Talks about otome games, drama cds, and occasionally provides advice? Running away endlessly from my backlog of hobbies.

Ilinox

More like watch me burn for giving my opinion because I'm a lightning rod these days LOL. But alright, prepare for a long response.

The misinformation that's spreading is that 心上人 means a profound and lasting love that transcends time and space and boundaries and even death itself. That someone who uses this term is being incredibly romantic, sentimental, and poetic.

No. Just... no. It doesn't mean anything like that. It's just another (common) way of saying "the person you like". If you read Chinese stories of any kind, you'll see this word appear in all sorts of circumstances, from people who aren't in a relationship yet to people who are in a relationship. In real life, you're more likely to hear this from the older generation where an auntie might ask if you have a 心上人. She's not asking if you have a love that transcends time and space, she's simply asking if you have someone you like.

Don't want to take the word of another native speaker as fact? Good. I'll take you through the etymology of this word.

Here are entries for 心上人 on Baidu, Handian, Cha Zidian, and the MDBG Chinese Dictionary.

We can see that 心上人 is commonly translated to "sweetheart or beloved" and the meaning given is "someone in your heart, someone you love, or someone you admire". It literally means someone who is in your heart or mind all day because you care about them a lot. Because of this meaning, Cha Zidian even talks about how you can use it with friends or family, although its usage is romantic 99% of the time.

Baidu says the word originates from the play 钱大尹智宠谢天香 written by Guan Hanqing, a story about a scholar in love with a prostitute and how his friend worries this will affect his ambition and so he pretends to take the prostitute as his concubine. The scholar eventually ranks first and returns bitter about his love being stolen, but the friend reveals how he was helping the scholar and gives the concubine to the scholar in the end. It's a happy ending, but the story does not focus on the depth of love between the scholar and the prostitute. In fact, if you look at the title, the focus is on this epic wingman friend for the scholar LOL.

Anyway, this is all to say that 心上人 does not inherently mean a love that transcends time and space and boundaries and even death itself. Can those traits be attributed to it? Sure, just like how you can make the English word "beloved" also mean a love that transcends time and space and boundaries and even death itself. The text itself will attribute the depths of emotions to a word, which would apply for both Chinese and English.

TL;DR I am tired of hearing that Chinese used 心上人 while English translated it with the lame and simple word of "beloved" when that works just as well.

In fact, I really hate this mysticism that is given to Chinese or Japanese, such as how their words can mean so many things while English cannot compare. No, English can do the same thing. For example, the word "cool" can describe something as awesome, interesting, or a handsome man; it can describe a physical temperature; and it can describe someone being unimpressed or even hostile, ex. a cool look.

Every word in any language contains a "concept" and that concept becomes defined through the context and usage of that word in a sentence. It's how we know when someone is using cool to describe the temperature or if they're praising something, and it's how we know when 心上人 is used for something on the lighter end like sweetheart or something more serious like beloved.

More like watch me burn for giving my opinion because I'm a lightning rod these days LOL. But alright, prepare for a long response.

The misinformation that's spreading is that 心上人 means a profound and lasting love that transcends time and space and boundaries and even death itself. That someone who uses this term is being incredibly romantic, sentimental, and poetic.

No. Just... no. It doesn't mean anything like that. It's just another (common) way of saying "the person you like". If you read Chinese stories of any kind, you'll see this word appear in all sorts of circumstances, from people who aren't in a relationship yet to people who are in a relationship. In real life, you're more likely to hear this from the older generation where an auntie might ask if you have a 心上人. She's not asking if you have a love that transcends time and space, she's simply asking if you have someone you like.

Don't want to take the word of another native speaker as fact? Good. I'll take you through the etymology of this word.

We can see that 心上人 is commonly translated to "sweetheart or beloved" and the meaning given is "someone in your heart, someone you love, or someone you admire". It literally means someone who is in your heart or mind all day because you care about them a lot. Because of this meaning, Cha Zidian even talks about how you can use it with friends or family, although its usage is romantic 99% of the time.

Baidu says the word originates from the play 

, a story about a scholar in love with a prostitute and how his friend worries this will affect his ambition and so he pretends to take the prostitute as his concubine. The scholar eventually ranks first and returns bitter about his love being stolen, but the friend reveals how he was helping the scholar and gives the concubine to the scholar in the end. It's a happy ending, but the story does not focus on the depth of love between the scholar and the prostitute. In fact, if you look at the title, the focus is on this epic wingman friend for the scholar LOL.

Anyway, this is all to say that 心上人 does not inherently mean a love that transcends time and space and boundaries and even death itself. Can those traits be attributed to it? Sure, just like how you can make the English word "beloved" also mean a love that transcends time and space and boundaries and even death itself. 

The text itself will attribute the depths of emotions to a word

, which would apply for both Chinese and English.

TL;DR I am tired of hearing that Chinese used 心上人 while English translated it with the lame and simple word of "beloved" when that works just as well.

In fact, I really hate this mysticism that is given to Chinese or Japanese, such as how their words can mean so many things while English cannot compare. No, English can do the same thing. For example, the word "cool" can describe something as awesome, interesting, or a handsome man; it can describe a physical temperature; and it can describe someone being unimpressed or even hostile, ex. a cool look.

Every word in any language contains a "concept" and that concept becomes defined through the context and usage of that word in a sentence. It's how we know when someone is using cool to describe the temperature or if they're praising something, and it's how we know when 心上人 is used for something on the lighter end like sweetheart or something more serious like beloved.

Ilinox

I wanna watch the world burn 👀 what misinformation is spreading like wildfire? 🤔