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The Wenlin dictionary translates 会说 as "talker", but the meaning of talker in Harrap's dictionary is bad. Should 会说 be translated as "narrator"?

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  • Many words have multiple meanings, until you put them into a sentence to make more sense. eg "Baby" might not only mean very young people. It can be a baby panda :D
    – SIDU
    Aug 4, 2016 at 23:12
  • @faure seems like some context is needed here to answer your question. Where did you see this?
    – Mou某
    Aug 5, 2016 at 0:58
  • Please provide an example sentence. Without context, 会说 is just a sequence of two verbs meaning "be able to speak".
    – Tsundoku
    Aug 9, 2016 at 13:19

3 Answers 3

2

means be able to

means say,spaek

C: 你會說普通話嗎? / 你會普通話嗎?
E: Do you speak Mandarin?

talker is similar to 很會說(good at talk) or 很愛說(talktive)

narrator in Chinese is 旁白 or 說書人


Another case

Colloquially, we can say

A: 你真是&@#^$#& (something dirty)

A: you are fuxxxx....

B: 哇,你真會說 (frivolous)

B: wow, you are so mean.

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  • this is the translation of talker in Harraps dictionary : noun (a) (speaker) causeur(euse) m,f, bavard(e) m,f; ∎ she's a real talker c'est une grande bavarde, c'est un vrai moulin à paroles; ∎ my father was never much of a talker mon père n'a jamais été très bavard; ∎ he's a brilliant talker c'est un beau parleur; ∎ he's a fast talker (gen) il parle vite; Commerce il a du bagout (b) (talking bird) oiseau m qui parle the meaning of 会说 is it closer to " bavard " in french or closer to " narrateur " (in french) bavard is not really a positive word :-)
    – faure
    Aug 4, 2016 at 11:31
  • AFAIK "être un beau parleur", "parler vite" and "avoir du bagout" do not necessarily have negative connotations in French. In English, saying that someone is "quite some talker" could be seen as being a compliment. "to be a Talker" doesn't necessarily have negative connotations. Also 会说 can mean other things too, depending on the context. Aug 4, 2016 at 15:37
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会说 can mean “is a talker” as in “can speak (well)”, but it can have other meanings too. The basic idea is: “会说 = can + speak”.

Sometimes it needs to be treated as a single word, sometimes as two separate words. (Edit: it seems to occur more often as two separate words than as a single word.) This distinction can be seen in Pinyin (but the Hanzi do not give this distinction). I believe it can usually by heard too in speech, but my oral Chinese isn’t so good so I’m not sure!

Here a few examples I got from an app on my phone (Pleco), with some more translations into English & French of my own. I added the French as in the first comment (to TomN’s answer) it looks like the user “faure” is more familiar with French.

  1. 你真会说。 | Nǐ zhēn hùishūo. = You’re a really good talker. = Tu parles très bien.
  2. 你会说法语。 | Nǐ huì shuō Fǎyǔ. (= you can speak French) = You speak French. = Tu parles français.
  3. 人家会说你,你在乎不在乎? | Rénjia huì shuō nǐ, nǐ zàihu bù zàihu? (= people may talk (of) you, do you care?) = Don’t you care what people will say? = Tu t’en fiches du qu’en dira-t-on?
  4. 谁都没她会说话。 | Shuí dōu méi tā huì shuōhuà. = No one is as eloquent as she is. = Elle est plus éloquente que quiconque.
  5. 这么复杂的中文句子,我不会说。| Zhème fùzá de Zhōngwén jùzi, wǒ bú huì shūo = I can’t say such a complicated sentence in Chinese. = Je ne peux pas dire une phrase aussi compliquée en chinois.

Probably not an exhaustive list of all the ways the sentence fragment 会说 can be used, but you get the idea.

I don’t think 会说 ever means “narrator” as in “person who narrates” / “person who tells a story”. 叙述者 xùshùzhě is one way to say “narrator”; there are others.

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会说 is not real Chinese words. a correct way to call someone who talks fluently is 好口才,能说善道,会说话,老奸巨猾,老油条。

会=able 说=speak,say

会说 able to speak; Most people are able to speak, even babies; so this is not right if what you really mean is to speak fluently.

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