Same, same, but different!

Yes, learning Chinese is fun, but one occasionally runs into a number of headaches. The first one is a direct consequence of the paucity of phonemes in Chinese language. Hence, an identical phoneme, with the same tone, may mean different things. As an explanation, the teacher will say (with the most natural and reassuring voice): “Oh yes! Same pronunciation, different characters, different meanings! Easy, no? Hence 是 (shi, fourth tone) means “to be”, while 事 (shi, fourth tone) means “event”. Now, after this level of difficulty, one can get exposed to the concept of a character with a broad meaning that is used for different things. Then, the teacher with say: “Oh yes! Same character, same pronunciation, different meanings!” In this way, the famous 化 (hua) can mean anything from change, to flower and chemistry. Even better will be to come across with the same character, that takes different pronunciations for different meanings. An example is 行 that can be pronounced either “xing” to mean “OK” or “hang” to mean the “line” of a text. The next level of complexity will be when you hear: “Almost same character, same pronunciation, different tones and opposite meanings!”: In that way, 买 (mai, second tone) means “buy” while 卖 (mai, fourth tone), means “sell” (It is advised to revise tones before going to a car boot sale in China...). But the best one, as if it was not enough, is the troubling concept of “Same character, same pronunciation, opposite meanings!” Hence, 借 （Jie) will mean “lend” or “borrow”, depending on the context...