Goodbye? See you again?

Chinese happens to be one of the coolest languages, and there are many reasons for that. Take saying goodbye, for instance. In English, we generally have "Goodbye," and sometimes "Farewell." Both seem to have a sense of "who knows if I'll ever see you again" behind them. I suppose at times we do say, "See you soon," but that tends to have a casual ring to it. 

Chinese, on the other hand, has many ways to say goodbye, such as 一会儿见 (yīhuìr jiàn, see you in a while)，马上见 (mǎshàng jiàn, see you super-soon)，明天见 ( míngtiān jiàn, see you tomorrow)，星期一见 (xīngqīyī jiàn, see you Monday). Notice how they all include a specific time word? These are not informal, either, in comparison to the, "See ya later, alligator," that we occasionally offer up to dear friends and small children. 

And for the times that you are unsure of when you will see the other person next, you can use 再见 (zàijiàn). The word that has appeared in all of these phrases is 见 (jiàn), which basically means "to meet." 再 (zài) means "again" with a future aspect to it. So "See you again" would be an adequate translation, and they say it all the time as a formal salutation. There's no hesitation, either; it's not "Maybe we'll run into each other again some day." It's a definite "I'll see you again." 

The traditional characters for 再见

Daniel (see his thoughts here) and I said our goodbyes today to our coworkers here in the States. Too bad that we couldn't say to them what we really wanted to: 再见. Who knows when we will see each other next, but nonetheless, 再见.