寻找，就寻见: I do not understand the second "xún"

Question

At the website http://learnchinesethrubible.org/ I find the following phrase:

seek and you will find

寻找，就寻见

I do not understand the second "xún".

In the dictionary http://www.mdbg.net I cannot find an entry for

寻见

So, why is this second "xún" here?

现代汉语中不使用“寻见”这个词的 – http8086 Mar 18 '14 at 06:46 — http8086, Mar 18 '14 at 06:46

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '14 at 22:37

I have found it!
It is a grammatical construct called "resultive complement".
见 is the resultive complement for 寻. 寻 only means search and 寻见 means "successful search" => "find".

http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/result-complement-detail-explanation

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 19 '14 at 05:48

The word 尋見 is classical Chinese. It has two meanings:

Ask to meet. 隋唐兩朝志傳(1619): 郭孝恪...逕去邊塞，尋見西突厥曷沙那可汗。"Guo went to the border and asked to meet West Turkic Khan (whose name was 曷沙那)".
Find (discover). 西遊記(circa 1600): 容弟子去尋見母親 "allow me to find my mother".

As the other answers or comments indicate, the word is no longer used in daily mainland Mandarin (i.e. Putonghua). Someone from Taiwan may answer whether this word is still used in Taiwanese Mandarin.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 18 '14 at 02:53

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That is not a normal to express the meaning of "seek and you will find" at least not in simplified chinese. In traditional, might be. I think it should be "xun zhao, ni jiang hui zhao dao"~

answered Mar 18 '14 at 02:53

r0ng

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It's a translation of the Bible, so somewhat solemnly. – Mar 18 '14 at 03:58
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Simplified Chinese is a type of script, not a variety of the language. – deutschZuid Mar 18 '14 at 19:05

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 19 '14 at 06:56

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寻见 means 找到(find), but we do not use this word anymore.

当你寻见了世界上有一个人 when you find someone at this world

answered Mar 19 '14 at 06:56

Ave Maleficum

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 19 '14 at 07:39

Matthew 7:7 马太福音 7:7

Chinese Union Version 和合本 (Old version)

= 寻找，就寻见

Contemporary Chinese Translation 现代中文译本 (New version)

= 寻找，就找到

You should understand that Chinese language do not have rigid grammar structure like English. That's why it is very easy to make a poem in Chinese with the same number of words in each line. Something of the same meaning can be expressed with many different words, like 寻 and 找, both have the same meaning, but they are put together into a phrase 寻找 to make it sound nice.

寻找 = find 就 = then 找到 = found

In the example, the English can be "seek and you will find", or "seek and it will be found", but either "you" or "it" are ignored in the Chinese version.

寻 找 ， 就 寻 见: I do not understand the second "xún"

5 Answers5

寻找，就寻见: I do not understand the second "xún"