Unnecessary 等s, etc.

[roddy]

I quite often come across uses of 等 like this:

广电总局对江苏人民广播电台、南京市人民广播电台、合肥市人民广播电台、淮安市电视台等4个广播电视播出机构...

...分赴北京、河北、辽宁、河南、安徽、上海、江苏、浙江、湖南、广东等十个省(市)...

and get annoyed. Why specify the number of items in the list, list them and then add 'and so on'. There is no so on. You've listed them all. We know, because you told us how many there are.

Can anyone justify the use of those 等s? I'd love to think they serve a purpose. I can see how they might make phrasing the sentences easier - take them out and things get clunky - but it still seems odd to me. Should I add 'marker for the end of lists of defined length' to the entry in my dictionary?

[skylee]

Take a look -> http://www.baidu.com/baidu?ie=gb2312&ct=1048576&cl=3&word=%B5%C8

5.a function word to express the end of a list

And this -> http://hk.iciba.com/search?s=%E7%AD%89

國際標准漢字大字典

等

děng

ㄉㄥˇ

古代指頓齊竹簡（書）。

數量、程度相同，或地位一般高：相～。平～。～於。～同。～值。～量齊觀。

表示數量或程度的級別：～級。～次。～第。～而下之。

特指台階的級。

種，類：這～事。

表示同一輩份的多數人：我～。爾～。

表示列舉未盡，或用於列舉煞尾：北京、上海～地。

候，待：～候。～待。

待到：～我寫完。

同“ 戥 ”。

[trien27]

等等[deng2 deng3]... = &c... or etc... in Chinese.

等 [deng3] = "to wait"

[studentyoung]

广电总局对江苏人民广播电台、南京市人民广播电台、合肥市人民广播电台、淮安市电视台等4个广播电视播出机构...

...分赴北京、河北、辽宁、河南、安徽、上海、江苏、浙江、湖南、广东等十个省(市)...

Can anyone justify the use of those 等s?

In the two sentences above, "等s" means “all these + (number) + noun (pl.)”. It depends on the contexts whether the meaning should be formally translated into English formally or just deleted.

Thanks!

[gougou]

Having to read a lot of company profiles lately, I've also come to dislike the abundant use of 等, mostly to continue lists of completely unrelated items. My coworkers happily use that in English as well, e.g. "This company produces women's underwear, footballs, truck tires etc."

Another construction I could gladly do without is 之一。 Countless the times I've been led down the garden path... "It is the fastest-growing company with the largest customer-base and the most extensive supplier network... 之一!!!"

[zhwj]

Yes, anything that involves numbers. I came to translate, not to count, dammit!

Same with 包括, which you can only translate as "including" after you count the listed items to make sure there are indeed fewer than the 25 mentioned earlier in the article (and more often than not, it turns out that 23 are listed, and nowhere is it indicated why two are left off).

[roddy]

I feel better now that it's a usage in dictionaries - I'd looked at the ABC and a couple of online ones but not seen anything relevant and was starting to suspect it was sloppy usage. Thanks skylee (and the 國際標准漢字大字典 seems a lot better than anything I can currently find in iciba's simplified interface).

Another construction I could gladly do without is 之一。 Countless the times I've been led down the garden path... "It is the fastest-growing company with the largest customer-base and the most extensive supplier network... 之一!!!"

This should perhaps be another topic on minor irritations in translating, but I'll add in the likes of 'one of the top nine fishing rod manufacturers in China.' Hmmm, so you'll be number nine then.

[Lu]

Very informative thread this, and thanks Skylee for digging this up. I automatically just leave out the etc whenever I see a 等, never missed it. A sentence that goes '..., for example, X, Y, Z 等' is doing perfectly well without the etc. In fact, I was starting to think that it is only in a minority of cases that 等 really means etc. in the full meaning of the word. And now it turns out that is indeed the case.

As to the top 9, I would say top 10, just sounds better, even if you are number 10.

[wushijiao]

When teaching English, I tend to tell the students that we use the word "and" before the last item of a list to indicate that the list is over, while Chinese people tend to use 等 at the end.

[chenpv]

A piece of discussion on Beida Chinese Forum about the same issue. Seems that a registration is required to view the complete thread.

When teaching English, I tend to tell the students that we use the word "and" before the last item of a list to indicate that the list is over, while Chinese people tend to use 等 at the end.

Vice versa.

[Mugi]

等 is perhaps one of the most commonly mistranslated words - when it's used in the singular it would very seldom, if ever, mean "etc". "Etc" = 等等. The source of irritation is the translator's misunderstanding of the function of 等, not its usage.

The really irritating thing is when Chinese clients insist on adding "etc" because they too "learnt" at school that 等 = "etc".

There's a similar, though not identical usage, in Japanese too. I wonder whether Korean is similar ...

[tanhql]

There's a similar, though not identical usage, in Japanese too. I wonder whether Korean is similar ...

you mean や ... など ... in japanese.

[Lu]

等 is perhaps one of the most commonly mistranslated words - when it's used in the singular it would very seldom, if ever, mean "etc". "Etc" = 等等. The source of irritation is the translator's misunderstanding of the function of 等, not its usage.

The really irritating thing is when Chinese clients insist on adding "etc" because they too "learnt" at school that 等 = "etc".

Seven years of studying and using Chinese, and this is the first time I've been told by anyone that 等 does not actually mean 'etc'. Can't really blame those clients or translators, how are they (we) to know if all we're ever told is that it means etc?

[madizi]

I think I saw in Chinese newspapers the use of 等, meaning "etc." Maybe because in newspaper, everything must be as short as possible.