火腿和绿色鸡蛋

Baba FYI,

nciku example sentences for 试试.

for 尝尝.

There's also 尝试.

The Macbeth assignment was from the English to Japanese. I don't remember what I ended up doing but I turned myself inside out doing it! Of course so much is lost in translation in these kinds of things. It's just not possible to reproduce.

I have seen valiant, valiant attempts at translations of puns, for instance this classic Japanese gag-filled manga was translated into English and I was just fascinated enough with the fearlessness of the people who worked on it to buy a copy. A disaster area in many ways, yet the translator also had many more "hits" than I ever expected possible.

And yet people do it all the time

hehe, yeah,well...er,guilty myself of having this idea:

http://chinesepod.com/community/groups/view/155

...but it never really received much interest so didn't really get off the ground. Looking back now,I guess I didn't really contribute much to get it going so not sure if it's worth another shot or not to try and revive it.

Yeah,wasn't trying to suggest it couldn't be done.I mean I think anything can be translated. It's just a matter of how well...and how much is just lost in translation [but I still thought it would be fun to give it a shot...even if only for the language exercise,because those famous lines are fun,and to laugh at my lame attempts and their major shortcomings,hehe ]. I'd love to see what you had for double ,double toil and trouble. It's a very good example of what surely must be lost in translation. For it is not just about the meaning of the words here imho [which can be translated] but about the sounds of the words..not just the rhyming..but to me it is almost simulating the bubbling sounds of the brew they're stirring in the cauldron...it's in harmony with that and the process. Also where there are deeper secondary meanings it must be hard to convey both. How do you translate a pun for example [without going to explanatory lengths?]

Baba,

For example Shakespeare I think would be hard to translate,and beautiful works of poetry where each word is so important ...

I agree. And yet people do it all the time. I even had an opportunity (homework assignment) to try doing a few lines from Macbeth (that famous Double, double toil and trouble speech ... ) last year and it was hard!

Are you saying 试试 would not have worked here [even if it is not as frequently used in Chinese as 尝尝?

I don't think it does, but wish I could answer with more confidence. Guess I could go ask up at I Have a Question.

zhen,

I hear you and I can't really disagree with anything you've said. You are making a lot of sense and I'd forgotten for a tic [sorry] but I think this is your special area,no? [so you are standing on a lot more authoritative ground than I and I respect that]. I'm certainly not trying to suggest it's easy and I'm sure they all do try to keep it in the spirit [ but I guess there is room for a sway this way or that sometimes ,hey?, and I'm just stating my personal preference where there is room to move..not taking a dig at translators or anything like that]. No ,I'm not talking about word for word. Of course one for the most part would have to observe the grammar of the language it's translated to. I guess I'm just talking about keeping the original flavour without changing it into say really colloquial stuff. For example, with your "hi,how are you?" or if it had been in Chinese something like “你怎么样？” 。。。I wouldn't want to see that translated as something like " hey dude,how's it hangin'?". Same meaning,different flavour, if you get my drift. Or to give an example closer to home...even though I might be inclined to say "g'day mate" ...I wouldn't want to see this in a translation of a Chinese work even though that may be the closest thing to what's natural for me. I'd rather see it as "how are you going?"...because I believe ni means you...zenme means how...and yang....a bit harder to directly translate ...but something close to going...or how are you. Though I guess the second half of "g'day mate,'ow ya goin'?" is close...but I wouldn't want it Aussiefied like that.

I don't have a problem with 尝尝...certainly very natural in Chinese. I think I may be just splitting hairs here [and thus it's possibly not the best one to be debating....it pretty much means taste ...which is to try the food]. Are you saying 试试 would not have worked here [even if it is not as frequently used in Chinese as 尝尝?] though? I certainly do realise that not all direct translations will work, but I'm not sure in this particular instance.

Anyhow, I guess what I'm saying is that as far as I can tell translators do a great job, and I'm just stating my preferences where there is room to play with. I agree that not everyone will have the same preference and I think by and large they go to great pains to be faithful to the original [ I have read those long introductions where they set out their justifications for even the tiniest modifications].

If a reader doesn't like having the filter (all choices and decisions are personal of course, your preference and the translator's may often differ) between him and a work of literature what he has to do is simply become fluent enough to read it in the original language.

