By Wen Xin

“An enthusiastic foreigner has started studying Chinese with me. During our first class I taught him a word.”

“What word?”

“Wife.”

“How’d you explain it?”

“I told him that ‘wife,’ could also be substituted with: Madame,old lady, ball & chain, better half, other half, significant other,wifey, spouse, partner, mate,mother of my children… I gave him over forty different words that he could use and told him in which situations it would be more appropriate to use them.”

“Then what happened?”

“He never showed up for his second class. I heard he’s already bought his plane ticket to return home.”◆

(From Tianjin Evening News. Translation: Sam Bowden)

“一個(gè)外國人，興致勃勃跟我學(xué)漢語。第一節(jié)課，我給他講了一個(gè)詞。”

“什么詞？”

“妻子。”

“你是怎么講的？”

我告訴他，妻子這個(gè)詞又可以替換為太太、老婆、夫人、愛人、對象、內(nèi)子、拙荊、賤內(nèi)、那口子、孩子他媽、我家領(lǐng)導(dǎo)……我告訴他四十來個(gè)詞，以及這些詞在什么情況下用比較合適?！?/p>

“后來呢？”

“第二節(jié)課他沒有來，據(jù)說，他已經(jīng)買機(jī)票準(zhǔn)備回國了?！薄?/p>