Translation needed

[odietamor]

Could you please translate this short sentence to English: "Xiao li da sha zhi"

Thank you in advance.

[ABCinChina]

小利大傻子?

Little Li is a big dummy?

[odietamor]

Thank you so much for the prompt answer. odietamor

[Daan]

I think you meant 李 there, ABCinChina?

odietamor, while the translation ABCinChina gave is definitely a good possibility, we can't be sure that's what it means unless you can provide the characters or at least a transcription with tone marks.

[jbradfor]

I was thinking 小李大殺摯

@odietamor: there are 53 characters with the pinyin "xiao", 134 with "li", 25 with "da", 26 with "sha", and 128 "zhi". [All data from mdbg.net.] You do the math, that's 590,886,400 possible sentences in Chinese with that pinyin. Obviously the vast majority of them makes no sense, but that's still a lot of possibilities. So without more context, or at least tones, we're just making up possibilities.

@ABCinChina: 子 is zhi?

[renzhe]

I'm guessing 效力大沙纸 = very effective sandpaper.

傻子 = shazi, not shazhi

But yeah, the transcription is incomplete, without word boundaries, so it's all just guesswork.

[chrix]

Oh come on people, confusing z and zhi (and s/sh, c/ch) is common in the South and Taiwan, it's called hypercorrection! Especially happens when people not used to it are asked to write out stuff in pinyin.

[Daan]

Exactly! That's why I forgot to point that out

I was thinking 小李大殺摯

I'm guessing 效力大沙纸 = very effective sandpaper.

Ha, how about 小利大殺智!

[jbradfor]

I was thinking 小李大殺摯

Actually, I wasn't thinking it seems. I meant to type 小李打殺摯

[jbradfor]

@chrix, if we're allowed to confuse zhi and zi, that brings us to 872,480,700 possible sentences. Are we allowed to confuse xiao and shao as well? I know I do all the time

[renzhe]

We need less bickering and more translations!

How about: 笑里打杀指 = smilingly beat the death finger?

[HashiriKata]

Very likely to be "Xiao Li is a great fool", as ABCin China has got it. The OP can tell us where s/he got the sentence so that it may help us to know if we're correct.

[chrix]

renzhe, I wasn't bickering, hypercorrection is real, so correcting ABC about the pronunciation of zi wasn't necessary.

jbradfor: alas, learners are allowed less than native speakers are

Other than that, what HK said.

[renzhe]

... the pronunciation of zi...

Is that hypo-correction?

[chrix]

Also, as far as I'm aware, native speakers usually don't merge shao and xiao so there shouldn't be any confusion about the two.

[renzhe]

It was a joke, nevermind.

The merger is one way, zhi -> zi. So there is no confusion about the pronunciation of zi, it's always non-retroflexed. Only about the pronunciation of zhi.

Anyway, back to the topic. Perhaps you two are right, but without any context I didn't automatically think about hypercorrection.

[chrix]

That's why it's called hypercorrection.. Because of the merger people overcorrect themselves in a situation where they have to adhere to the standard, and thus the confusion...

[Daan]

We need less bickering and more translations!

I just had a brilliant idea: it's obviously 孝梨達沙子, or "the filial pear reaches the sand kid" (the classical Chinese for Billy the Kid, I am informed).

[trien27]

What everyone said are all possible and are only wild guesses due to not having tone marks or tone numbers per pinyin. I think there might still be a mistake. Here's what I found online: "Sri Bata Shaja (Xi-li-ba-da-sha-zhi) " ?

Whether it's a hypercorrection or not is dependent on the writer's ability to correctly write or if they forgot then incorrectly think that they wrote it correctly and also whether they switched the dialects of the words which the intended to use and speak but at times due to some confusion due to some pronunciation similarities when there's no dictionary or people around to help with the correction.

Edited February 10, 2010 at 02:00 AM by trien27

[roddy]

Close, everyone, but no cigar. 效力大。啥志。

It's a line from one of Mao's poems (I forget which one) on the ennui felt when one's policies have had great effectiveness and you are unsure as to what your next aspiration should be. I have it tattooed on the inside of my left thigh.