...oh no. I'm very grateful for the role of translators. As much as I'd like to learn Russian,and many other languages the reality is it's not happening anytime soon [if ever] and so its awesome that I can still read the translation of great works. To tell the truth, I don't recall having an instance where I specifically was reading a translated work where I thought it wasn't being very faithful,but at the same time I would also say I wouldn't know if it hadn't been. I guess the word choice will be more important in some works than in others. For example Shakespeare I think would be hard to translate,and beautiful works of poetry where each word is so important ...the beauty of the language is important...whereas in a novel where the plot is more important it is probably more important just to get the right message across.

if I didn't recognize a Chinese term, I could guess it by trying to think of something that rhymed with its counterpart.

...就是，having read zhen's translation, I completely agree. As much as I would also like to read some original Chinese kids stuff,there are these definite advantages in reading a Chinese translation of a story you already know [or familiar with from long ago,hehe] regardless of whatever may be considered to have suffered in the translation. I'm not sure with the repetition device how much Seuss employed that for the sake of simplicity and accessibility for young kids,how much for reinforcing the vocab and how much for it's poetic effect,though I suspect it was a combination of all these,but it's appreciated in the Chinese now too as you say and makes for easy reading.

Thanks Orangina! I had fun at it. （＾－＾）

啊哟！I tried replying to you earlier using my phone, but it wouldn't work. Typed the whole dang drively answer out on a phone keypad and nothing! Anyway...

Sadly I cannot read the original Spanish. I had a very good translation. One day I got stranded at the library during a rainstorm (Woe is me!!) so I decided to find their copy and read for a bit. It was terrible! It made poor Sancho seem like a genuine dolt, and Quixote not much brighter. Certainly nothing you would expect of a contemporary of Shakespeare. I checked the same passage in my own copy when I got home and while they said same thing, mine sounded like literature! You could see that Sancho was a man who lacked the benefits of a formal education, but had soul.

Without reading the original I cannot say for sure what the translators' philosophies were... and the lesser of the two did far better than I could have done... But if the library's copy was truer to the flavor of Cervantes' writing, the story would never have lasted so long.

Footnotes are definitely preferable to an introductory explanation. One translated book I have found with this? Diary of a Wimpy Kid

But sometimes the same words have entirely different meanings, connotations in different languages

...agreed. This is why I used the word "possible"...where possible.

Occasionally you find a translated work with footnotes that tell you what the literal word or phrase was, and perhaps why a different word was chosen

...also agreed. Yeah,this would be my idea of ideal also.

At least it explained in the introduction

..not as keen on it being in the introduction. I have a preference for footnotes..lets rip into this story and explain on the fly.

I loved Don Quixote.Some hilarious stuff. So are you saying you read an English version of this that had a poor translation of the Spanish? Could you/did you read the Spanish also?

baba, I agree with you... to a point. But sometimes the same words have entirely different meanings, connotations in different languages. In that case a word for word literal translation will entirely miss the point. Occasionally you find a translated work with footnotes that tell you what the literal word or phrase was, and perhaps why a different word was chosen. These to me are the best. I read a translation of Kafka that was very good, and it did this annotation to some extent. At least it explained in the introduction how these choices were made and gave a few examples. It was a friend's book and I wanted my own so I went to buy one. I couldn't find the same translation so took a look at what they had. It was terrible. I think they used the simplest literal translation. It would have made Kafka roll over in his grave. Had pretty much the same experience with Don Quixote .

zhen,

this brings up the old literal vs idiomatic debate. From my point of view as a learner of Chinese it is actually much better for me to see such an idiomatic translation into Chinese and think in terms of East brain..how would the Chinese naturally render this? So yeah,chang chang is exactly how they would commonly say it [and as I said another good lesson in a way to approach translation...if looking for a workaround for example,one might be able to go to a more specific expression]. If I was reading an English translation of a Chinese original work however,I have a bent much more towards the literal.I'd like it to be as faithful to the original as possible. I don't want to hear a Chinese original work sounding natural in English. I want to hear the closest equivalent of how the Chinese would say it..retain a very Chinese flavour to it. Same goes with other languages. Reading Tolstoy for example, I would hope the translators to the greatest extent possible would retain as close to the original as possible with Anglicising it. I have no idea how well this is actually done. But I do realise of course that many do not see it this way. It must be hard as a translator to please everyone.

I thought 试试看 was a very interesting translation of "you will see." Perhaps not a word for word translation (as my limited knowledge would have compelled me to do,) but I think one that conveys the meaning better than 你会看.

