势头 and momentum

[A life of study]

Hi. 势头 means situation, the look of things, but also impetus, momentum. I am looking for an example of it meaning momentum. For example if I said 经济势头 it seems to mean the economic situation. But what if I wanted to say "economic momentum"?

These are examples of the sorts of English sentence with momentum in that I am trying to get into Chinese:

• The Chinese economy is losing momentum
  
• GDP growth still has some forward momentum from last year's rapid growth
  
• The stockmarket is not expected to gather momentum for another year or so
  

Thanks for any help.

[Hanlink]

It sounds like you are getting bogged down with individual words when you are translating. Chinese is different from European languages. In European languages, there tends to be a more one-for-one, word-for-word link in the translations and both may appear and feel natural.

Sometimes, in Chinese, though, it is simply better to think about the meaning of the source sentence. Actually, in your examples, 'momentum' is quite a fluffy word/concept. I would not consider any to mean 'trend' (趨勢 or 趨向), which is probably more of the base meaning.

So, for example, a reasonable translation of your first example: 'the Chinese economy is losing momentum' would be: 中國經濟在緩慢 , since the essence of the sentence is 'slowing down'; in the second example 'some forward momentum' really means 'has the potential to rise a little', which would be something like 有稍微增長的潛力; in your third example, 'to gather momentum' really means 'start to rise', thus 才會開始上漲.

Sometimes exams require you to be more judicious in your translations and closer to the originals, but to be frank, this does not always produce the most fluid chinese.

[mythia]

As you have said, 势头 can have several meanings with subtle differences, so the meaning or understanding of the word in a context is absolutely down to speaker's intention and the listener's deliberation.

And in the context of 经济势头, it contains an intrinsic tendecy to the good side. I think you will struggle to find a sentence with 经济势头 that actually says that the economic situation is not good. So if that's "economic momentum" you mean, just say 经济势头良好/强劲 etc.

·中国经济正在失去上升势头。

·在上一年的迅速增长下，GDP仍保持一些前进的冲力。

·据测股市在一年左右的时间里都不会振作。

[A life of study]

Mythia, as you said "forward momentum" does not mean "has a potential to rise". It means that the pace of growth in the historic period was so high that it still has a latent propelling effect on growth in the future period, and was nicely translated by you.

I think 后劲 could be used in some way to discuss forward momentum too.

I suppose my problem is that dictionaries try to give all the possible translations of a word, rathr than homing in on the basic meaning...

[mythia]

后劲 could be a way to express forward momentum, but in that GDP sentence I wouldn't recommend. Since 后劲 invariably stresses the great momentum one potentially possesses and is not necessarily showing at the moment. What we know is that the GDP still has a bit of leftover stamina from last year, but whether this year's economy is innately strong we can't decipher.

[Hanlink]

Too much over-thinking. me-thinks. By trying to get every shade of meaning from the source into the target language often leads to a clumsy, even if correct, translation. Sometimes it is better to focus on the basics. That said, I do like the idea of 后劲.

[shuyi.wu]

hi, I am a Chinese teacher living in Sydney.

From a native speaker's point of view, I would translate them into the followings.

* The Chinese economy is losing momentum

中国经济的上升势头正在减弱。

* GDP growth still has some forward momentum from last year's rapid growth

继去年的高速增长，今年的GDP仍然保持一定的发展势头。

* The stockmarket is not expected to gather momentum for another year or so

股票市场预期在未来一年甚至更长时间内都不会出现明显的增长势头。

Shuyi Wu

[Hanlink]

Certainly not clumsy, in fact, very smooth, even if to get all of the meaning one has to fluff it out in Chinese.

Bravo!