hbuchtel Posted June 28, 2012 at 12:05 PM Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 12:05 PM As announced here, “The New York Times is proud to introduce a beta version of a new online Chinese-language edition designed to bring New York Times journalism to China.” 纽约时报中文网 They say it is a beta version, so this might change later, but I'm a little disappointed they don't offer direct links to the English versions of the articles, as the Wall Street Journal does on their Chinese-language site. This little touch makes looking up a confusing phrase or term much much easier. But besides that complaint, it looks like we have another great resource for online news in Chinese! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny同志 Posted June 28, 2012 at 01:15 PM Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 01:15 PM Well, it doesn’t make any difference to me as I always prefer to read things in the original language they are written. For a variety of reasons, translations are almost impossible to be free of imperfections and even errors. Having skimmed a few paragraphs from the Chinese edition of the New York Times, I can safely say that I can easily pick out a bunch of awful sentences even if I am not pedantic as usual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbuchtel Posted June 28, 2012 at 02:06 PM Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 02:06 PM I don't disagree with you about the quality of the translations, but NYTimes (and BBC, and WSJ) reports much different news than the Chinese-language news sites that I know of, so for people who cannot read English this is a big deal. For me, the topics of the NYTimes articles are quite interesting to me, so I could see myself reading the Chinese translations for fun rather than just as an exercise. It is a pity that there are so many mistakes in the translations. Even I could pick out a few grammatical mistakes. They should hire more copy-editors. I'd be interested in other forum members' opinions about this: If your goal is to improve your Chinese, is reading translations of this quality (i.e. basically correct, but not good written Chinese) a good idea? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feihong Posted June 28, 2012 at 04:11 PM Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 04:11 PM It is a good idea if your goal is to improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension. But you shouldn't use it as a model for your own writing (in Chinese). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yaokong Posted June 28, 2012 at 05:49 PM Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 05:49 PM They say it is a beta version, so this might change later, but I'm a little disappointed they don't offer direct links to the English versions of the articles, as the Wall Street Journal does on their Chinese-language site. This little touch makes looking up a confusing phrase or term much much easier. I don't know if you just missed or they added it later (on the same day?), but there ARE links to the English versions, right on top of the article, above the title, it says 中文 英文. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yaokong Posted June 28, 2012 at 05:54 PM Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 05:54 PM OK, I just noticed, not every article has this feature, this one for example does, http://cn.nytimes.com/article/china/2012/06/26/c26appletwo/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbuchtel Posted June 28, 2012 at 06:42 PM Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 06:42 PM there ARE links to the English versions, right on top of the article, above the title, it says 中文 英文. Oh, nice! Yea, I might have missed that - I was looking lower on the page in the area with social media links, print, font, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbuchtel Posted June 28, 2012 at 06:52 PM Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 06:52 PM Thanks Feihong for your reply. I'm wondering what kind of an effect on my Chinese it might have if I read an article or two there every day. I guess I'll know in a couple of months! Heh heh Maybe us Chinese-learners could turn the site into a kind of learning tool - posting what we think are translation errors in the comments section for each article and seeing if the editors offer any feedback . . . oh, I just noticed that the Chinese version doesn't have a comments section. Well, it probably wouldn't have gone over so well anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooironic Posted June 28, 2012 at 10:58 PM Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 10:58 PM The E-C translations at China Daily are generally of a fairly good quality. They put the languages side by side which is helpful. I agree that they're not always useful for Chinese language learners but they can be very effective exercises for translation students. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny同志 Posted June 29, 2012 at 06:29 AM Report Share Posted June 29, 2012 at 06:29 AM It's good to have another source of information anyway. Look at this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbuchtel Posted June 30, 2012 at 03:19 PM Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 at 03:19 PM they can be very effective exercises for translation students. I think that is a good observation. I was interested to see how "a godsend" and "a tricky fit" were translated in this article: The students are mostly from China’s rapidly expanding middle class and can afford to pay full tuition, a godsend for universities that have faced sharp budget cuts in recent years. But what seems at first glance a boon for colleges and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit for both. 这些学生绝大多数来自中国迅速壮大的中产阶级，有能力支付全额学费，对于近年来面临预算削减的高校来说，这真是从天而降的礼物。不过，虽然乍看之下这对高校和学生都有好处，仔细观察起来，却是对双方都复杂和棘手的事。 http://cn.nytimes.co...onundrum/zh-cn/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icebear Posted July 3, 2012 at 06:09 PM Report Share Posted July 3, 2012 at 06:09 PM Has anyone figured out some way to filter only the stories which are written originally in Chinese? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbuchtel Posted July 3, 2012 at 08:03 PM Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2012 at 08:03 PM Good call! That should make for some interesting reading. Do you mean an automatic filter? Manually, just looking for the ones with a Chinese author would do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icebear Posted July 3, 2012 at 09:51 PM Report Share Posted July 3, 2012 at 09:51 PM I was hoping for an automatic one, the majority seem to be translations... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbuchtel Posted July 5, 2012 at 03:16 PM Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 at 03:16 PM On their 'about us' page it says: 网站内容特为中文读者量身打造，既包括《纽约时报》英文报道的中译版本，也包括本土中文作者及专栏作家专为中文网所撰写的原创稿件。 Unfortunately they don't seem to have a list of all of their Chinese-language authors/commentators. Just from browsing the articles on the front page I found these two, but there ought to be more: 纽约时报中文网财经评论员 王强 财新记者 陈宝成 [edit - here is another] 财新记者 张剑荆 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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