# 席: 观众<席>E区



## yuechu

大家好！

I was recently reading a Chinese novel where they are talking about where the characters are located. It says 观众席E区. Does 席 here literally mean "seat(s)"? I'm not too familiar with the word so I just wanted to ask! (Normally for "seat" or "chair", I think of 座位 or 椅子)
Could you say "我的席在那边"? (My seat is over there?)

Thanks!


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## 陈堉翾

席 has several meanings, one of them is "seat(s)" as you guessed. 观众席: audience area; auditorium.
我的席位 is better than 我的席, for the latter is unnatural. In modern Chinese, double-syllable words are commoner than monosyllables, while the facts are just the opposite in 文言文.


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## yuechu

Thanks, 陈堉翾!


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## SuperXW

观众席 a modern word to refer to the audience area, not any single seat
席位 a formal word to mean "reserved seat (often figurative), position"
我的席在那边 No
我的席位在那边 Sounds like you are a member of standing committees of People's Congresses
我的座位在那边 idiomatic
我的座（儿）在那边 idiomatic
我的椅子在那边 chair-idiomatic; fixed seat, sofa-no


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## yuechu

Great! Thanks for your explanation and examples, SuperXW! 😃


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## SimonTsai

SuperXW said:


> 我的座（儿）在那边 idiomatic


I think that the abbreviation 座, or 座兒, is something characterising the speech of the native Mandarin speakers in North China. Taiwanese people generally don't say that. (We do understand it, though, for the record.)


> 我的椅子在那边 chair-idiomatic; fixed seat, sofa-no


At first, I thought that _chair-idiomatic_ was a word I didn't know and was confused. But reading it again, now I make sense of it: I think that @SuperXW means that 椅子 refers to a chair and not a sofa, and that it is typically a moveable chair. For example, '我椅子在那邊. 我去搬過來, 你等一下.' For fixed chairs, we'd usually say 座位:

These are fixed chairs:






'後面那排最左邊那一個是我的座位.'


yuechu said:


> Does 席 here literally mean "seat(s)"?


Yes, it does. Here is more information:

The character 席 has a radical of 巾, and 巾 roughly refers to fabric, e.g., 絲巾, 手巾, and 圍巾, so 席 takes the meaning of a floor covering made of some fabric, e.g., 竹席, 草席, and 麻席; you may have heard 涼席, which is something like this:





Simply put, 席 is a mat. So now you may understand why we say 席地而坐: to cover the ground with a mat and sit, or to sit on the ground (e.g., grass) as if it were a mat. The meaning of seats follows.

*BONUS:*

席 has developed several other meanings, but usually, they can be traced to the meaning of a mat. For example, '聽先生一席話, 真勝過我十年苦讀.' The measure word 席 evokes an image of a man on a mat offering sage advice:





Or '熱浪席捲歐洲', which compares the heat wave to a mat covering Europe. You may look up the character 席 in a dictionary and find other example words, e.g., 主席, 首席, and 宴席. Try making sense of them yourself.


> Could you say "我的席在那边"? (My seat is over there?)


As other posters have said, we'd normally say, '我的座位在那邊.' However, the underlying assumption is that there is 座; it wouldn't work if there were no 座. At least, this is the case for me. For example, imagine a rectangular mat where 甲乙丙丁 are seated at predetermined corners. I personally wouldn't say, '甲的座位在那邊', since there is no 座. What is 座? Think of 王座, 講座, 客座, 筆座, 燈座, 插座, and 星座. What do they all have in common?


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## haoba

中国农村有“坐席”的说法，意思是吃宴席。一席之地，席位，席往往和坐位有关系，又和抽象的“位子”有关系，比如“主席台”。


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## yuechu

Thanks for all your explanations, SimonTsai! They are very helpful! 😃

Thanks, Haoba, as well!

EDIT: Could the same thing happen in Cantonese with E区 and 二区? (or would the tones usually be different?)


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## henter

yuechu said:


> Thanks for all your explanations, SimonTsai! They are very helpful! 😃
> 
> Thanks, Haoba, as well!
> 
> EDIT: Could the same thing happen in Cantonese with E区 and 二区? (or would the tones usually be different?)


现在依然会用占有一席之地这个用法。这个“指在某个领域或地方_占有_一个位置或地位 ,能起一定的作用。“ 比如写，作为一家世界五百强企业，这家公司自然可以在生产和销售数字产品方面在中国市场占有一席之地.


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## SuperXW

SuperXW said:


> 观众席 a modern word to refer to the audience area, not any single seat
> 席位 a formal word to mean "reserved seat (often figurative), position"
> 我的席在那边 No
> 我的席位在那边 Sounds like you are a member of standing committees of People's Congresses
> 我的座位在那边 idiomatic
> 我的座（儿）在那边 idiomatic
> 我的椅子在那边 chair-idiomatic; fixed seat, sofa-no


经各位提醒，补充一个常见的：
位子
我的位子在那边 also idiomatic

相关说法：
位置 (position)
我的位置在那边 "My position is over there." idiomatic


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## SimonTsai

I think that 位子 and 位置 are different. Your 位置 is your location, and your 位子 is your seat. Here is an example:

圖上的紅點3點1就是我們現在的*位置*。我們賞櫻的*位子*在前面，最大的那棵櫻花樹下。


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## SuperXW

yuechu said:


> EDIT: Could the same thing happen in Cantonese with E区 and 二区? (or would the tones usually be different?)


二 in Cantonese is tone 6, while E is usually pronounced with tone 1. 區 is in tone 1 too.


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## SuperXW

SimonTsai said:


> Yes, it does. Here is more information:
> 
> The character 席 has a radical of 巾, and 巾 roughly refers to fabric, e.g., 絲巾, 手巾, and 圍巾, so 席 takes the meaning of a floor covering made of some fabric, e.g., 竹席, 草席, and 麻席; you may have heard 涼席, which is something like this:
> 
> View attachment 78279
> 
> Simply put, 席 is a mat. So now you may understand why we say 席地而坐: to cover the ground with a mat and sit, or to sit on the ground (e.g., grass) as if it were a mat. The meaning of seats follows.
> 
> *BONUS:*
> 
> 席 has developed several other meanings, but usually, they can be traced to the meaning of a mat. For example, '聽先生一席話, 真勝過我十年苦讀.' The measure word 席 evokes an image of a man on a mat offering sage advice:
> 
> View attachment 78280
> 
> Or '熱浪席捲歐洲', which compares the heat wave to a mat covering Europe. You may look up the character 席 in a dictionary and find other example words, e.g., 主席, 首席, and 宴席. Try making sense of them yourself.
> 
> As other posters have said, we'd normally say, '我的座位在那邊.' However, the underlying assumption is that there is 座; it wouldn't work if there were no 座. At least, this is the case for me. For example, imagine a rectangular mat where 甲乙丙丁 are seated at predetermined corners. I personally wouldn't say, '甲的座位在那邊', since there is no 座. What is 座? Think of 王座, 講座, 客座, 筆座, 燈座, 插座, and 星座. What do they all have in common?


Simon has given great information about the developed meanings of 席 and 座.
To make it simple:

Ancient original 席



Modern 席




Ancient original 座



Ancient latter 座



Modern 座


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