My friend Dana has translated one of my blog entry. I think it's an interesting practice, so I decide to translate several paragraphs of his blog entry.
The original entry is:
So, today I saw Ruth's latest blog entry and felt sudden determination. See, usually, upon seeing such a patch of native speaker super difficult ultra squishy Chinese, I just groan and attempt to piece together what I can given my limited vocabulary. Actually translating it by hand is too arduous. As anyone learning Chinese will tell you, using a dictionary to look up Chinese characters is about the most horrible thing imaginable. I mean, forget the Chinese Water Torture, they have tortures built right into their language, for Pete' s sake.
Anyway, after I soak in what I can, I usually pop the blog post into the Babelfish translator and try to make sense out of what it comes up with. This translator is really terrible, and doesn't return anything that is even remotely close to correct English, but it usually lets me understand the gist of what I am reading. After that, too scared to comment for fear of a mistranslation, I slink back into the dark pit from whence I came.
My translation is:
今天我看了Ruth最近的博客文章，突然间下定了决心。一般来说，我看到一段中国人写的超难懂的软绵绵的（？）中文，我都会头疼的要命（这里不是直译（direct translation）），然后试着用我有限的单词拼凑着弄懂这篇文章。自己直接翻译实在是太复杂，太难了。可是任何一个学中文的人都会告诉你，用一本字典去挨个查每个中文字的意思是你所能想到的最可怕的事。我的意思是，除了中国自来水对外国人是一种折磨以外，这种折磨直接渗透在他们的语言里，我发誓这是真的。
不管怎么说，在我细细阅读之后，我把部分的博客内容放到了Babelfish里，看看能不能大概猜出它表达的是什么意思。这个翻译系统相当可怕，它翻译出来的东西基本上都不能算是正确的英文，但是它总能帮我弄明白我读的东西的大意。在那之后，因为太担心我的理解有错误，所以我没敢写任何评论，就悄悄地溜回我的小窝了。
Something in your blog entry are quite difficult to be translated into Chinese, for example, why "squish Chinese?" Does "Chinese Water Torture" has a connotation, or just simply shows its meaning literally? I'm not sure about "for pete's sake" as well. I've seen this phrase for several times, but I don't know why "for pete's sake", but not for, say, "Paul's sake"? My father told me that Peter is a saint, so "for pete's sake" is somewhat like "for God's sake", is it right?
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1 comment:
First, the questions you asked:
-"Squishy" Chinese has no meaning at all. I can't explain exactly why I put it in (I think it is a cultural thing), except to say that it is a kind of joke. You can safely ignore it. (you probably shouldn't do it when you write English, because it is not really good writing)
-"Chinese Water Torture" refers to a story that a lot of Americans know about Chinese. Basically, it says that a long time ago, the Chinese were very cruel to their prisoners, and tortured them in an especially horrible way: tie them up and drip water on their forehead one drop at a time until they go insane. I'm sure it isn't true at all, but I needed something to contrast with the very real tortures of learning Chinese, so I used it here.
-"For Pete's sake" is indeed like "for God's sake". I'm not sure who the "Pete" is, but I don't think it is Saint Peter, as we always refer to him as Peter, not Pete. There is a very important reason that we use "For Pete's sake" instead of "For God's sake", however: In Christianity, using God's name in vain (in other words, saying "God" any time that you are not praying) is considered a sin by some people. Therefore, this new phrase came about to allow people to express the same idea, but not commit this horrible sin. You should be careful to use "For Pete's sake" when you are talking with a strong Christian. There are some other examples of phrases that have changed in this way to make them less bad, but I can't elaborate any further right now, because I need to leave.
I might have some other comments, but they might have to wait until later tonight. I'll just come back here and add a second comment when I get the chance.
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