还不算晚

[Pedroski]

Am I missing soemthing here, or is this a case of Chinese logic stating the obvious?

 

“亡羊补牢”这个成语说的是因为羊圈破了而丢了羊，如果赶快修补羊圈，还不算晚。

Lose sheep mend pen this saying says because sheep pen broken lose a sheep, if promptly mend sheep pen, still not regard late.

 

如果赶快修补羊圈，还不算晚。= if you promptly repair the sheep pen, then it is not too late / before it is too late .

 

Seems obvious to me, that if you 赶快修补， then it can't be too late, so why state the obvious?  If I use 'before it is too late' then the sentence is left hanging， I would have to add bits that are not in the original sentence at all.

 

I must be missing something in the Chinese. (Wouldn't be the first time 啊！）

[edelweis]

The sheep have already escaped.

Don't despair, mend the fence anyway.

Better late than never. <= this is one of the translations proposed by Pleco.

[Pedroski]

I was asking about the logic of saying '还不算晚‘ at the end of the sentence. Seems very redundant, unnecessary, misplaced to me. If you repair the pen quickly， 赶快, it can't be too late. You can't really repair it before it is broken.

 

The 成语 might be 'closing the stable door after the horse has bolted' in English.

[pauljk123]

I think you are not really missing that much.  Some of the existing English translations out there (e.g. “to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted”) might be a little misleading because they sound like action after the mishap is actually somewhat futile. But the Chinese chengyu is stressing the opposite and looks at it positively. One should act right away to prevent worse things from happening. One sheep has escaped, but the rest are still in the pen. 即使补救差错，免遭更大的损失。

[edelweis]

I don't find it obvious or superfluous.

Yes, it is too late in the sense that the sheep have already escaped.

Some people might give up on mending the fence, or wait until they have enough money to buy new sheep.

But actually it's still worth mending the fence, and right away even, this way if by chance you find your lost sheep, you have a pen for them.

Maybe this is common sense to some people, but perhaps not to everyone!

[somethingfunny]

I agree with Pedroski, I always understood that this 成语 was equivalent to the English "Shut the stable door after the horse has bolted", as in acting after the fact.  But this would mean that the logic of fixing the gate now 还不算晚 is incorrect...

[somethingfunny]

From baidu:

 

亡羊补牢：羊逃跑了再去修补羊圈，还不算晚。比喻出了问题以后想办法补救，可以防止继续受损失。出自《战国策·楚策》：“见兔而顾犬，未为晚也；亡羊而补牢，未为迟也。”

 

In which case, this totally isn't the meaning of "shut the stable door after the horse has bolted" ...!  

 

I know we've got a little away from the original topic of the redundancy of the explanation, but I'm just a little surprised that I'd completely misunderstood the 成语 this whole time!

[Pedroski]

@edelweis: You know that this 成语 is not talking about sheep escaping, right? And that Edelweiss has 2 ss (How do you write the plural of s?) to give it a soft s.

 

I see I have no choice, I will have to ask the gf! She will make fun of me again '笨蛋的老外，什么都也不知道啊！‘

 

And on the subject of bolting:

 

I bought a dog from a blacksmith yesterday.

 

As soon as I got him home, he made a bolt for the door!

[somethingfunny]

 

I bought a dog from a blacksmith yesterday.

 

As soon as I got him home, he made a bolt for the door!

 

Brilliant! 

[edelweis]

The chengyu is a metaphor and so was my answer #4 above.

My *username* has one s only.

if it is the comment about common sense which annoyed you, I meant:

"mending the fence even though the sheep have already escaped" (metaphorically) may seem the obvious thing to do to some people (say, metaphorical wise old farmers), but not to some other people (say, metaphorical young lazy farm hands).

So this chengyu could be interpreted in a pedagogical view.

[Pedroski]

Apparently one should say: 亡羊补牢，犹未为晚。

 

犹未为晚 must roughly correspond with 还不算晚

 

This must be one of the more useless 成语！‘Find a problem, fix a problem.'

