Azhong Introduces Chinese

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azhong
Azhong chats about Chinese

Postby azhong » 2021-12-18, 3:48

(I revised my post at FUBAR 2021 and post it here for those who are interested in learning Chinese.)

How will you translate the English sentence
"They loaded all the white people on a truck "?

A more direct translation would be something like
他們所有白人載上了卡車
It's good and natural enough for most Chinese. For me, however, it's still a bit English-influnced.

白人他們全都載上了卡車。
The object 白人 are moved forward, to make it more natural for me.
(Here you can see I was trying to concise the translation, from 13 characters to 11 characters. I omitted , which literally means something like "to make, let, have" in English. It's natural in oral usage, though. Besides, I reduced the characters needed for "all", from " 所有...都” to "全都".)

A even better translation for me would be to omit "他們(they)":
白人全都載上了卡車。
(A comparison: For the English-infuenced Chinese, 被 is nowadays widely used, at least in Taiwan, to show a passive voice.
白人他們全都載上了卡車。
But it's actually (sometimes) unnecessary, thus I didn't include it. And, if you want to add it, you can also choose "給“or "讓” instead of "被”.
白人全都載上了卡車。
白人全都載上了卡車。

azhong

Re: Azhong Introduces Chinese

Postby azhong » 2021-12-22, 6:14

I read a passage from the Hong Kong writer 西西. My Mandarin pronunciation is influenced by my dialect Taiwanese.
https://youtube.com/shorts/dVDfQe-0mH0?
¶ The text in traditional Chinese:
► Show Spoiler
¶ The text in simplified Chinese:
► Show Spoiler

¶ And then I practice translating it into English. Thank you in advance for your correction.
► Show Spoiler
Last edited by azhong on 2022-02-11, 6:05, edited 1 time in total.

vijayjohn
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Re: Azhong Introduces Chinese

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-11, 1:14

azhong wrote:I was very triumphant when back to the classroom.

Doesn't 神气 mean 'cocky', i.e. overly confident/proud? I think I would say I was very cocky once I was back in class.
That my teacher, a British, picked me out declared my English was better than the others.

Doesn't 以为 imply that the author was wrong to think the teacher picked her because of her English skills? In that case, I think I would say my teacher was English and picked me for the play, and I thought that was because my English was better than the others'.

azhong

Re: Azhong Introduces Chinese

Postby azhong » 2022-02-11, 6:15

Thank you for "cocky" and your better translations.

vijayjohn wrote:Doesn't 以为 imply that the author was wrong to think the teacher picked her because of her English skills?

Ugh...Yes, but only a small note.
1. 以為=認為=think. believe
2. 自以為(是) is the verb phrase you're talking about. Literally, self-believe-is. One believes something subjectively, thus possibly wrong.

vijayjohn
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Re: Azhong Introduces Chinese

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-12, 18:34

azhong wrote:Thank you for "cocky" and your better translations.

No problem, and thank you for your explanation, too! :)


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