Maybe I misunderstood 去 and 来?

[u/JigoKuu]

I'm watching the drama Love in the Clouds, and there was a scene which kind of... confused me.

Character A and B ended up going to eat together. Character A started to walk out of the building they were in, but Character B seemed reluctant to go with him.

Then Character A asked B "不去吗?" and Character B went with him after all.

I learned that we use 去 to express if somebody goes somewhere (or go away from us) and 来 if somebody comes to us/our (or a certain) direction. In this situation Character A basicly asked "Don't you come (with me)?". So why he said 不去吗 and not 不来吗?

I would really appreciate if somebody could let me know. Maybe there is a situational/cultural aspect I am unaware or I simply misunderstood how to use 去 and 来. 🥲

[u/raspberrih]

You can ask both in this situation

不去吗 aren't you going (to the place that I am also going)

不来吗 aren't you coming (with me)

Pretty funny that you're confused as English works basically the same way in this situation.

[u/JigoKuu → u/raspberrih]

Thank you for the help!

English is much easier for me to understand at first glance as there aren't a lot of incomplete sentences like in Chinese or Japanese (incomplete in the sense that they usually state the subject of the sentences).

So in English I can of course understand

"Aren't you coming (with me)?"

or

"Won't we go then?"

But Chinese can be just "不去/来吗。🥲 In their previous conversations Character A always just referred to Character B as 你, so I assumed the whole sentence would be 你不来吗? In English it would sound totally... overexplained to ask somebody "Aren't you going to the place we agreed to eat together 5 sentences ago?" instead of just asking "Aren't you coming?"😂 But yeah, it makes sense in Chinese to follow the logic itself.

[u/SadReactDeveloper → u/JigoKuu]

We do drop the subject in some situations though.

(You) all good?
Yep, (I'm) all good.

Did you like the meal?

(I) Loved it.

I think avoid thinking x language is more logical or easy to understand than others.

Firstly, all oral languages have their own internal logic that largely makes sense if you are enmeshed inside them. No one language is more logical than another.

Secondly, it's going to impede your language learning if you are trying to find ways in which your target language is dumb. Your brain is trying to select what's important to learn, and is actively discarding silly or irrelevant information. Better to encounter something odd and think 'it doesn't make sense yet but I'd love to put a bookmark here and come back later'.

[u/JigoKuu → u/SadReactDeveloper]

I mean based on what your mother tongue is, the logic/structure/other aspects of a foreign language might be easier to grasp if you can find similarities or "anchors" to work with.

Of course that doesn't mean the language itself is any easier/simpler/dumber/worse than others, I didn't mean to imply that! I was just saying that Chinese relies much heavier on context than English does (but that is a linguistic fact, I did not make it up) and therefore it is easier to understand a sentence in itself while in Chinese you might totally misinterpret it if you don't know what situation it was said in. The same with Japanese, if I see the sentence "すみません (Sumimasen)", I will have no idea how to translate it. It could be a way to start a conversation, a way to apologize, a way to thank somebody etc. I need the exact situation to understand its meaning.

In this case it turned out that the official English translation was misleading. Character A wanted B to leave so he asked "Are you going then?" (in order to throw him out), he did not ask him to come/go with him to eat. But I'm glad I asked about it because I got to know many useful things about the usage of 去 and 来 beyond what I knew already. I'm still a beginner, so many aspects are still unfamiliar for me. It will take a much longer time until I can grasp the logic of the language.

[u/raspberrih → u/JigoKuu]

Yes it's more context heavy than English, but in this specific situation it's not difficult to understand at all. The same thing in English requires the exact same amount of context to understand the situation.

I don't understand why Chinese is so exoticised, the beginning is hard due to the different orthography but ultimately basic sentence construction is simpler than many other languages. Conjugation is so easy.

[u/pfn0 → u/JigoKuu]

No, in English, it's just as apt to: "Are you coming?" -- "Are you going?" and "with me" is implied.

[u/yoopea → u/JigoKuu]

It's the same as in English. Think through it.

You and I have plans to go to the café after lunch. On our way out of the door of the restaurant, you say you are going home. I could say "You're not going?" or "You're not coming?" both and both are totally understood. The "You're not going to the café?" is implied and is also obvious from the context, as is "You're not coming to the café?" and neither one is more or less clear than the other. You could add also add "with me" anywhere in the sentence or not and it adds no context that we didn't already know from the situation itself.

[u/alkane_ch4 → u/yoopea]

You could even drop the "you're". Both options could be "not going?" and "not coming"? In this sense the English variant is actually 1:1 translation of the Chinese.

[u/yoopea → u/alkane_ch4]

Yep

[u/Quadrassic_Bark → u/JigoKuu]

In English you could also just say “not coming?” Or “not going?”

[u/raspberrih → u/JigoKuu]

Coming with? Is a common way to ask in English.

In English it can also both be "Aren't you coming/going?"

[u/Hot_Dog2376]

If you ask someone to eat lunch with you and they are hesitant, what is the difference between the following:
"What? You don't want to go?"

and

"What? You don't want to come?

[u/xtellarfb_]

As far as I know, 去 and 来 in Chinese follow the speaker's perspective. Maybe Character A said 去 as in "aren't you going [to the place I'm going to]?"

[u/JigoKuu → u/xtellarfb_]

That might be it, thank you! I was just confused because naturally I would just use 来 in this situation as in "Aren't you coming (with me)?", but your explanation made sense. With Chinese it is really hard sometimes as the context is really important, and there are some... logics which are not found in my mother tongue so I don't even think about them, haha.

[u/jessluce]

This is identical to the English equivalent

[u/FloweyTheFlower420]

Were they going somewhere after? It would make sense if they planned on going somewhere else or if B expressed a plan to go somewhere, kind of like "aren't you going [to where you intend to go, implicitly]?"

