请问你一个很棘手的问题吗？ Qing3 wen4 ni3 yi1 ge4 ji2shou3 de wen4ti2 (Can I ask you a difficult question?)
bodawei
August 28, 2010 at 12:39 AM posted in I Have a Question
I would like your views on how best to discuss ‘doosra’, ‘googly’ and ‘mullygrubber’ in Chinese. 都是曲球。。。(a ball that when bowled looks like it will turn in one direction but actually turns another.) Each has a slightly different figurative meaning in English in reference to a question:
Mullygrubber – a question that is a bit underhand, low.
Googly – a difficult question..
Doosra – a fiendishly difficult question.
bodawei
August 31, 2010 at 07:34 AM
No, I agree that there is no 'word' in Chinese - if they can't get Rugby League right they are not going to get doosra right. But that does not mean you can't talk about them.
bodawei
August 31, 2010 at 07:32 AM
ha ha - this would only be found in the Macquarie Dictionary I presume. :) Actually it is no longer just financial influence - it is formal control now surely. The sub-continent now has the numbers does it not? (As well as the world's best spin bowlers.)
John
August 31, 2010 at 01:29 AM
I'm not really qualified to translate those terms, because I'm not familiar with them, but "difficult question" is 难题 (nántí).
bodawei
August 31, 2010 at 07:23 AM
Thanks John for the better term - I got to 棘手的问题 via the word 'googly', a term - like mullygrubber and doosra - that originated in the game of cricket but is used idiomatically to mean 'difficult'. My dictionary gives me the sentence 他问了首相一个 很 棘手的问题 - not a lot of application in China.
go_manly
August 31, 2010 at 01:59 AMDo you really think there are translations for those terms in Chinese?
Doosra: A ball that can only be bowled with the use of a previously outlawed action, but is now allowed due to the financial influence of certain countries on the subcontinent.