《平凡的世界》- Highly Recommended Reading

[jbradfor]

@imron, do you mind if I use this thread to ask specific questions about this book, or should I start another thread and keep this more general?

Anyway, my question is about 1/3 of the way through chapter 5. The text is

罐子村[the name of a town]离双水村[another town]才几里路，他也没什么事，于是就三一回五一回跑个不停

I get [roughly] "From Guanzi to Shuangshui is about a mile by road, he doesn't have any particular purpose, so something something something runs without stopping."

What does that "三一回五一回" mean? Anyone saying "three one return five one return" will get a (virtual) boot to the head.

[imron]

I don't mind at all. Might as well keep everything in one place.

Regarding your question:

zdic puts the meaning of 三一回五一回 as:

犹言三番五次

That might not be much more help, so if we break it down further, we have:

犹言 - 好比说；等于说

三番五次 - 屡次

and

屡次 as 一次又一次

Which should probably be sufficient for understanding and so, putting the chain together, we get "三一回五一回"等于‘一次又一次’, and putting that back in context, we have:

他也没什么事，于是就'一次又一次'跑个不停

[imron]

Also, I would translate: 他也没什么事, 于是… as something like:

he had nothing better to do, and so...

rather than "he doesn't have any particular purpose". After all, his purpose was quite clear, namely he wanted to woo 兰花.

[jbradfor]

Ah, thanks. Checked two other dictionaries, but not zdic.

[Redfirefox Wallenberg]

Well, once you get to know the essential spirit of Chinese, i dare not say that.

you will be shocked, be fascinated, will fall in love with it, maybe.

to get to know more about the Chinese culture, i strongly suggest watch a TV play series <三国演义>。

[imron]

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of Chinese TV costume dramas. I'd rather read the book.

[paotale]

@jbradfor: my thoughts on the sentence you copied and pasted. (Good explanation by imron, just want to add my two cents"

I believe that this may have roots in Classical chinese, as the number 3 and I believe 5 as well were taken to mean many, rather than 3 or 5. For example, the famous :三人行，必有我师在。。。 implies that a teacher/leader will definitely be present when there are many people gathered together, not just when 3 are gathered together. In this example it is like saying 一次又一次跑个不停。。。 as imrod said.

Imrod or anyone else have any comments on my analysis please share.

[jbradfor]

Meta-question about this book. I'm reading the HTML version mentioned in post #5..... How was that created? Was it scanned and then OCR'ed, or did people actually type it in? [i assume there was not official eBook version released.] Given that, what typo rate can I expected? Right now, it's quite difficult for me to distinguish between a sentence I can't understand because my Chinese isn't good enough, and a sentence I can't understand because a typo throws me off.

[imron]

It's almost certain to be OCR'ed. I'm not sure what the type rate will be, but it's certain to be there.

[paotale]

I've often wondered about this myself, could someone please clarify what OCR'd stands for.

I think that it varies on the text and the copy of the text. For example, when I read "Chronicle of the Blood Merchant" there was a typo almost every page, so I knew that most of the ones that I came across were typos. I'd say that if you think there are a lot of typos then there probably are.

I wish I remembered the exact typo I came across in that one, I recall that it changed the meaning completely and was absolutely hilarious.

[HedgePig]

OCR = Optical Character Recognition. The document is scanned and the OCR software converts the "picture" of the document into individual characters (which are stored behind the scenes by codes.)

Hmmmm ...hope that clarifies rather than confuses.

[imron]

For example, when I read "Chronicle of the Blood Merchant" there was a typo almost every page

That's one of the reasons why I like to actually read the physical book (plus I prefer books to screens for reading).

[paotale]

thanks for you guy's answers, I am actually a bit familiar with OCR. on a related note, do any of you know of any such apps for the iphone? basically, you just place your phone in front of the character and it translates to English. I know someone that has been working on such an app, its not quite ready yet though.

[jbradfor]

pleco

[rob07]

I'm thinking about listening to the audio book version of this, but am feeling a bit commitment-phobic given that it is over 60 hours long. Imron, I think you said that it is a three book story? Is it the sort of thing where I can finish the first book with some sense of closure and come back to the second and third in a few months time?

[imron]

I think it is. It covers three main stages of the protagonist's life. First at the end of school, then as a labourer in the city and then as a worker in the mines.

[Redfirefox Wallenberg]

字字看来皆是血，十年辛苦不寻常。

[BertR]

The online versions seem to have the wrong text for part 2, chapter 22 :-( That text is coming from a different book.

[imron]

Bummer.  If you find an updated version let me know and I'll update links.

[BertR]

Can maybe someone who has the paper version look up the first and last sentence of that chapter?