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[skylee]

It is said that the right leg of the grandfather whose story-telling I like(d) most was ...

據說 = according to what people say

The original sentence is clumsy imo.

[陳德聰]

I would use the word "apparently" or the phrase "I've heard" over "it is said" for 据说.

That being said... I searched the sentence in question and found it's teaching material for middle schoolers in Taiwan? It seems a bit 乱.

Apparently, my grandfather (whose story-telling I like[d] the most) <- this part is so awkward had his right leg broken by Japanese people when he was young.

[lingo-ling]

A clumsy sentence, but more so in English than in Chinese. Still, who thinks this kind of thing up?

"It's said that my grandfather, who I most like to hear tell stories, had his right leg broken by the Japanese when he was young."

[imron]

who thinks this kind of thing up

Some kid whose grandfather's leg was broken by the Japanese

[Lu]

It seems to work in English, but in Chinese that 他 looks clumsy, although the sentence isn't much improved if that is left out. Subordinate clauses don't really work that way in Chinese.

[陳德聰]

That kind of pattern is called a resumptive, and it's a lot more common in Mandarin than I think people are willing to admit... It feels clumsy and awkward but I don't think there is any other way to use the language to express that type of idea.

今天我要叫李美莉出来玩

李美莉是谁？

你上回向她道歉的那个女生...

[skylee]

Break the sentence apart. First describe the grandpa. Full stop. Then what happened to him. Full stop. Anyone wants to re-write it?

[Lu]

Break the sentence apart. First describe the grandpa. Full stop. Then what happened to him. Full stop. Anyone wants to re-write it?

You? Rewriting sounds like the right thing to do in cases like this. Even if it's grammatical, it's an ugly maltreatment of the language. In my humble opinion.

[hackinger]

Hi,

I found this thread amusing, because with my weak Chinese I am very often in the situation that a Chinese sentence looks very weird, but I have to blame it on my limited knowledge and undaunted try to translate it anyway.

In this particular case I would largely ignore "ju shuo" or use (probably), because it depends on context and very freely translate as follows :

He told me a lot of stories and the story I (probably) liked most was the one about his grandfather who had his leg broken by the Japanese when he was young.

Cheers

hackinger

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[陳德聰]

Er, not quite, Hackinger.

I liked hearing my grandfather tell stories the most. Apparently, when he was young, his right leg...

[Lu]

In this particular case I would largely ignore "ju shuo" or use (probably), because it depends on context and very freely translate as follows :

He told me a lot of stories and the story I (probably) liked most was the one about his grandfather who had his leg broken by the Japanese when he was young.

The 据说 is actually quite imporant here, it's about the fact that grandfather, reportedly, had his leg broken. The fact that I liked to listen to said grandfather's stories is just an addition.

黄春明. Wow, even an established famous writer can make a sentence like that. 沙哟娜啦·再见 already makes me 反感 and this doesn't help.

[Kenny同志]

My rewrite: 我最喜歡聼祖父講故事。據説，他的右腿是年輕時被日本人硬生生地給折斷的。

[trissytrizzy]

「據説我最喜歡聼他講故事的祖父，他的右腿年輕時，被日本人硬是折斷。」

This sentence is just weird, not good Chinese. I would even say it's grammatically incorrect.

My rewrite will be: 我最喜歡聽祖父故事。據他說……

It's basically the same as kenny2006woo's but slightly different. 「據說」sounds more like the hearsay while 「據他說」is more of something that's said by grandfather. Nonetheless, I think using「據」is a bit inappropriate in this context; it sounds too serious/formal. Why can't you just simply say 「他說」since the grandfather is telling a story to his grandchild?

[skylee]

Why can't you just simply say 「他說」since the grandfather is telling a story to his grandchild?

Where in the original sentence tells you that the grandfather said that? Is it not possible that the grandfather told stories to the writer when he was very young, then he died, then afterwards the writer learnt from others about the broken leg of the deceased grandfather?

[陳德聰]

When I read it I assumed the grandfather was dead, or perhaps didn't tell this particular story precisely because of the 據說... The original line is vague, so I don't get how you arrived at "據他說".

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[OneEye]

It's a bit discouraging as it means that I need to get accustomed to something new I never encountered using books for chinese learners (汉语教程 and 博雅汉语), but I think that's the reason why I still have enormous problems with original native sources :-(.

I feel your pain here, man. I've said elsewhere that textbooks present a sort of idealized, sanitized version of Chinese (aka "standard Chinese") that doesn't actually show up much in the real world. It also has to do with the fact that textbooks can't possibly teach you everything, of course. Fortunately, it seems that the more native material you expose yourself to, the easier it becomes to bridge that gap, and the more obvious the shortcomings of textbooks become.

[imron]

Howard Goldblatt (it's said he's quite a good translator) has put it into English as: "I was told that my grandfather,

whose stories I’d loved listening to, had had his leg smashed by the Japanese as a young man."

果然名不虚传