understatement, how say it?

[kaox0018]

ex, "to say that there aren't many foreigners there is an understatement."

"the fact that we are low on money is an understatement."

what i want to do is to convey the extremeness of the situation. I don't need to translate the word "understatement" but I can't think of another word in chinese for the meaning.

[Hanlink]

Like sarcasm and being overly polite, understatements are not well understood by non-native speakers. Even Americans rarely 'get' British irony, for example. If you want your meaning to be understood, you should be clear and simply rephrase your sentence to emphasise what you want. Of course, you can translate your sentence close to the way it is structured in English, but it will not sound natural, nor will you be sure that the meaning has been conveyed fully to the other party, who will probably wonder what on earth you are going on about, unless you follow your understatement with a simple explanation of what you mean to emphasise your point (again).

[leeyah]

Hanlink is quite right, I agree ...but from the linguistic point of view there are a few phrases which can convey the meaning of “understatement“ in Chinese:

a definition of 'understatement' as 英语的特殊用法 would be "含蓄" meaning 'implicit ; veiled' meaning of words spoken i.e. 不充分的陈述：不够完全的披露或陈述

'understatement' can be understood as 淡化某事的重要性; 谨慎的说法 （indirect, circumspect）and then there are : *低调的说法 & 温和的说法 (mild statement) *which might be just the phrase you are looking for: to say that there aren't many foreigners there is an understatement." =（如果）说外籍人少那是很 温和的说法， the same goes for "the fact that we are low on money is an understatement." = （如果）说我们手头缺钱，那就是太低调的说法呢 ；plus you can use a number of similar phrases depending on the context： 说她很美丽就是说法有点过谦

literally understatement in a simple context can be expressed by :少报， 少说 which is actually equal to making a false statement: 好像她少报了5岁

[gato]

If someone's trying to imply something without directly saying it, then maybe this:

http://www.lingkong.com/zhishi/chengyu_zw.asp?Id=931

[春秋笔法]

此成语的详细解释是：《春秋》：为编年体史书，相传是孔子根据鲁国史书《春秋》整理而成，记载鲁隐公（前七二二年）至鲁哀公十四年（前四八八年）共二百四十二间的历史。笔法：指写作的方法、特色等。孔子修订史书《春秋》，行文中暗寓褒贬，后来就把文笔婉转而暗含有褒贬意思的写法称为“春秋笔

[HashiriKata]

Whether the word "understatement" is often used in Chinese is a different matter from whether understatement is often used in Chinese. As I see it, the following phrases are quite common in Chinese and tend to be used as understatements:

不少，没错，还好，有一点儿不喜欢，有一点儿难，心领了， etc.

(I think 不错 is originally a kind of understatement but has now acquired an outright positive meaning due to its frequent use in the language.)

[chenpv]

轻描淡写 qing1miao2dan4xie3

[Hanyu'sWay]

"to say that there aren't many foreigners there is an understatement."

外国人岂止是少而已？简直就可以说是绝无仅有。

"the fact that we are low on money is an understatement."

说我们钱不够那是说得太轻松了。

[kaox0018]

謝謝大家! i got it.