seeking the near perfect translation (both E2C & C2E challenges)

[Outofin]

How to translate "rogue"?

Dictionary has

1. 歹徒,恶棍;流氓,无赖;乞丐;骗子

2. 爱捉弄人者;淘气孩子,小淘气

3. 【园】变劣了的实生苗;劣种;【生】变劣

4. 家伙

5. 离群的象,离群的野兽;(赛马或行猎时的)腿懒的马

My feeling for this word is that rogue is someone who isn't doing what he's supposed to do, or even worse, is doing what he's forbidden to do. For example, rogue traders, rogue robots.

From Leon (film)'s wiki page, "Stansfield is enraged the "Italian hitman" has gone rogue.

Is my feeling correct? If that's true, none of the translations from the dictionary is close. This is 监守自盗 in Chinese, however, 监守自盗 is not an noun that can be used on a person.

[Guest realmayo]

"Rogue trader" comes from the phrase "rogue elephant" -- ie an elephant which goes crazy and gets a taste for attacking and killing people. If I remember right people who ride on elephants carry a sharp chisel and a hammer so they can quickly hammer the chisel into the elephant's brain to kill it if they need to, but I've no idea if that part of it is true. Anyway, hence definition #5.

If you say someone's rogue in English these days, not only is it a slightly unusual choice of words, but for me it implies a man who misbehaves but whose misbehavious isn't so bad that we feel we have to condemn him. Often hear the phrase "a lovable old rogue" -- ie a nice old chap who might do too much drinking or womanising or petty crime.... this fits more with your definition #2. An older use of the word would mean more simply someone who is a bad guy, as per definition #1.

[animal world]

Rogue is an interesting word and i looked it up in my dictionary. I didn't know its definition as it relates to the savage, unpredictable behavior of animals. The word dates from around the mid 16th century and, at that time, meant a vagabond who begged. Now, it has often come to mean someone whose behavior deviates from the norm, i.e. a renegade, or savage, unpredictable behavior (the elephants mentioned by realmayo).

As a verb, rogue means to cheat but also to destroy/uproot plants that do not conform to a standard.

Synonyms offered for the word rogue are: villain, trickster, cheat, quack, mountebank.

[Outofin]

Thanks for all the inputs! Maybe I thought too much. Still feel a little itchy about this.

Rogue traders are often translated as 魔鬼交易员. It doesn't sound right at all. 魔鬼 is evil, powerful, fearful. Rogue doesn't have this layer of meaning. Maybe it can be 不良交易员 无赖交易员. Though still not exactly right. I seriously don't know a good translation to my satsifaction.

the "Italian hitman" has gone rogue. (Hope you all have seen the wonder movie Leon the Professional so you understand the context.)

I probably would say 这个意大利杀手已经失控

Move on. Any taker on translating 春光乍泄?

How to translate 乍? I certainly have looked it up but don't feel like the definitions in dictionary.

[roddy]

I keep wanting to suggest 出轨. I think the nearest common usage today is for errant husbands, but 言行超出常规 and 'someone whose behavior deviates from the norm' are pretty close. I think you'd be creating a usage though, rather than identifying the most apt existing one. So I'm not really suggesting it, just saying that I kind of wanted to suggest it, but then decided not to, but to say so anyway. Clear?

[Outofin]

I like it. Thanks for saying "I think you'd be creating a usage though, rather than identifying the most apt existing one." That's definitely an important aspect of translating.

Roddy, you're professional and I got a question for you. The use of pinyin.

For example, something like "The government is trying to build a well-off society, known as xiaokang society in China."

In thise case, I get it. Because there's no existing translation for xiaokang, so the translator explains its meaning, and adds the reference to its original pinyin, so that readers with or without Chinese language background know what he's talking about. Without mentioning "xiaokang", I don't know what he's talking about. And hopefully, English readers will pick the word up when they talk about politics. So, I get it.

But why something like "rhinoceros horn, known as Xi Jiao in China".

This is the opposite example. There is no problem at all without adding the pinyin. For me, I don't need it. For English readers, they don't need it. Only for those who're in the middle of learning Chinese language, it might help. Is that the point?

Do you think this is a bad practice or there're more reasons behind it?

[fanglu]

Do you think this is a bad practice or there're more reasons behind it?

One reason can be to add colour, to remind the reader they are reading about a foreign country, or to deliberately exoticise the subject matter. Alternatively, the author may just be wanting to show off their knowledge of Chinese language to the reader.

[michaelS]

'Going rogue' makes me think of Sarah Palin, it was the title of her biography a couple of years ago. It came from meaning someone who goes off-message, doesn't stick to the script, and she adopted it as a badge of pride to suggest being a maverick, not a typical politician.

[roddy]

The one that always gets me is when they're writing about the Chinese space program and you see something like "The Chinese astronaut, or yuhangyuan, will fly to Venus . . . " when you'd never see "The Chinese engineers, or gongchengshi, will . . ."

There's a bit of a precedent as the word cosmonaut is often used for Russian astronauts, but it always stands out for me.

[renzhe]

I prefer the term "taikonauts", from taikong. I'm pretty sure that the insistence on a Chinese-derived term is just an extension of the Soviet-era "cosmonaut" usage.

As for rogue, the term implies to me not only behaviour which deviates from the norm, and has a negative image, but also defying an authority and going out of control. It is usually behaviour which is not allowed and which some kind of authority would like to put a stop to.

So I like the "失控" translation.

[skylee]

Re rogue, how about 不按理出牌 or 不按本子辦事?

[Outofin]

skylee, your answer is good, but how do you fit it into "rogue trader"? How do you translate rogue trader? The established translation is 魔鬼交易员, which is, like I mentioned above, a very poor choice.

By the way, do you have a thought about translating 春光乍泄? Just the word, not the movie.

[gato]

The interesting thing about the "rogue" is that it's both literary and colloquial. The Chinese translation would need to have the same balance to capture the same flavor.

[gato]

By the way, do you have a thought about translating 春光乍泄? Just the word, not the movie.

If it were still the 18th or 19th century, an English writer could probably come up with a Latin or French phrase for that and that would more closely parallel the usage of the Chinese word. ;-)

Translating it into modern English has the same problem as translating it into modern Chinese, you'd lose quite a bit of the original flavor.

La lumiere du printemps?

[Kenny同志]

rogue trader 乖常交易员

乖(verb) deviate

常(noun) normal

[skylee]

errrr~~~~ 無良經紀 perhaps?

[Outofin]

Excellent, at least you guys understand my struggle. Sometimes when I talk to friends that I can't translate a word, they simply don't understand and are not interested.

I often find dictionary doesn't catch the nuance of a language. So I play it as a game, as a brain teaser. I have a long lists of words that I find difficult to translate. Do you guys like English to Chinese or Chinese to English?

Another challenge, an extremely common and plain word: 幸福.

Yes, it's happiness, sort of. But, seriously, no, it's not just happiness. Maybe just me. It particularly involves family values, when a child is born, when the family is gathering for the new year, etc. Finding a dream job or a dream house? Enjoying the nature or your religion? No, that's not 幸福.

[gato]

流氓炒客？ 股市黑手?

[skylee]

Easy, consider "是啊哇塞". If the concept can't be fully expressed in English, use other languages (such as Latin, French etc, like gato said). People like Japanese, so let's use Japanese 幸せ(shiawase). It means the same thing, right?

PS -

[fanglu]

Another challenge, an extremely common and plain word: 幸福.

What about 'lucky', as in "I feel very lucky; having such a wonderful family and seeing them all at new year"?