Translation question

[XiaoZhou]

How would you translate "老翁 一口拒绝地说'不会'" into English?

Most standard dictionaries define 拒绝 as a verb, to refuse, to decline, or to reject. Is there an adverb in English that could modify the verb "to speak" in the same way that 拒绝 modifies 说? Would the smoothest translation just be "The old man flatly denied it"?

[skylee]

What does 不會 mean here? Does it mean something won't happen? Or does it mean the old man can't do something like speak a language or drive a car?

[XiaoZhou]

The old man's 不会 is a denial of someone else´s claim.

The full context is:

说来凑巧，我前不久在一份美国杂志上看了一则笑话：一位八十多岁的老翁陪他怀孕的二十多岁的妻子到医院做检查。医生好心地提醒他是否有别的可能，老翁 一口拒绝地说，“不会，我这个人一向能创造奇迹。上回我和我妻子以及她的一个男朋友一块去打猎，我只用一把雨伞指着一头鹿，那头鹿就中弹身亡了。 ”

As a secondary question, does anyone find this joke to be funny? Is it supposed to be funny due to the implication that the old man ignorantly thinks he has done what in reality the boyfriend has actually done?

[knickherboots]

As skylee implies, hard to say without the context. But "flatly" is a nice way of handling “一口”, which doesn't have a really close English equivalent. You've got to include the direct quote, though. Maybe something like, "The old man flatly rejected it, saying 'No way.'" There are a bunch of alternatives for 不会, depending on context, including "No can do," "It's not possible," "No, [subject, verbe] (e.g., "No, he couldn't have"), or simply, "No."

[imron]

The joke has been poorly translated into Chinese. The English version goes something like this:

An 86-year-old man went to his doctor for his quarterly

check-up... The doctor asked him how he was feeling, and the

86-year-old said ,'Things are great and I've never felt better.'

I now have a 20 year-old bride who is pregnant with my child.

"So what do you think about that Doc ?"

To which the doctor replies: Let me tell you a story. A hunter in a hurry grabs an umbrella instead of the gun. He moves into the jungle, sees a lion, lifts the umbrella, pulls the handle and… BANG… The lion drops dead!

Old man: Thats impossible; someone else must have shot the lion…

Doctor: MY POINT EXACTLY!

[Kenny同志]

一位年近九旬的老翁去做季度体检，医生问老翁感觉如何，老翁道：“很不错啊，我从来都没像现在这么精神过。我娶了个二十岁的老婆，她现在怀着我的孩子。你说我身体好不好？”医生道：“我给您老说个故事。一个猎人慌里慌张把伞当成了枪，拿着去树林，看到了一头狮子。猎人端起伞，把伞柄一拉，只听得砰的一声，狮子倒下死了。

老翁道：“不可能，狮子肯定是别人开枪打死的。”

医生道：“我就是这个意思！”

It doesn't make me laugh.

[semantic nuance]

The joke sounds familiar; it is from <<Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar>, right? If so, there're a few jokes in that book, hiliarious! I excerpted some from that book and posted here on my blog.

[imron]

It doesn't make me laugh.

Maybe so, but would you say that the original version is even less likely to make you laugh?

[xiaocai]

The joke has been poorly translated into Chinese.

There is a better translation. I think this person did not really translate but rather paraphrased it in such a bad way that it unfolds nothing like the original joke, and just has lost the essence of it.

But I did laugh when I read the original.

[XiaoZhou]

Thanks so much you guys. This has been so helpful. Know that I understand the joke I think it is really funny, although that doesn't make the poor Chinese version presented above any better.

Now what is perhaps a more difficult question: if I am translating something from Chinese to English, and the Chinese version is as it is above, do you think I should adjust it in order to make the English joke actually funny, or should I be true to the Chinese original and translate a poorly-translated joke?