Chapter 17: The Man with Two Faces

 

(For the romanisation of Chinese and Japanese, see Transliteration. To understand the writing systems of CJV, see Writing Systems. For word order notes, see Word Order)

Where a Vietnamese word has been borrowed from Chinese, the original Chinese characters are shown in parentheses.

 

Chinese (Mainland)	双面人 Shuāngmiàn-rén	双 shuāng = 'double'. 面 miàn = 'face'. 人 rén = 'person'.	Double-faced person
Chinese (Taiwan)	雙面人 Shuāngmiàn-rén	雙 shuāng = 'double'. 面 miàn = 'face'. 人 rén = 'person'.	Double-faced person
Japanese	二つの顔をもつ男 Futatsu no kao o motsu otoko	二つ futatsu = 'two'. の no = connecting particle 顔を kao o = 'face' + object particle もつ motsu = 'to have', present tense. 男 otoko = 'man'.	The man who has two faces
Vietnamese	Người hai mặt	người = 'person'. hai = 'two'. mặt = 'face'.	Person with two faces

Literally a man with two faces, one at the front and one at the back. (Incidentally, The Man with Two Faces is also the title of several classic movies).

The Chinese in both versions is a neat compound word. Vietnamese also uses a brief compound expression.

The Japanese uses the clause futatsu no kao o motsu 'to have two faces' to modify the noun 男 otoko 'man'. (In this case, the word for 'two' is 二つ futatsu, which happens not to need a counter or classifier - see word order notes.)

(A summary of this chapter can be found at Harry Potter Facts. Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)

Chapter 16

Book 2