mutiplicity of meaning - chinese is a funny language

A friend today asked me whether I would ‘go down’ living in China.  The words 下去 usually mean to descend.  E.g. I’m going downstairs now.  But in the context of what my friend asked me, the words 下去 mean ‘continue’.  There are many many examples of this type of thing.  Pretty much any word actually.  想 means to think.  It also means to want.  得 has three different pronounciations and meanings.  And this is over and above all of the words that sound exactly the same but actually are different written characters.  You’d think with more than 8000 characters they could have a one to one mapping of words to meanings.  Ho well, I suppose only 2000 or so are in daily usage.

 

All said though, I’m very grateful that Chinese grammar is relatively speaking highly straightforward.  There’s no subjunctive tense… there’s no der die das den die das den der den or however it goes… and past/future tense is a simple as adding a will/did.  I’ll count my blessings.