saying 人 instead of 男人

meir
 October 12, 2010, 07:19 PM posted in I Have a Question

On a CD for the sentence

"Well, in that case, who is that man?"

they say "

那么,那个人是谁?

they don't say 男人 they just say 人, are both ways correct? How would others  know you are talking about a man if you just say 人?

 

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JasonSch
 October 13, 2010, 05:45 AM

Hi meir,

Nope, 人 is always 'person', or 'people' and 男人 is specifically a man or men. If the sentence is one its own, it's likely a mistranslation, but if there's some context and the speaker is pointing to a man, then 人 could justifiably be translated as 'man'.