弄

[Fred0]

The usage of the word "弄" is puzzling to me. It is defined in MDBG as: to do / to manage / to handle / to play with / to fool with / to mess with / to fix / to toy with.  

 

In the example I am looking at a little girl comes home from playing outside all wet, and her mother scolds her: 看弄这么一身水！

Later the little girl fearing also her father's anger thinks:  我弄了一身水，怕爸爸要打骂我,...

 

In each case 弄 appears to mean "manage to"    "Look, you managed to get all wet"      "I managed to get all wet, (so) fear father will scold me."  But really 弄 in these examples doesn't easily correlate with any English word. Can someone give me some insight on the useage and meaning of this word. Thank you.

[stapler]

My feeling (that is I can't give you any definite answer) is that 弄 a very casual/informal word for doing something, often involving playing with something, messing something up, or tidying something up. It's often interchangeable with 搞 做 干 and 办. It doesn't seem there are any dictionaries that are able to accurately define the usage limits of these words. It's basically a matter of learning what is and what is not idiomatic for native speakers.

[Guest123]

Dictionaries give the most close meqnings thay can. Some words have identical meaning in english and chinese, some only a close meaning, and some do not have an analogue. It is often impossible to make one fixed translation for a word without a context. 弄 is one of those words, quite often it doesn't need to be translated. And, yes, it's rather colloquial.

我弄了一身水 - I got all wet

弄点儿水喝 -  find or get some water to drink

把钱袋弄丢了 -  lost the purse

没弄明白 - didn't understand

[Fred0]

Helpful responses. Thank you!

[abcdefg]

When we are going out, my girlfriend always says I need to give her a minute to 洗洗脸, 弄头发 (wash her face and fix her hair.)

 

 

[roddy]

A useful parallel (and sometimes translation) is the word 'get' in English, I think. It has a huge range of informal uses in phrasal verbs and substituting for other verbs. You can get your hair done, soaked in the rain, the car fixed, in to the team, upset, into a terrible state, him with a difficult question, and so on and on. The only way to get your head round these, I think, is to get over the idea this is a word you get all at once - get used to the idea it'll take time, note the usages you get in daily life, get yourself a good dictionary (if it doesn't have a long list of examples, get out of here with your shoddy dictionary) and eventually you'll 弄清楚。

 

It's a fool's errand to try and 'learn' 弄 in one go. Add in the different usages as you come across them.