申报世界纪录

[Lu]

Translating a... let's call it 散文 on the rather large amount of Guinness Book of Records records in China and the word used all the time is 申报, in sentences like:

...相关部门将申报吉尼斯世界之最。

...成功申报吉尼斯世界纪录。

...有望申报吉尼斯世界纪录。

This seems to be rather hard to translate: do they apply for the record? Have they already applied and is it now a record? Now I'm thinking that in these cases there is not really a good direct translation and it would become something like:

...according to the relevant authorities, this is a Guinness World Record.

...successfully set a Guinness World Record.

...may be a Guinness World Record.

Would this be correct? Thanks for any help!

[Kenny同志]

...相关部门将申报吉尼斯世界之最。

...成功申报吉尼斯世界纪录。

...有望申报吉尼斯世界纪录。

申报 means to report/submit something to a higher authority for approval or acknowledgement, or whatever else. Among the three sentences you listed, the latter two could be inaccurate for the use of the word in question, for example, the second sentence is basically saying that the submission is successful but it could well be that something is acknowledged as a new Guinness record. Same problem with the last one.

[Lu]

Thanks for your reply. That makes it confusing: the author (韩寒) quotes or summarises news reports that contain these sentences. No way of telling what exactly was meant originally. So perhaps what was said was that the attempt was reported to Guinness and then the journalist understood that to mean it was a record, but it could also mean that it was indeed acknowledged as a record by Guinness. I suppose I could try and look up the records in question but that might be more effort than it's worth :-/

[陳德聰]

Hm.

My understanding of the process is:

You attempt to break the record.

You submit your attempt.

They decide whether or not your submission flies.

You get entered into the book/Break the record.

申报世界纪录 to me would apply to the "submit your attempt" stage.

Edit: Usually you wouldn't bother submitting your attempt unless you'd 'unofficially' broken the record.

[Kenny同志]

I concur with 陳同志.

[Lu]

If I read the Guinness website correctly, it's actually wiser to notify them of your upcoming attempt beforehand so they can decide whether they'll want to include your record (if it's new) or send you all the relevant rules for your record (if you want to break an existing one). They can also send an official so you can get certified right after the attempt. But I don't know if the record-breakers in this article knew all that.

I'm amending my translation to have it say that they reported the record to Guinness/successfully reported the record/can possibly be considered as a record. Hopefully that covers most eventualities.

[li3wei1]

The word 'claim' may be sufficiently ambiguous.

[Lu]

I'm translating into Dutch, I'm afraid I can't translate 'claim' as ambiguously as it works in English.

[skylee]

How about "apply for recognition"?

[Lu]

This is what I've made of it now:

Volgens berichten hebben de relevante autoriteiten dit record aangemeld bij het Guinness Book of Records. (reported/registered it with the Guinness Book of Records)

dit is met succes aangemeld als wereldrecord bij het Guiness Book of Records. (successfully reported/registered as a world record with the GBR)

komt het mogelijk in aanmerking voor het Guinness Book of Records. (can possibly considered for the GBR)