some of them are poetry from the past. One of them, 缘分, is a word people use every day.
The words of the formula
Four you will hear in every romance.
缘分 is the key idea. It is not quite fate and not quite luck: it is the invisible thread that decides who meets whom, and Chinese speakers use it about friendships and business partners as well as love.
Costume, modern, real life
How each era says it.
心悦, my heart delights in, is classical. 挺…的 softens it: I quite like you.
归 is the old word for return, 回 the modern one.
一直, all along, is the unromantic real-life word.
The costume lines are not wrong Chinese, they are old Chinese: 悦 for 喜欢, 归 for 回. Modern dramas modernise the words and keep the grandeur, and real life lets both go.
A vow
Four lines that could be from any costume romance.
说话算话 is the most useful line here. It is ordinary modern Chinese, you will hear it in real conversations, and it means exactly what it means in the drama.
English reaches for fate, destiny or chemistry, and none of them is right. 缘分 is the idea that a connection between two people was always going to happen, or never could. People say 有缘 when they meet by chance twice, and 没有缘分 when something does not work out, which is kinder than saying it failed.
8 questions. Get 5 right to finish the day.
缘分 is closest to…
- bad luck
- a wedding
- a promise
- the fate that brings people together
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the fate that brings people together Used about love, friendship and business.
一见钟情 means…
- to fall out
- one look is enough
- love at first sight
- to meet once
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love at first sight A chengyu: one look, feeling gathers.
心上人 is…
- a doctor
- a rival
- someone upset
- the one in your heart
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the one in your heart A beloved.
Type the pinyin for 缘分.
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yuánfèn Second tone, then fourth.
我心悦你 is…
- a classical way to say I like you
- a modern way to say I like you
- a threat
- a way to say goodbye
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a classical way to say I like you 悦, to delight in.
说话算话 means…
- to count out loud
- to argue
- to talk too much
- to keep your word
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to keep your word Your words count.
Which is the everyday real-life word for always?
- 一直 yìzhí
- 前世 qiánshì
- 生生世世 shēngshēng shìshì
- 一生一世 yì shēng yí shì
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一直 The others belong to vows.
Type the Chinese or pinyin for I like you.
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wǒ xǐhuan nǐ The modern way, from the ladder.
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