Translation requests [Vietnamese]

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Re: Translation requests

Postby linguoboy » 2011-07-29, 3:55

Tenebrarum wrote:The purist word is chủ đề, meaning topic.

But colloquially we tend to just say 'topic'. It might receive the classifier cái, or not.

So "chủ đề tiếng Việt" would be "Vietnamese [language] thread" không?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Translation requests

Postby Tenebrarum » 2011-07-29, 3:59

linguoboy wrote:So "chủ đề tiếng Việt" would be "Vietnamese [language] thread" à?
Yep. :yep:

But it can also mean "thread in Vietnamese". To make sure everyone gets the meaning "thread about Vietnamese", we'd write <Chủ đề / Topic (thảo luận) về tiếng Việt>.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

User avatar
Pauro
Posts:285
Joined:2007-08-12, 20:34
Real Name:Paul
Gender:male
Country:PLPoland (Polska)
Contact:

Re: Translation requests

Postby Pauro » 2011-10-14, 12:26

Chao!
I'd like to read your suggestions for such a statement in Vietnamese:
The ticket must be validated (or punched) immediately on boarding!
I mean it to start with "vé".
Uczmy się języków obcych!
Let's learn foreign languages!
Učimo se tujih jezikov!
Aprenguem llengües estrangeres!
外国語を習いましょう!

User avatar
abcdefg
Posts:461
Joined:2008-07-26, 4:44
Real Name:Linh
Gender:female
Location:Dublin
Country:IEIreland (Éire / Ireland)

Re: Translation requests

Postby abcdefg » 2011-10-16, 12:28

Board on where, Paulo?

It can be translated as: "Vé phải được soát (đục lỗ) ngay khi lên tàu/máy bay."
Underlined: Depending on what the means of transportation is.
Tôi kể người nghe chuyện Phố-trong-sông,
chuyện những mùa Đông đi qua thời con gái.
Bóng đổ dài, bước chân người mê mải
Gió chở mùa về,
hoang hoải cả giấc mơ..

User avatar
zerogravital
Posts:199
Joined:2011-11-04, 14:16
Real Name:Mr Unknown
Gender:male
Location:AnNam

please help me to translate this..

Postby zerogravital » 2011-11-20, 4:48

Could anyone excellent at both Vietnamese and English translate exactly this Vietnamese sentence into English? Thank you.
"Phong độ chỉ là nhất thời còn đẳng cấp là mãi mãi"
Please point out every grammar mistake I make in any of my texts. Thanks

User avatar
abcdefg
Posts:461
Joined:2008-07-26, 4:44
Real Name:Linh
Gender:female
Location:Dublin
Country:IEIreland (Éire / Ireland)

Re: Translation requests

Postby abcdefg » 2011-11-21, 7:16

"Form is temporary, class is permanent."
A slogan on the West Stand's banner.

Cute avt, btw. :)
Tôi kể người nghe chuyện Phố-trong-sông,
chuyện những mùa Đông đi qua thời con gái.
Bóng đổ dài, bước chân người mê mải
Gió chở mùa về,
hoang hoải cả giấc mơ..

User avatar
zerogravital
Posts:199
Joined:2011-11-04, 14:16
Real Name:Mr Unknown
Gender:male
Location:AnNam

Re: Translation requests

Postby zerogravital » 2011-11-21, 8:15

Fine translation, thank you.
Please point out every grammar mistake I make in any of my texts. Thanks

Taunt
Posts:31
Joined:2011-11-25, 22:47
Real Name:Šimon Rydvan
Gender:male
Location:Usti nad Labem
Country:CZCzech Republic (Česká republika)

Re: Translation requests

Postby Taunt » 2011-11-25, 23:27

Xin chào! How would you say: Hello everybody. I got through greeting younger and older people as well as the family members and friend, but this one I do not know. Can I say? Chào các khách.
But khách is guest right?
Flagellate me istum verae religionis ignarum!
I am fluent in [flag]en[/flag] I could order a pizza or book air tickets in [flag]de[/flag] and I told the kids in [flag]fr[/flag] that this jacuzzi is for adults only in [flag]it[/flag] and [flag]nl[/flag]

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Translation requests

Postby Tenebrarum » 2011-11-26, 0:06

Con chào cả nhà!

Which means, "I, the child, greet the whole house." Always peg your greetings to the oldest member in the crowd. :wink:

And try to get the tones right, otherwise your efforts might all come to naught.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

Taunt
Posts:31
Joined:2011-11-25, 22:47
Real Name:Šimon Rydvan
Gender:male
Location:Usti nad Labem
Country:CZCzech Republic (Česká republika)

Re: Translation requests

Postby Taunt » 2011-11-26, 0:11

Tenebrarum wrote:Con chào cả nhà!

