Anyone wanna tear me a new one?

[brickholz]

I recently wrote a blog post about Traditional Chinese medicine - specifically how it pertains to speech pathology.

 

You can check it out here:

 

http://mattseidholz.com/blog/2014/06/03/speech-pathology-an-ancient-chinese-secret/

 

Now, I don't just want to drive up traffic! Don't care too much about that. What I'd love from you experts is feedback. Could you tell me if any of my translations or ideas are wildly off-base, here? I used a textbook that I bought from a Chinese University, and I just translated the best that I could. If I'm very, very wrong, I'd love to be embarassed by you guys, rather than by some professionals down the road.

 

So if you find anything egregious, and if you have thetime, please email me. I'd really appreciate it.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

      - Matt

[陳德聰]

Many of us are a little bit more than amateur translators. Any chance at a brief summary of the contents of the blog?

[陳德聰]

I'm going to just put your passages and translations here to save people the time. I wasn't too impressed with the "wow Chinese, so mysticism, much wise" vibe going on tbh.

 

 

 

贞：言其有病？

“Divination: Have his speech-parts taken an illness?”

As far as I can tell this doesn't necessarily refer to his speech-parts.
 

 

涩者，难也。难谓之涩，亦谓之蹇。

“How unfortunate to have garbled speech! For such people, speech is obscure, their meaning impossible to grasp.”

I don't know why, but baidu is giving me a bunch of glitchy 文件格式 links that go nowhere, and the usually helpful ctext.org doesn't have 王逸's 楚辭章句 so I can't verify... But I also can't seem to find this quote. I can find though, in a copy of the 原文 that the notes from Wang Yi's 章句 supposedly explain 涩 as part of 讷涩 which is the only reference I can find in 楚辞 that also refers to 言: "讷者，钝也。涩者，难也。" Either way, I don't think your translation is very faithful. I think 讷涩 here refers to a clumsiness of speech, inarticulate or garish rather than an actual speech impediment.
 

 

每病一发,害于言语。

“All of the diseases together exacted a toll of his ability to speak.”

I think this is a typo? I don't know, I was able to find "皇帝仁惠，无不顾哀，每疾一发，气辄上逆，害于言语，故不及有遗诏。" but not the one you quoted.
 

 

一口广二寸半，唇至齿长九分，齿以后至会厌深三寸半。大容五合，舌重十两，长七过，广二寸半。咽门重十二两，广二寸半。。。。喉咙重十二两，广二寸,长一尺二寸，九节。
“The mouth is 3 1/3 inches wide, the lip can extend an inch away from the teeth. The epiglottis is about 4 inches below the back of the teeth. The volume of the mouth is 5 deciliters, the tongue weighs 10 taels [about 400g], and is about 9 inches long and 2.5 inches wide at the broadest point. The oropharynx weighs about 12 taels [480g], and is 3 inches wide. The throat also weighs 12 taels, is 2.6 inches wide, 15 inches long, and is divided into 9 sections.”

I'm not good at math, but I imagine this one is probably accurate in the conversions. One thing, how come you can use oropharynx to describe 喉咙 here but you just use "throat" in other places?
 

 

在咽喉之前，会厌也。在咽喉之上，乃咽，喉交会之处。凡人饮食，则会厌掩其喉咙后而可人于咽。此喉咙之管，古为“声音之户”，谓声音从此而外出也。
“The epiglottis sits in front of the throat. During respiration, the top of the throat opens to facilitate exchange with external air. When people eat or drink, the epiglottis covers the respiratory pathway, allowing people to swallow. We call the epiglottis, this protector of the throat, ‘The Voice’s Doorway’, because we know the voice comes from a different place.”

I don't know where "during respiration, the top of the throat opens to facilitate exchange with external air" came from. Try "the larynx meets the pharynx at the top of the throat". Also next part should be 可入于咽, "the epiglottis covers the larynx, food/drink passing behind it down through the pharynx". Pretty sure next bit should be 故为“声音之户”, but this is not "because we know the voice comes from a different place", it's called that because of the prior description, and the last bit is that "the voice comes out from here".

 

 

心着，五脏六腑之大主，精神之所舌也
“The Heart Controls the viscera and internal organs, and the soul governs the tongue.”

心者, and I would say the spirit rather than the soul but I think that's probably inconsequential. But it's not governing, it's residing in.

[brickholz]

Hey thanks so much for the TLC you put into the translation!

I'll look at where I went wrong and patch things up in the post.

For some of the stuff you mentioned, its possible that the book I used had some weird errors. The book is from TaoBao and feels...cheap. That may explain the missing quotations. Either that or I typed them wrong.

Regardless, I appreciate the help!