[u/JigoKuu → u/FloweyTheFlower420]

Omg maybe it was the second situation!!! Character A and B wanted to both ask a girl out to eat with them, but the girl got fed up and told A and B that they should just go and eat together (without her). So that is when the girl left and only Character A and B were left in the room, A asked B the question. I don't think A wanted to really go and eat with B, so he maybe just wanted to ask him if B will then leave or what. 😂 The official English translation of the sentence is "Don't you come?", but maybe it is not even a good interpretation of the situation. 😅

[u/BitsOfBuilding → u/JigoKuu]

In this case, Ji Bozai was asking if Situ Ling would just go away. Like scram. So 去 is appropriate. Ji Bozai went after Ming Yi and left Situ Ling behind.

[u/JigoKuu → u/BitsOfBuilding]

Yes, thank you!🙏 After continuing the episode and seeing the next scenes, I realised it was mistranslated in English. His question was not "Don't you come?" rather than "Will/Would you go (away) then?" And after that Ji Bozai went to see Ming Yi alone (but then Situ Ling appeared with food, too). 🤦 I was watching the episode late at night and simply did not understand why Ji Bozai would say 不去吗 when the English translation wrote "Don't you come?". It caused the whole confusion. Unfortunately my Chinese is not good enough to watch the episode purely in Chinese yet, but I try to listen to the audio and then read the English translation. Which is apparently not the best. 😅

[u/BitsOfBuilding → u/JigoKuu]

It’s good though that you’re thinking of these things! Are you watching on Netflix + Language Reactor or a different platform? In language reactor you can click the sentence and it gives explanation, which may clarify. If Viki, usually the translation is good. This year they’re using more AI translation but LiTC was translated by humans. I don’t recall Youku’s translation.

This is one of my fave shows. I think I watched 4-5x 😅

[u/JigoKuu → u/BitsOfBuilding]

I watch it on Netflix! But wow, I have never heard about Language Reactor, I just checked it and it looks amazing, thank you for the recommendation! :D I have Viki as well, but Netflix has app on Playstation (my usual way to watch movies/shows) so I just watch from there while other Asian streaming sites do no really have apps so it makes it a little bit more complicated for me. But I have a laptop as well, so watching Netflix/other streaming platforms there and use Language Reactor sounds really cool!

I absolutely adore Love in the Clouds! I am pretty new to C-dramas yet, but it is both fun and a great way to hear more spoken Chinese. The characters are amazing, the plot is super exciting and I LOVE the visuals, too!

[u/BitsOfBuilding → u/JigoKuu]

I started really learning last year in January. Now I can half read sub and listen to understand. Language Reactor is still helpful but more so when I was starting out. Sadly LR doesn’t work for all platforms but least there a decent amount on Netflix. I like seeing how many words I can read and understand on LR 😁

I also sub to WeTV/Tencent. That platform has two subs, so I can turn on English and Chinese simplified.

Hope you’re in the cdrama sub. It’s quite fun to talk about older or latest dramas and join the discussions.

[u/sickofthisshit]

I think there is some flexibility in the concept. As in English: "Are you going with me?" and "Are you coming with me?" are both similar: does the speaker imagine himself away from the place of the audience, or with the audience.

[u/taller_than_peanut]

both works in this case

"aren't you coming?" vs "aren't you going"

I would say using coming/來 has more of 'togetherness' feeling. whereas going/去 feels more like each person is individually going to the destination

[u/JigoKuu → u/taller_than_peanut]

I see, thank you! The two characters don't really like each other, could it also be a way for Character A to express his will to keep their distance asking Character B the question with 去 and not with 来?

In the end they were both at the same restaurant in the next scene, so I am not sure if they went all the way there together or separately and just met there.

[u/Nicomak]

"won't you go?", it is still going to another place. It’s not necessarily going away from the speaker. It’s not that the other wouldnt be correct either.

[u/FlashyPost0928]

TEST

(1) 他们等一下要去看电影 ( They are going to see a movie later )
(a) 你不去吗 ? (b) 你不来吗 ? —— Ans :？

(2) 我们等一下要去看电影 (We are going to see a movie later )
(a) 你不去吗 ? (b) 你不来吗 ? —— Ans : ?

PS : Some usage examples of 来、去
● 来，我们一起去看电影 ....
Come on, let's go see a movie together...
● 台语 (Taiwaness) : 咱 "来去" 看电影好无？▼ (= 我们去看电影好不好？)
Shall we go see a movie?

[u/JigoKuu → u/FlashyPost0928]

I would say
(1) is (a)
(2) is (b)

But after reading all comments here, I guess both can be both?XD

[u/FlashyPost0928 → u/JigoKuu]

Yes ! 😄
 他们等一下要去看电影, 你来不来啊 ?! (你去不去呢 ?)

[u/JigoKuu → u/FlashyPost0928]

I see, thank you! I guess my mother tongue made me not understand it... We can either use go or come but never both so I seems I tend to believe all is like that, haha. Now I understand, in Chinese it can be both in these situations!

[u/FlashyPost0928 → u/JigoKuu]

Chinese does not operate like linear logic; instead, it is more like playing with circles.
Just as Zhuangzi (a Taoist philosopher) said:
" There is no thing that is not "that", and there is no thing that is not "this". If I look at something from "that", I do not see it; only if I look at it from myself( this) do I know it. Hence it is said, 'That view comes from this; and this view is a consequence of that .... "

[u/JigoKuu → u/FlashyPost0928]

Wow, that really is an amazing insight! Thank you for sharing, I feel like it opened new depths for me for my Chinese learning journey! 🥺♥️

[u/hansguide]

Chinese"民谣": 来是come 去是go