 

Not annoyed, not in the slightest! Have a nice evening!

[陳德聰]

To me it implies that reactionary efforts to deal with a problem, as opposed to preventative measures, are still not too late to prevent the problem from getting worse... So I don't think all your sheep have escaped, just some. So fix your broken fence rather than sitting there sad it's broken and watching as the rest of the sheep run off.

[Pedroski]

What I still don't get is why my text says:

 

如果赶快修补羊圈，还不算晚。= if you promptly repair the sheep pen, then it is not too late

 

Seems redundant logic to me, because if you 赶快修补 it is obviously not too late, why say that? He is alluding to 犹未为晚?

[skylee]

I think it has already been explained in #12. It is not too late if you do it before you lose all of the sheep. You suffer some loss, learn a lesson and correct what has gone wrong and things are good again. But if you don't take any remedial action, then you will lose all the sheep.

This video might help. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VHPzjZxeOhQ (beware - typo in the last sentence of subtitles)

Which reminds me of Far From the Madding Crowd. Gabriel Oak loses all his sheep overnight!

PS - 還不算晚 = 猶未為晚 = 未為晚也 = 為時未晚

[skylee]

Perhaps adding a 太 to make it read 還不算太晚 would be more logical to the OP?

Three scenarios

(1) mend the sheep pen before losing any sheep

(2) mend the sheep pen after losing some of the sheep

(3) not mend the sheep pen and lose all the sheep

Compare (2) with (1), (2) is too late. Compare (2) with (3), (2) is not too late. So it is not stating the obvious.

[Pedroski]

Whilst eating breakfast it just occurred to me that maybe the best English 成语 for 亡羊补牢 is 'a stitch in time saves nine'.

[Altair]

 

 

Whilst eating breakfast it just occurred to me that maybe the best English 成语 for 亡羊补牢 is 'a stitch in time saves nine'.

 

Actually, I think this is not quite right and precisely why the dictionary author used 还不算晚.

 

I think the social situation alluded to is the loss of face in not being smart enough to repair the fence before the sheep could escape.  That should be the proper order of events.  If the neighbors see you doing the repairs after the sheep has left, they will be chiding you and gossiping about you with phrases like "a stitch in time saves nine" or "don't close the barn door only after the horses have gone."  You might be tempted to save yourself the embarrassment, blame your loss on something else, and not repair the fence and expose yourself to public ridicule for acting too late.  The 成语 is trying to counsel against that line of thinking, saying "better late than never" or "don't run from small shame, and let big shame catch you."

[somethingfunny]

"Better late than never" seems like a good interpretation.  I'm not sure about "a stitch in time saves nine" as this is about preventative action, rather than acting after some sheep have escaped to prevent further loss.  Maybe "no use crying over spilt milk" supplemented with something about how getting down to cleaning rather crying is a better course of action.

[Pedroski]

Can't agree there. No loss of face, no embarassment if a sheep escapes and you are a busy farmer. You cannot solve all problems that have not yet arisen, simply because there are too many variables to account for. The link you see between 赶快修补 and 还不算晚 eludes me!

 

One sheep has escaped, one stitch has come undone. Do nothing, more sheep will seek greener pastures, don't catch the stitch, and your pullover will get a run of undone stitches. Prompt action limits the damage. 'A stitch in time saves nine (stitches)'

 

If the first sheep didn't get out, you don't know there is a problem, you're busy shovelling muck in the cow shed!

[歐博思]

Fix the hole in the dam before ALL the water leaks out (and the plains are totally flooded and it's too late)...... or

 

maybe 亡羊补牢 "亡" is causing a sticking point? In Chinese grammar, objects of indeterminate reference will usually follow their verb. So， with “亡羊” maybe only some of the sheep have died. You can still fix the pen and have sheep left to raise, it's not too late.