有幾本書在書架上。vs 在書架上有幾本書。

[Demian]

What is the difference between these sentences?

一、有幾本書在書架上。

二、在書架上有幾本書。

I am reading the second chapter of Basic Chinese Grammar of Yin Po Ching. The author says 在書架上有幾本書。is more definite and natural than 有幾本書在書架上。If that is the case, how will you translate 有幾本書在書架上。and 在書架上有幾本書。into English in such a way that captures the nuance.

Thank you!

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I am still a beginner. Please keep your Chinese sentences short and simple.

[skylee]

I do not know about the nuance at all. I am interested in others' views.

[yakeyglee]

I definitely agree that 在書架上有幾本書 sounds better. Intuitively, this is because in Chinese it is generally more natural to say the time and location of something before the topic. In English, I guess you could say the reverse ordering holds. I wouldn't say the following are "translations" per se, but it gets the notion of the nuance you're looking for across.

Sounds nice: 在書架上有幾本書, which can be thought of as "There are many books on the bookshelf".

Sounds awkward: 有幾本書在書架上, which can be thought of as "The top of the bookshelf has some books".

It's less that the second one is wrong rather than it sounds more awkward than the first. Does that help?

[Demian]

Thank you, Yakeyglee!

Even though both sentences are grammatically correct, it's the second (在書架上有幾本書。) which sounds more natural to a Chinese ear.

It's like even though "ungood" is a perfectly good term, no one will use it in place of "bad."

謝謝!

[Koxinga]

I won't get into which one is better, but this is wrong:

在書架上有幾本書, which can be thought of as "There are many books on the bookshelf".

有幾本書在書架上, which can be thought of as "The top of the bookshelf has some books".

This usage of 有 is always translated as "there is/are" in English. In some other languages, it's directly translated as the equivalent of "have" and it sounds perfectly normal. So this is just about the word order. The word order that sounds perfectly normal in one language could be completely weird and even different in meaning in another language. So these analogies are incorrect.

[skylee]

Even though both sentences are grammatically correct, it's the second (在書架上有幾本書。) which sounds more natural to a Chinese ear.

May I know how you come to the conclusion that 在書架上有幾本書 sounds more natural to a Chinese ear? Is it your conclusion after consulting several of your Chinese friends?

[vocabulaire]

Grammatically, I prefer the second form. However, in spoken Chinese, they both sound weird to me, I would say "書架上有幾本書" with the preposition "在" omitted.

[Demian]

Hi Skylee,

Please read Yakeyglee's post (message number three).

He says:

I definitely agree that 在書架上有幾本書 sounds better. Intuitively, this is because in Chinese it is generally more natural to say the time and location of something before the topic.

I don't know if he/she is Chinese. But he/she has written 三個學的 under his/her profile picture which means he/she certainly knows a lot more than I do.

Thank you!

[yakeyglee]

I won't get into which one is better, but this is wrong:

(etc...)

Note how I said "I wouldn't say the following are "translations" per se, but it gets the notion of the nuance you're looking for across." Yes, it is exactly about word order. This is why I said "thought of as" not "translated as". This is only pointing out the nuance of the awkwardness of the word order as the original poster had requested (not translations).

Also, 有 is not always translated as you say. Consider "有的人游泳", which is "some people swim". Yes, the meaning is preserved, but the translation is not.

May I know how you come to the conclusion that 在書架上有幾本書 sounds more natural to a Chinese ear? Is it your conclusion after consulting several of your Chinese friends?

My oh my, what sass!! If you look in the original post, he explains this.

[Hofmann]

I do not know about the nuance at all. I am interested in others' views.

That's a bit surprising, but I have some guesses as to why. Maybe it's because your first Chinese language was Cantonese, or you're used to reading prepositional phrases after verbs (e.g. 女娃游於東海).

My first language is Cantonese, but I think "有幾本書在書架上" in Mandarin sounds like there is an amendment to a sentence, something like "There are some books. On the bookshelf."

On the other hand, "在書架上有幾本書" is more of a plain statement, using normal English grammar, that "There are some books on the bookshelf."

[陳德聰]

A little addition to Hofmann's statement.

I read it as:

1. 在书架上有几本书 There are some books on the bookshelf.

2. 有几本书在书架上 There are, on the bookshelf, some books.

100% disagree with #5. Translation isn't a 1:1 affair.

I think I might say (as in orally speak the words) 有几本书，在书架上 under the circumstances that I told someone there are some books, but they didn't immediately see where they were.

I have been trying to observe Skylee's pretend-I-don't-know-what's-up rhetorical question posts to find out if she is really sassy or not, but I haven't figured that one out yet.

[Koxinga]

I was merely trying to point out the logical fallacies, and also to explain that translation is not a 1:1 affair. Just because A is better than B doesn't necessarily mean that A' is better than B'. In this case i'm not even sure if they should be called A' and B', or C and D.

What I'm trying to say is, one sentence being right in Chinese doesn't make it automatically right in English. Even when you use "thought of as" instead of "translated as", because the whole thing changes once you change the language. The nuance is lost in translation. I think the difference of the two should be explained in terms of Chinese rather than in terms of English.

I admit, I said "always" where I shouldn't have, but I said it in reference to using "there is" vs "have" to describe existence. 有的人游泳 can be translated as "(There are) some people (who) swim".