translation of a sentence

[Kenny同志]

建筑要体现文化传承才能实现其长久存在的意义。

The eternal existence of an architecture is justified only when it functions to incarnate a culture.

Some said that my translation gave emphasis to the wrong part, is it so?

I know that the emphasized part is usually located at the end of a sentence, but in my opinion, things are slightly different in this case, where the writer stresses the condition" 文化传承“ more than the result.

Your comment is invited on this question.

[Daan]

Your choice seems fine to me, although incarnate a culture sounds a bit off to my ear. I think reflect might be a better word here.

My, admittedly quite free, translation would be: Architecture can achieve immortality only if it reflects and preserves a culture.

[Kenny同志]

Thanks, Dann. I thought "incarnate" was improper here, but I was not so sure. Your comment confirmed my suspicion.

Edited November 6, 2009 at 09:34 AM by kenny2006woo

[tooironic]

Kenny, you should say *improper.

P.S. I think the reason "incarnate" sounds strange is because the verb form of that word has gone quite out of use in the past century. Daan's "preserve" I think is quite good.

[Kenny同志]

Thanks, Tooironic. I am always so careless.

[HashiriKata]

Here's another translation:

In order to maintain a lasting appeal, architecture must reflect/ embrace the local cultural values.

[Kenny同志]

建筑要体现文化传承才能实现长久存在的意义。

In order to maintain a lasting appeal, architecture must reflect/ embrace the local cultural values.

Thank you very much, Hashirikata, but I am afraid that your translation doesn't convey the exact meaning of the original, in which the author discusses the condition on which an architecture would be deemed valuable and therefore deserve preservation.

I should have pointed out the original is itself flawed, or even wrong, because there is no such collocation as 实现意义. It thus should be revised as:

建筑要体现文化传承才具有长久存在的意义。

In addition, my first translation, apart from the improper word "incarnate", has another not-so-good word ------"when"

A better version, in my humble opinion, might be:

The eternal existence of an architecture is justified only on the condition that it functions to reflect and preserve a culture.

Of course, I am not a native speaker of English. I need your suggestion.

Edited November 6, 2009 at 02:34 PM by kenny2006woo

[HashiriKata]

Thank you very much, Hashirikata, but I am afraid that your translation doesn't convey the exact meaning of the original, in which the author discusses the condition on which an architectrue would be deemed valuable and therefore deserve preservation.

I did it only out of curiosity but I know very well that I'd need more context surrounding the sentence to know exactly what is meant, and to translate it properly.

[Daan]

The eternal existence of an architecture is justified only on the condition that it functions to reflect and preserve a culture.

architecture should probably be treated as an uncountable noun in this context. To the best of my knowledge, you can only use it as a countable noun in IT jargon, as in computer architecture.

[tooironic]

Ah yes, the joys of translating stuff out of context on the interwebs! Still, I'm thrilled someone can at least justify their translations using metalanguage like “collocation". (As opposed to the old language learner's chesnut of "it just doesn't sound right".) Well done!

[Kenny同志]

architecture should probably be treated as an uncountable noun in this context.

I have consulted the Free Dictionary Online. Yes, you are right Daan, thanks for letting me know that.

How about " building"?

The eternal existence of a building is justified on condition that it functions to reflect and preserve a culture.

Edited November 7, 2009 at 03:25 AM by kenny2006woo

[Daan]

It depends on what you feel the meaning of the Chinese is. If you think the word 建筑 refers to one building and one building only, then that's one way to go. I think using architecture would be better, since to me 建筑 seems to be referring to the entire concept, not just one specific building. But I am not a native speaker of Chinese, so your judgement will always prevail over mine

(By the way, my name is Daan, which I know is an unusual spelling...but well, what can I say, blame the parents? ;))

[Kenny同志]

Your judgement is right!

So the translation should be modified as :

The eternal existence of architecture is justified on condition that it functions to reflect and preserve a culture.

[renzhe]

That sounds very confusing and un-native.

The translations offered by HashiriKata and Daan read much more smoothly are are more readily understandable.

[Kenny同志]

Thank you for your comment, Renzhe. I think I need to know more about English. Too hard!

[animal world]

My knowledge of Chinese is such that i don't dare to pass judgment on the sentence as written in Chinese. But based on the translations offered i speculate that it's idiotic, at least rather convoluted, in Chinese just as much as in the translations. Maybe this is because it's offered out of context here.

By definition, architecture that manages to survive over the centuries is always a reflection and a preservation of (an often already vanished) culture! The fact is that the hovels in which the general populace lived vanished rapidly and only solidly built monuments and the palaces of the super-rich had any chance at all to withstand the test of time to some degree. Heck, if the only thing from our present society that manages to survive for 1000-2000 years were a dingy mobile home, it would constitute a fine monument of our culture and would be of great interest to generations living then.

A question to consider then is whether one should translate faithfully written nonsense or should one in the translation try to make sense of something that didn't exist in the original. As a corollary, what liberties can one take in translating to ensure the translation reflects the best of the language the original is translated into? A well-known example of this dilemma is the Li Bai poem translated by the famous American poet Ezra Pound. His rendition of the poem in English is superb but it deviates considerably from the original Chinese text.