Just done a lesson with my student Hélène in Paris.
One of the sentences for translating into Chinese is a doctor telling the patient his heart and blood pressure are normal.
The Chinese word for “heart” is 心 xīn.
If it refers to “heart” the organ, one has to add the generic 脏 zàng / “internal organ”: 心脏 xīnzàng / “heart internal-organ”.
This is because it is also used in an abstract way. For example,
- to think a thought to oneself (not articulated aloud), one says: 我心里想 wǒ xīn lǐ xiǎng / “I heart inside think” = I inside my heart think;
- one says a kind-hearted person is 好心 hǎo xīn / “good heart”.
After I’d explained all this to my student, she said, without even realising she was doing a pun, “I’ll have to go and learn it by heart.” Inspired word play!
(London/Paris, 2021)
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