喔！I see from my roll over that one meaning of 看 is give it a try, when used after a repeated verb. Nice!

Baba, regarding this bit:

你不喜欢它们。

你这么说。

尝尝吧！尝尝！

我说，你好好尝尝，然后呀，

你可能会喜欢。

To me 尝尝(吧)！ is the first way I would think of to encourage someone to try, as in have a taste, of something to eat or drink. I learned it in a (non-CPod) elementary lesson on Chinese tea. Yes the English "try" is general, but we know Sam is talking about 绿鸡蛋和火腿 here, I don't think there's any need to err here toward general.

Sam has said 试试看。 (Slide 17) too, though the English there does not contain the word "try".

If you look at this from the other end--and yes of course with this book the original is the English and the Chinese is the translation--in Chinese the word for something like this is 尝(尝). When a Chinese person learning English wants to know how to say 尝尝 in English they find out that it is very often the non-specific word "try", or "have (some / a taste / a sip of this)".

I personally think the last two lines here are really well worked out both in terms of meaning and music; that pleasing singsong effect is achieved there. Maybe a bit of poetic license, but a translator needs this much I would say!

Yeah kind of like you said, I think the fun and learning really take off once we leave our West Brain caps at the door ... （＾ｖ＾）

Sorry Baba, that was misleading--I don't have the illustration to link to or embed, was just trying to say I'm about to describe it. 不好意思。

I also like 可; it's really emphatic, guess it's like really coming from the gut emphatic? It can get used with 真(的) too, 我可真喜欢~ / 她可真漂亮 etc.

真,

Such an excellent explanation. I'm with you on this. Yeah, 天黑 being used for when the sun has gone down for the day is where I have heard it before but I have little experience with it. I'd forgotten they'd gone into a tunnel. Yeah,I do prefer the translators choice of 摸黑 for both those reasons then. btw I can't see the illustration...it sounded like you were going to embed or link.Thanks.

I was thinking last night when I read it again that I also like the use of 可 later on.I have seen 可 used that way in CPod lessons but it seems a little underutilised for emphasis cf 真的 and 很 for example.

Hi Baba, re 摸黑, here's the illustration that goes with Slides 23 and 24, where this colloquial expression first appears: Sam and "not Sam" are sitting in the Car that had run up and off the Tree onto the Train that then runs, carrying them, into a tunnel.

So they're in the Dark of the tunnel, the daylight outside visible. This is where Sam says Say! In the dark? Here in the dark! Would you, could you, in the dark? I think here the translator doesn't turn to 天黑 which to me seems to connote dark as in the sun has gone down for the day. I wish I could say this with more confidence.

I have a feeling 摸黑 + V was the shortest (and thus most musical) way of doing this, as well as an expression that works well with 吃, a single-char Verb (because it is itself only 2 syllables/chars). 黑暗 by itself is a Noun / Adj I think, and can't modify the V as is. It would have to take a 中/里 (and maybe also a 在 before it). In fact 在黑暗中做某事 would probably have been my default for expressing "to do sth. in the dark". Now that I know 摸黑+V I'll try using that too.

摸黑 can also mean "in the dark" as in "at night".

don't think sunny side up works in a green eggs scenario--hehehe.

ok the translation on this page is interesting:

你不喜欢它们。

你这么说。

尝尝吧！尝尝！

我说，你好好尝尝，然后呀，

你可能会喜欢

你这么说。...I like this translation for "so you say"....so simple...exactly how the Chinese would say it. But if we had to translate "so you say" to Chinese with our West brain cap on we may not [or maybe we would have] have come up with something even though it's so familiar to us. Anyhow,for me a good reminder to try and keep in mind how Chinese would say things and not have a too tight literal translation in mind [though a literal translation of this Chinese could be more or less the same I guess ...you so say....I guess the word order may have been a trick for a tight west brain].

尝尝...again a fine translation,but also an example of another way to approach translation. For me the English "try" is quite general. You can "try" lots of things. I may have looked for a similarly general word like "试试“。But 尝尝 while more specific is exactly the type of trying that is being referred to here and so is fine I think. Gotta love that encouraging 吧 being tacked on.

The second last line was for me the the most interesting though.I'm wondering if the 好好 was really implied in the original English.Seems like poetic license to me.Also interested in the 呀 in 然后呀. The translator had a bit of a penchant for this 呀 but I like it and it is also quite fitting to have this repetition in a Seuss translation.