Which means, "I, the child, greet the whole house." Always peg your greetings to the oldest member in the crowd. :wink:

And try to get the tones right, otherwise your efforts might all come to naught.


Ok thanks. Btw con is a either a classifier for animals (con cá) or a kid (con gái) or a cub ( con chó - dog and con chó con - puppy) Right?
Flagellate me istum verae religionis ignarum!
I am fluent in [flag]en[/flag] I could order a pizza or book air tickets in [flag]de[/flag] and I told the kids in [flag]fr[/flag] that this jacuzzi is for adults only in [flag]it[/flag] and [flag]nl[/flag]

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Translation requests

Postby Tenebrarum » 2011-11-26, 0:27

Taunt wrote:Ok thanks. Btw con is a either a classifier for animals (con cá) or a kid (con gái) or a cub ( con chó - dog and con chó con - puppy) Right?

Con gái (like con trai) does not simply mean 'kid', or belong to that class. They're something else. :)

Con is also the/a classifier for eyes, roads and streets, rivers, streams, boats and ships, ocean or river waves, knives, stamps, chess pieces... and quite a multitude of other things that are not animals. In the North some people also use it for mobile phones and vehicles, but that's slang usage.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

Taunt
Posts:31
Joined:2011-11-25, 22:47
Real Name:Šimon Rydvan
Gender:male
Location:Usti nad Labem
Country:CZCzech Republic (Česká republika)

Re: Translation requests

Postby Taunt » 2011-11-27, 9:54

Tenebrarum wrote:
Taunt wrote:Ok thanks. Btw con is a either a classifier for animals (con cá) or a kid (con gái) or a cub ( con chó - dog and con chó con - puppy) Right?

Con gái (like con trai) does not simply mean 'kid', or belong to that class. They're something else. :)

Con is also the/a classifier for eyes, roads and streets, rivers, streams, boats and ships, ocean or river waves, knives, stamps, chess pieces... and quite a multitude of other things that are not animals. In the North some people also use it for mobile phones and vehicles, but that's slang usage.

I feel like my head's about to explode :) Today I even dream in Vietnamese. I wanted to get a photo of a girl and ảnh came to my mind. I can't remember anything else, but it was funny. It's one of those words like phở I won't ever forget. lol
Flagellate me istum verae religionis ignarum!
I am fluent in [flag]en[/flag] I could order a pizza or book air tickets in [flag]de[/flag] and I told the kids in [flag]fr[/flag] that this jacuzzi is for adults only in [flag]it[/flag] and [flag]nl[/flag]

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Translation requests

Postby Tenebrarum » 2011-11-27, 16:04

Hahah, that's great. <Ảnh> is preferred in northern dialects. In the south <hình> is more common.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

Hakseng
Posts:3
Joined:2011-12-31, 18:49
Gender:male
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Hồ Xuân Hương poem: "tiêu sơ" = ?

Postby Hakseng » 2011-12-31, 19:26

Dear all,

In her poem "Cảnh thu" [景秋], Hồ Xuân Hương writes:
Khen ai khéo vẽ cảnh tiêu sơ

John Balaban's translation renders this as: "Praise whoever sketched this desolate scene" - but "desolate" seems out of place in the context of the poem. Checked my NTC's V/E Dictionary which also translates "tiêu sơ" as 'desolate' with no alternatives. Wiktionary (vi) has "Đơn giản và thanh nhã", so "simple & elegant", if I understand it right, which would fit the rest of the poem much better - but is it right? Any advanced speakers who could shed some light on this? Thanks much in advance!

The whole poem with Chữ Nôm and John Balaban's translation can be found here: http://nomfoundation.org/vnpf_new/index ... 3&subcat=1

Cheers,
Aurelio

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Hồ Xuân Hương poem: "tiêu sơ" = ?

Postby Tenebrarum » 2012-01-01, 14:19

Some documents record the word as "tiếu sơ" (with the sắc tone). Actually, the whole first two lines are subjected to variation.

First line can be:
Thánh thót tầu tiêu mấy giọt mưa
or
Thấp thoáng non tiên lác đác mưa (Rain spattering down on elusive Elysian mountain) [source]

Second line can be:
Khen ai khéo vẽ cảnh tiêu sơ (tiếu sơ)
or
Bút thần khôn vẽ cảnh tiêu sơ (tiếu sơ) (Magical brush can hardly draw the "tiêu sơ" scene) [source]

The first link cites a Sino-Vietnamese dictionary saying that "tiêu sơ" means "sơ sài mà thanh nhã" (basic yet elegant).

