coordination

[Jose]

How can we translate a sentence like "She can speak Chinese, English and

Spanish"?

My natural tendency is to say this in Chinese as:

她會講漢語﹑英語和西班牙語。

I think the grammar of this sentence is correct, but is this the normal

way of saying it? Perhaps it would be more idiomatic to say something

like:

她會講漢英西班牙三語。

Or:

漢英西班牙三語她都會講。

I'm not sure about how correct or idiomatic these sentences are, so I'd

appreciate it if anyone can tell me how Chinese speakers would say this.

[skylee]

I would opt for the first version. I think it is normal and natural. IMHO, the other two versions are OK, but people don't talk like that. I think you won't see "漢英西班牙三語" unless perhaps on the cover of a dictionary or reference books.

[Jose]

Thanks, skylee.

I have been thinking about other similar cases. How about translating "France and Britain"? I suppose 法國和英國would be the normal spoken form, and 法英兩國 would be correct in book titles or newspaper headlines. Am I right?

[Quest]

The conjunction "and" is not always necessary in Chinese.

In English we have <item1>, <item2>, ...... and <item_N>

In Chinese you could say <item1>, <item2>, ...... <item_N> (等/等等)。

but if you think that's too much to bother with, all of your versions are fine, dont worry too much about it. You might want to consider using 还有 --> 汉﹑英﹑还有西班牙三语。

[trevelyan]

>> 漢英西班牙三語 <<

I notice people shortening mostly when all words are the same length -- so the example above feels awkward. There also seems to be a bias towards using only the first character even for longer words, even if the meaning is only clear contextually. Is there anything wrong with:

漢英西三語?

[Jose]

Thanks for the answers.

The conjunction "and" is not always necessary in Chinese.

Exactly, and that's why I often feel confused in those cases where I would use 'and' in English.

Something that confuses me is that the words commonly used as a translation for "and" when linking nouns, like 和, 跟 and 與, can also mean 'with' in expressions like 跟某人說話 or 跟某事有關. This leads me to a new question: How should I say a sentence like "I need to talk to Mr. Wang and Mr. Zhang". A literal translation would give:

我需要 和 / 跟 王先生 和 / 跟 張先生說話.

Now, repeating the same word sounds awkward, and I'm not sure whether mixing 跟 and 和 is all right. What would be correct here?

Another case where I feel unsure about usage is when we need two coordinated nouns to modify another one. For example, I would translate "my professional background" as 我的職業經歷, and "my academic background" as 我的教學經歷. But then, how can I say "my academic AND professional background"? 職業和教學的經歷?

[skylee]

Now, repeating the same word sounds awkward,

Does it? I don't really think so.

But then, how can I say "my academic AND professional background"? 職業和教學的經歷?

Yeah, why not? I would say 我的教學(or 學術)和專業背景, though.