I was interested in the choice of 摸黑 for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was a new word for me,though I knew the individual characters so I could have arrived at the meaning.....I like this breakdown....to feel&dark...to grope about in the dark.Secondly it was not what I would have come up for in the translation. I think I would have chosen either “天黑”后者“黑暗”。While the English version doesn't mention groping about ,it is still only a 2 character Chinese word [as the other 2 choices would have been,though I'm not sure if you could have made it briefer and gone for 黑 on its own] which more vividly describes in the same number of characters the action when trying to eat in the dark [don't think sunny side up works in a green eggs scenario]

I was thinking green because of the story, even though it's a different shade.

The presentation format worked well for this particular type of book I think. As for the English I'd be more inclined not to include it in posts for this group (which is about reading Chinese stories) but I did this time because Dr. Seuss texts are special--he uses so few words throughout the book--and the translations pretty much line-for-line.

Have to run again now. I'll be back!

I can use it when encouraging a Chinese visitor to try natto, hehe...lol !

晚安 真。。再多谢

This book is definitely all about 愿意（不）. Yeah great word choice, and great effort at that translation Baba!

I liked that bit too (I can use it when encouraging a Chinese visitor to try natto, hehe). Also like how you can say 摸黑+V for doing something in the dark, so short, sweet and expressive.

Hey Baba I have to step away a bit now, will be back if not tonight sometime during the weekend. Cheers!

Even though I only translated one passage of this book, that is another thing that has added to the enjoyment of reading this now [it's interesting and illuminating to have put some thought into translation and then see what a published version renders it as] and so it has led me to another recommendation. I think it is a worthwhile exercise to do just that..try your hand at translating simple material like this before then reading an official translation.

I was happy to see the use of 愿意..kinda validated my choice above...I hadn't been too sure if it was a good choice at the time or not.

Love this bit:

吃呀！吃呀！

给你呀。

Interesting translation of "let me be":

你别缠着我啦

..hadn't struck this 缠 before. [and don't you just love particles like 啦 tacked on the end like that..the added expression it gives...gotta love a good 啦。。。nearly as good as a 呀】

I definitely had some aha! moments with this text, though like you say it's accessible to Newbie and Ele learners. Yes and repetition really hammers in that we have a choice of using 要，想 or 愿意 when speaking of things we do or don't want to do. Basic, but so important, when you're trying to make yourself understood.

Well this one was a new one on me. From this line:

我既不想在这儿吃，也不想在那儿吃

the 既 I hadn't come across before. It looks to me like it might be a structure with 也。Is that right?

just easier that way to hide the English

..oh,I thought you had chosen green because of the "green" eggs which I thought was very apt. I love aptness. You've done an amazing job.It must have taken you ages.I love that you can read it like a book...able to click to flick the pages.And yeah,having the English translation but hiding it for those that need it is a great idea.

Yeah,one always takes a risk when one is joking that it will be taken seriously. You weren't thick at all. Thanks again zhen for a sterling effort. I hope others discover this post and reap its rewards.

you know it has definitely lost something in translation as RJ,orangina et al have predicted...some rhyming,some meter,but I don't think it's nearly as bad as expected. I still think it's enjoyable and it has still retained some of the enjoyable aspects. The overall story line is still there. There is also the repetition which serves a few functions and is also so characteristic of Dr Seuss's works. While there were a couple of new things in there for me,I'd say that the simplicity and repetition place this work at highish newbie level to lowish Ellie [so more accessible to the lower levels than say Snow White which I think is more Intermediate level].I'd highly recommend it to those levels as an entry level in this group.

yeah hehe, normally I wouldn't be quite that thick (and yeah I can see you're having fun with the text). It was a decision to make the background green, so I guess I half expected some negative feedback on it. It was just easier that way to hide the English and all. I had orange first and it looked as cute as Halloween, but that wasn't as easy on the eyes.

Thanks for the feedback Baba.

当然咯。。我总是开玩笑。其实，我觉得绿色网页最好【很合适，所以我很喜欢】。我开玩笑因为我模仿绿鸡蛋和火腿的人物【“我不喜欢绿色鸡蛋和火腿”的人】。你太棒了

哎哟！你又开玩笑说说的吧！ Well if you're not, please tell me.

我不喜欢绿网页“真是我”

我不愿意看书这里或那里

Holey Dooley !! Awesome presentation !!!...辛苦你了 ！！！

Can't wait .Thanks zhen :)

Actually Baba an older English translation exists (from 台湾 I think?) that did this same thing you did with the title, I imagine for exactly the same reason.