The meaning of tiêu/tiếu is not transparent to me - and I dare say, to virtually any native speaker. But sơ is familiar, as it can be found in words like sơ cấp, sơ đẳng, sơ khởi or sơ sài. My two cents would be that she means the spectacle is beautiful in a minimalist way.

Take Balaban's translation with a grain of salt. It's inexact in some parts. The second-to-last line for example, should be something like "Oh hey, so the scenery loves the sightseer after all."
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

Hakseng
Posts:3
Joined:2011-12-31, 18:49
Gender:male
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Hồ Xuân Hương poem: "tiêu sơ" = ?

Postby Hakseng » 2012-01-02, 3:07

Hi Tenebrarum,

Happy New Year and thanks for your great reply! I had mixed feelings about the translation, too, and am glad to see I wasn't completely off :-). For the line you mention I had "hey, maybe the landscape is also fond of man?" which I just couldn't link to the posted translation. Another one that stood out for me was the strange 'breathing moonlight' for phong nguyệt (風月). I am not sure of its connotations in Vietnamese (just starting out to learn a little), but from Chinese my first association for phong nguyệt is poems and pieces of calligraphy. It also answers nicely to the giang sơn (江山) in the preceding line. How to render this in English? 'Poems of wind and moon' is the best I can come up with :-).

Thanks also for posting the variants. Is the "non tiên" the same as núi Phật Tích in Bắc Ninh Province? That would be nice, because it would allow one to localize the poem :-).

Best regards,
Aurelio

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Hồ Xuân Hương poem: "tiêu sơ" = ?

Postby Tenebrarum » 2012-01-02, 6:00

Happy New Year!

I think phong nguyệt is a literary cliche borrowed from Chinese, meaning roughly 'poetic muse born out of appreciation for the beauty of nature', but that's just an amateur's guess.

The translator made a bigger mistake with túi lưng. Lưng doesn't mean "human back" here, but "half-full". Taken together, túi lưng phong nguyệt means "bag half-full with wind and moonlight".

And you're right, this line is a vế đối to the line above it. It works exactly like duìlián in Classical Chinese.

Hakseng wrote:Is the "non tiên" the same as núi Phật Tích in Bắc Ninh Province? That would be nice, because it would allow one to localize the poem :-).
The second link in my previous post says that, according to Landes (1893), Xuân Hương wrote this poem after visiting a temple in "Văn Giáp" village and seeing a huge banyan tree there, which would be the cổ thụ in the poem. This village should be in the former Hà Tây <河西> province (merged into Hanoi in 2008). This area has its own mountains despite lying just west of the very flat Hanoi - it's the province of Chùa Hương after all.

But let's not buy that, because it could be anywhere. Plus I'm a Saigon local, I'm just as clueless about the north of Vietnam as you are. :P

Are you an East Asia researcher of sort?
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

User avatar
LackOfFuel
Posts:787
Joined:2011-02-25, 14:00
Real Name:Domen
Gender:male
Location:Celje
Country:SISlovenia (Slovenija)

Re: Translation requests

Postby LackOfFuel » 2012-01-02, 17:14

:partyhat: Chúc mừng năm mới đến tát cả! :partyhat:
Smisel življenja je ležanje na plaži. 8-)

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Translation requests

Postby Tenebrarum » 2012-01-02, 17:22

*tất cả mọi người! :wink:

But to me that feels like an Anglicized way to structure it. Usually we say: Chúc mọi người năm mới <adjective, adjective>, vạn sự như ý!

And thank you! Even though we typically reserve these well wishes for the Lunar New Year.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

Hakseng
Posts:3
Joined:2011-12-31, 18:49
Gender:male
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Hồ Xuân Hương poem: "tiêu sơ" = ?

Postby Hakseng » 2012-01-04, 6:29

Thanks a lot! Wow, that's a lot of mistakes for one poem :-). So I decided to leave these translations aside and to buy Huỳnh Sanh Thông's Anthology instead.

Not a researcher, BTW, just a lover of languages (and literature). At some point, I thought it couldn't be that hard to learn a bit of my wife's home dialect (Hokkien Chinese). A decade later, I still find myself on a bunny ride across different Chinese fāngyán, comparative dialect studies, calligraphy, poetry. And recently I have discovered that it also helps me in learning Vietnamese :-).

Now we're talking about two different language families and cultures, of course, but the familiar Sino-Vietnamese words still help (especially when you start from a Southern dialect, think chí for elder sister, not jiějiě, kámsiā for thank you, not xièxiè, &c). Amazing how one door leads to another :-D.

Cheers,
Aurelio


Return to “South East Asian Languages”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests