Catalan to Cantonese: going towards a place does not promise arrival there
A destination and a direction are different commitments
CUHK illustrates Cantonese 向地鐵嗰便行 within a sentence about walking in the direction of the MTR. The directional expression identifies where the movement is headed; it does not itself assert arrival. Its location chapter separately illustrates routes, stationary locations, and placement.
Catalan hi can recover a destination from an earlier question, as in CPNL’s hi vaig a peu. A translation must recover what hi refers to before deciding which Cantonese spatial construction fits. A source answer about going to a particular station should not quietly become a vague indication that the speaker is walking somewhere in its general direction.
An origin recovered by en must not become the destination
CPNL also gives en torno for returning from the dentist. Here en recovers a source introduced with de, rather than a thing possessed or the place being approached. Its spelling alone does not identify the missing place.
Imagine an original Catalan exchange in which someone goes to a clinic, later leaves it, and then heads toward a station. The clinic and station have distinct roles in the route. A Cantonese output retaining both place names can still misrepresent the journey if it assigns the clinic as destination in the return clause. Supply the preceding question when translating en torno so the origin is not guessed from whichever location appears nearest in the conversation.
A thing outside is not an instruction to put it outside
CUHK contrasts its stationary car example with a placement request whose structure includes putting things at a table’s upper surface. A location phrase inside a command does not turn the whole command into a description of where the items already are.
A Catalan message can say that an item is outside, ask someone to take it outside, or report that someone has brought it back from outside. The recurring spatial word does not make these equivalent. In Cantonese, identify whether the predicate locates an existing item or directs a change of position. Otherwise a delivery instruction may merely describe the current package position without telling the recipient to move anything.
The source go form may instead belong to a past auxiliary
Catalan CPNL lists vaig comprar as periphrastic past. In that construction, the anar form helps report a completed purchase, rather than independently asserting travel. This differs from literal movement in hi vaig a peu.
A Catalan account saying that a ticket was purchased and that the buyer is now heading toward the station contains two different grammatical uses a reader might associate with going. The Cantonese translation should preserve a completed purchase separately from the current journey. Adding a motion interpretation to the purchase could create an unnecessary shopping trip; interpreting the journey as already completed could incorrectly tell the recipient that the traveller has arrived. Resolve the source construction before matching its surface go form to a target movement word.
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