Bodawei Changye points out there are a number of etymologies for the character (and of course the one I gave you is from a Japanese source about kanji; as far as I know my father gave me a Japanese name). Richard Sears' site doesn't give the spoon over the cauldron etymology. It also explains that 眞 is an alternative form of 真; not the "traditional". In Japanese 眞 is referred to, at least by us lay people, as the 旧字. Oh and fyi I can get 眞 (I just use Microsoft pinyin input!) by typing in "zhen" and clicking until I get to about the fourth row of choices of 8 or 9 characters (=pretty far down the list).

I know. Dammit. I'm also getting less, not more, clear here.

Dammit Zhenlijiang, I only just learnt your name and you go and introduce an even older form! But as Barbs says, it is a cool look. It reminds me, at first glance, of an old form of 寿 as well.

I thought it might be a very old character but I wasn't sure. Cool that it's the seal form of 真 [and you can see some similarities]. I like it.

It's one of the 六书通 Seal Character forms of 真. I got it from Richard Sears' Chinese Etymology website, which Changye first told me about.

Hey zhen,you're new avatar is intriguing...you shenme yisi ?

Baba 我正在做一份文件，请稍等 ...

Zhen,

You're trying for a better translation than the published one

Actually I have never seen a Chinese translation of any of Dr Seuss's material. I have noted that it has been discussed on the boards in recent times that there is such a thing. I agreed with RJ and Orangina et al when they opined that any such attempt would really suffer in the translation. However ,at the same time ,I thought it would be an interesting exercise to try anyhow just to see what sort of result one would get. I found it a fun exercise. Certainly I have proven no-one wrong...it does lose it's meter and a lot else to boot. I was pleased though that I could get the passage to rhyme...pulling out every trick in the book though,hehe: from pulling out rare [or at least uncommon] vocab ,reversing word orders [let's not mention the bad grammar],to finally even making up my own transliteration [dodgy,hehe].Anyhow,if you have the official translation of that section [or any other that you have the time to post] I'd love to see it.

ah Baba I see! You're trying for a better translation than the published one, which doesn't rhyme or really keep to a similar rhythm. As I've said elsewhere that does get lost in the translation, and instead what we have is good Ele level Chinese. I guess Chinese kids who read this book look at the pictures and get a lot of enjoyment out of the situations and characters in them. But "miss out" on the sing-song nonsense word magic.

It's an ambitious project! I like that spirit. d(^^)b

ps here's the section I was trying to translate:

I could not, would not, in a house.

I would not, could not, with a mouse.

I would not eat them with a fox.

I would not eat them in a box.

I would not eat them here or there.

I would not eat them anywhere.

I would not eat green eggs and ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Zhen,

I like your question:

Or is this passage sort of like a montage of lines from the book?

...I like a good montage.Also like the word. Here however I would not have liked it as that would have potentially made the challenge of making a whole section rhyme easier.

We have the book of course. But instead of going and looking for it ,I just googled Green Eggs and Ham on wikipedia and that was the example section in the article so I just thought I'd have a stab at that.

Yeah,I thought about making it just 绿鸡蛋 instead of 绿色鸡蛋..can't recall why I went for the latter. I deliberately reversed the order to ham and green eggs so 蛋 would rhyme with 三

I found Samuel is 撒母耳 [let go of your mothers ear..hehe] which is obviously a transliteration and I considered shortening it to 撒母 for Sam, however it wasn't going to be as easy to rhyme with and I preferred to keep it to one syllable to be closer to the feel of the English. 三 rhymed better with 蛋 and I figured could also be a transliteration of sorts.I liked the idea of him also having a personality split 3 ways ...kind of goes with someone called in English "Sam-I-am".

Baba what page is this from? Or is this passage sort of like a montage of lines from the book?

Meanwhile, a couple of tips (according to this book I have):

Green Eggs and Ham 《绿鸡蛋和火腿》 lǜjīdàn hé huǒtuǐ

Sam-I-am has been rendered as “山姆是我” shānmǔ shì wǒ --with the quotation marks.

with (as in with a mouse / with a fox etc.) is expressed as 和 ~ 一起 hé ~ yīqǐ

yeah,that'd be great zhen. :)

Baba you don't want any of the actual Chinese (from the bilingual book I have) right?