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From my grade-3 语文 textbook, we find:

语文,三年级,上册,文章8:「信箱」

每天早晨,敲门的声音总把哥什提亚和娃丽吵醒。这是邮递员送报纸来了。有一次,邮递员对爸爸说:“同志,你家的门真难叫,最好挂一个信箱。”
My translation: Every early morning, a knocking sound noisily awakens Gostia and Wali. This is the postal worker delivering the newspaper. One time, the postal worker told my father: "Comrade, your house's door is really 难叫, it'd be best to hang a letter box."

I don't understand what 叫 means in the last sentence. The context suggests something along the lines of the door makes an unpleasant noise, although I would write 难听 rather than 难叫.

叫 (jiào)
CC-CEDICT: to shout / to call / to order / to ask / to be called / by (indicates agent in the passive mood)

This definition doesn't seem to fit into the context.

Question: What does 叫 mean in 你家的门真难叫?

Google Translate translates 你家的门真难叫 to "your door is really hard to call", but "calling" a door doesn't make sense to me.

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  • 叫门 means knock the door or ring the bell.
    – zyy
    Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 18:25

2 Answers 2

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叫門 is a compound verb for 'call the door' (call for the door to be open; to announce visit)'

我來叫門 = let me call the door (to announce our visit)

叫門 literally means call (in front of) the door, but most of the time the act of 叫門 is knock on the door or ring the doorbell.

你家的门真难 means 'The door of your house is hard to call' (Maybe the door is too thick to make a loud knocking sound, maybe the door is too far away from the residents to hear the doorknock sound, or maybe the doorbell's volume is too low)

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  • Funnily enough, if you see someone standing in front of a door calling for the occupants of a house, it does look as though the visitor is "calling" or "talking" to the door. It's like "riding shotgun", or "ticket to ride" Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 13:20
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叫门means knock the door or using other method to tell the people in room to open the door.

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