Translating this little beauty...

[xianhua]

The following extract is from a Boya Intermediate text - an abridged text itself from the writer 史铁生. The 刘易斯 refers to American athlete Carl Lewis, the idol of our disabled protaganist.

如果不能在超越自我局限的无尽路途上去理解幸福, 那么我的不能跑与刘易斯的不能跑得更快就完成等同, 都是沮丧与痛苦的根源。

"Being limited by your own confines is all relative. In this respect, my inability to run is basically equal to Lewis' inability to run faster - and such limitations are the root cause of our disatisfaction and pain".

The above is how I interpret the text, but I could be a little wide of the mark, especially when it comes to doing justice to 路途. Any takers?

[parasite]

That one's quite a woozie. Are there some typos? :blink: (I'm hoping so!)

[xianhua]

I just corrected one typo - apologies. I'm not sure what a woozie is though.

[parasite]

Not only did I spell woozy wrong, I used the wrong word - I meant doozy.

I'm done banging my head on the desk for this one. I'd agree with your latter half translation, but for the first half I don't understand where you got the idea to use the word 'relative'. My crummy attempt went something like "If we can't know happiness by overcoming our own limitations in the myriad of ways possible...". I don't know how to make the rest of the sentence make any sense with that though. The part that really kills me is the 都是 at the end. How does that clause logically connect to the rest of it... *sigh*

Thanks for the challenge, sorry I can't help... good learning experience if we get an answer from someone

[SiMaKe]

For comparison, and in case you are interested, here is what appears to be the original

如果不能在超越自我局限的无尽路途上去理解幸福，那么史铁生的不能跑与刘易斯的不能跑得更快就完全等同，都是沮丧与痛苦的根源。

There is a slight variation between the two versions.

[Patpat]

I finally understand where the "relative" in @xianhua's translation is from, but it isn't there if you stick closer to the text. As for the dou, I believe it is quantifying over the two "bu neng" situations--the author's and Carl Lewis'. Here's my try, borrowing from the OP, but not sure I got it all either:

If we can't come to understand happiness as we face the endless task of overcoming our own limitations, then my inability to run is completely equal to Lewis' inability to run faster--both [of our inabilities] are the source of disappointment and suffering.

[SiMaKe]

Not polished but I think it's close to the intent.

If, on the endless journey to transcend one’s limitations, one cannot figure out how to be happy, and in this sense my inability to run and Lewis’ inability to run faster are the same, these (limitations) are the source of frustration and pain.

@xianhua

Thanks for bringing this author to my attention. His life story is interesting starting with being sent to rural China during the CR, and losing the use of his legs as the result of an accident, to becoming an award winning author and the subject of a short film, from his fascination with sports and meeting Carl Lewis to writing the short piece (My Dream) from which your extract came.

[parasite]

This was a typo on the op's part too, right?

完成等同 vs 完全等同 (the alt. version SiMaKe posted)

All of these translations still frustrate me because I feel they conveniently neglect something which is ambiguous to Chinese learners at my level and below and just translate it to English without making it clear. This "ambiguous" thing might be clear as day to a native Chinese speaker or higher level learner reading the text, but I don't know if it *is* or not, or if the original is ambiguous in this same sense:

What is the logical connection between "understanding happiness" and "overcoming one's limitations"? In my mind a proper translation to English should make it obvious if we are talking direct or indirect causality.

Possibilities all ambiguous and possible to me:

1. It is metaphorical and the process of transcending limitations IS another definition of happiness.

2. Because one is active in transcending his limitations, life will reveal understanding of what it means to be happy (perhaps, say, because of the contrast of challenges vs easy and comfortable living)

3. Overcoming one's limits has been explicitly chosen as a path (kind of like a religion) to understanding happiness.

If I am confusing you -- I just mean I don't think any of these translations are anything like what something that would ever be written originally in English by a native speaker. They represent a direct literal translation of foreign thinking without proper interpretation - lazy translation.

[SiMaKe]

I can't say if the difference between the two versions is a typo. That's why I just offered it as a comparison. And rather than struggle with something that may or may not be incorrect, I opted to work on the "original". In quotes because I have no guarantee that what I found was the original, only that I found it in several different places as I posted it.

As for "lazy" translation, that's a matter of perspective. For these forums, I prefer to keep somewhat close to the original "Chinese-ness". I find it helps to "train the brain" to think in Chinese. This may be complete hogwash, but that's what I usually do. :rolleyes:

Now to your point on the translations per se.

connection between "understanding happiness" and "overcoming one's limitations"

I think the link is this. When one is seeking to overcome their limitations, it is difficult to achieve happiness as one is constantly frustrated because it is so difficult to overcome those limitations. Shi and Lewis both seemed to have had this problem. Shi was a sports fanatic but his legs were paralyzed. Lewis couldn't run fast enough to beat Johnson. So if one can't find out how to be happy despite not being able to overcome their limitations, one will suffer pain and frustration.

And I agree that these translations would not be something an accomplished writer of English would compose. But as I said, that wasn't my objective. If I got the translation right(no guarantee) then I succeeded in what I set out to do. If I got it wrong, I look forward to learning where I went wrong.

Hope this helps.

[Yang Rui]

I found myself making several translations, each one getting further from the original Chinese and closer to something that would pass for English. At first I had:

If, as we unceasingly try to exceed our own limits, we can’t come to an understanding of happiness, my inability to run and Lewis’s inability to run faster are one and the same: both are the cause of depression and anguish.

But then it occurred to me that the difficulty in translating the Chinese comes from an apparent non sequitur. It seems like the equivalence of Shi’s and Lewis’s problems depends on accepting the first part of the sentence as true. But in fact, they don’t really seem to be related in a logical way, at least to my mind. So then I went to:

If it’s true that we cannot truly achieve happiness by constantly pushing ourselves beyond our limits, then my inability to run and Lewis’s inability to run faster are one and the same: both are the cause of depression and anguish.

And then:

My inability to run was in effect the same as Lewis’s inability to run faster. Both caused depression and anguish because ultimately, it is impossible to achieve happiness if one is always trying to push oneself beyond one’s limits.

I'm not sure if this strays too far from the original, or even if I have the correct meaning. It seems to me that the final translation wouldn't get you very good marks in a school exam because it doesn't show a literal understanding of the various phrases in the sentence, such as 在...的路途上 (on the path to...).

[SiMaKe]

Context is clearly important. In the full passage, this next sentence follows the one we are discussing:

假若刘易斯不能懂得这些事，我相信，在前述那个中午，他一定是世界上最不幸的人。

A "lazy" translation is: "if Lewis cannot understand these things, I believe, referring to the aforementioned noon, he must be the world's most unfortunate person".

("noon" refers back to the paragraph opening where the author talks about Lewis' defeat by Johnson in a 1 pm race).

So, at this point, I am still comfortable that Shi is saying that regardless of our personal limitations (and I believe that xianhua's "relative" captures this well), we need to learn how to be happy.

[Yang Rui]

Ah, reading the original piece makes it a lot clearer - SiMaKe's interpretation seems much more accurate than my original attempt.