How well do these Chinese sentences fit the English sentences?

[deathtrap]

Ello's

I need the help of a person proficient in Chinese to give me their opinion on the following sentences and how well they fit their English counterparts. Before I talk more I would like to emphasize I'm not trying to preach, I just want to see if this would work as an additional resource for studying.

The full explanation of what I'm trying to do is as follows; I speak Arabic and English as first languages, and being that I speak Arabic and am a muslim I was wondering whether I could use the verses in the Quran as an additional method for gaining vocabulary and grammar, as well as having anchor points in memory (the anchor being the Arabic version of the verse) in case I forget some vocabulary or grammar structure.

I'm not sure how many people here speak Arabic so I'll just post the English and Chinese versions of the verses and I would like someone to tell me how well they correspond, and whether or not they sound natural.

#1:

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

奉至仁至慈的真主之名

#2:

[All] praise is [due] to Allah , Lord of the worlds

一切贊頌，全歸真主，全世界的主，

#3:

Most Gracious, Most Merciful;

至仁至慈的主，

#4:

Master of the Day of Judgment.

報應日的主。

#5:

It is You we worship and You we ask for help.

我們只崇拜你，只求你祐助，

#6:

Guide us to the straight path -

求你引導我們上正路，

#7:

The path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray.

你所祐助者的路，不是受譴怒者的路，也不是迷誤者的路。

Thanks very much for any light you can shed on the matter.

[semantic nuance]

Master of the Day of Judgment.

報應日的主。

審判日的主

[deathtrap]

Thanks for that semantic nuance but these aren't my translations, I just copied them from here(You will have to click the checkbox on the left to get the chinese translation to display, under languages). Was just looking for how well they matched the english translation and whether or not they sounded natural enough to SRS/Flashcard them.

[xiaocai]

As you may have been aware of translation of religious scripts sometimes can be quite different from that of other works, especially in terms of the choice of words as well as the grammatical patterns. I'm far from an expert of Quran or of Arabic, but from the brief search the I've done it seems that the Chinese version you have got was stranslated by 马坚. It is direct translation from Arabic to Chinese so I don't know how well it corresponds to the English version, but Wikipedia reckons that it is the best Chinese translation so far. However, it may not be the reference of choice when it comes to everyday's grammar and vocabulary for the reasons I mentioned above.

[deathtrap]

Indeed. The fact that the Arabic of the Quran is classical Arabic from 1400 years ago rather than todays Standard Arabic may also cause problems in translation, even more so when you realize practically no one speaks Standard Arabic in their day to day lives. Although if you take the English translation it does not seem all that out of place in todays language, maybe a little weird and poetic but it can get the point across. I wonder if the Chinese version would suffice, so instead of having a completely blank mind when trying to describe a situation, idea, or aspect I could at least fall back on that.

Thanks for the info about the author though, good to know.

[semantic nuance]

I translated it as 審判日 because of its English translation 'Day of Judgement'. Perhaps its Arabic origin is close to 報應日.

[rezaf]

I think 報應日 is a better translation. Anyway I don't really think that it will help you so much in studying Chinese. Even if you want to read religious books for learning Chinese I suggest that you read more contemporary stuff.

EDIT: Does "الدِّينِ"in" يَوْمِ الدِّينِ"mean "religion" or something else?

[knickherboots]

I think that, generally speaking, it's best to rely as little as possible on your native language when learning a foreign language. Therefore, if you're learning Chinese, use a method of instruction that relies on Chinese as much as possible. Why? Because you want to communicate ideas, language is the tool for doing so, and you will develop the most thorough understanding of that language by being immersed in it. You might want to follow a different approach if you're focusing on translation. Also, I support xiaocai's statement and, based on that, as a Chinese translation from the Arabic, I would ignore the English, because the Chinese is only indirectly related to it. Imagine three points, A, C, and E. There is a line between A and C, and another line between A and E. But there is no line between C and E. Comparing the Chinese and English versions is like trying to draw a line between C and E where there is none, or where there is only a faint one that relies on the existence of the other two lines. Likewise, imagine an English text that is translated successively into many different languages--an experiment that would be fun to learn about or do; would it be recognizable after it got to the sixth or seventh language? Maybe--depending on the correlation of the languages and the quality of the translations. But a text translated from English to Chinese to Swahili to Russian to Pashto to Spanish to Finnish? It would probably be a strange creature like those that emerge from a kid's game of telephone. Or am I being completely silly here?

[Liebkuchen]

I've found this thread really interesting as its confirmed several issues about translation I've been coming across- even if I don't have a clue about the arabic or chinese.

Loved knickherboots' idea. So I tried it with Google Translate (yes- nowhere as good as getting a string of real people) using Mary had a little lamb:

So the original was:

Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow;

And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule;

It made the children laugh and play, to see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out, but still it lingered near,

And waited patiently about till Mary did appear.

"Why does the lamb love Mary so?" the eager children cry;

"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know" the teacher did reply.

And used English to Chinese to Swahili to Russian to Hindi (didn't have Pashto) to Spanish to Finnish and back to English again resulting in:

Mary had little lamb skin was white as snow;

Mary went, the lamb is a must.

school, breaking the law, when one day he went;

Let the children laugh and play and see a lot of school.

This teacher went on, but still floating around,

And have patience, it looks like Maria.

"Lamb's love my voice for children:

"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know," the teacher had no answer.

Hmm- the start isn't bad but it goes a bit AWOL in the middle...

[knickherboots]

Liebkuchen's example piqued my interest. Then the gadfly in me took hold. Although this is a well-known nursery rhyme that few native speakers would consider ambiguous, the text presents a few problems for a translator because the language is lyrical and includes some uncommon usage and syntax, such as "till Mary did appear" (rather than "until Mary appeared"), "love Mary so" ("loved Mary very much"), "but still it lingered near" ("but it didn't leave"), and "It made the children laugh and play, to see a lamb at school" ("Seeing a lamb at school made the children laugh and play"). So I did the same experiment with Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the nonsensical result is below.

Original English

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

English>Chinese>Swahili>Russian>Hindi>Spanish>Finnish>English

"All the free people of human dignity and justice, reason and consciousness are created and should act towards fraternity in particular."

This is consistent with Liebkuchen's example: the subject of the text can be conveyed, but not much more. On the other hand, it might prove more about the shortcomings of computer translation than the likelihood that meaning is lost over multiple translations. Computer translators are certainly useful, but good human translators have, as Liebkuchen mentions, done a better job. And even Google translations between just English and Chinese indicate the shortcomings of a computer translation. I assume doing the same experiments with good human translators would produce more accurate results. Even if inaccurate, the resulting translation should, at the very least, make sense.