stevenjac Posted January 14, 2017 at 12:10 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2017 at 12:10 PM Kung fu Panda tells about protagonist Panda named Po. 功夫熊猫讲的是主角熊猫叫Po。 Also, what is 的是 in 讲的是? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davoosh Posted January 14, 2017 at 12:22 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2017 at 12:22 PM It means 'the one Kung Fu Panda is talking about is (the protagonist Panda called Po)'. It is a relative clause, which is usually formed with 的. Unlike English and most European languages, the 'head' of the relative clause comes at the end of the clause in Chinese. E.g. 我买了车 - I bought a car 我买的车 - The car (that) I bought (Literally: I buy 'de' car). When there is no noun in the relative clause (because it is not needed or implied), nothing follows 的. English uses a 'dummy' noun here (the one), but that isn't needed in Chinese. 我买的是... - 'The one' I bought is... So: 功夫熊猫讲的是... - The one (who) Kung Fu Panda is talking about is... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted January 14, 2017 at 03:41 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2017 at 03:41 PM 《功夫熊猫》 is the name of the film, not a character, so the 讲 here is "tell" not "talk". Idiomatically, 《功夫熊猫》讲的是… would be "Kung Fu Panda is about..." However, the second half of the sentence doesn't make much sense. The film isn't about the panda being called Po, it's about a panda called Po. So it should be something like... 《功夫熊猫》讲的是一只叫做阿宝的熊猫。 只 = classifier for certain animals, including pandas 叫做 = 叫 阿宝 = Po's name in the Chinese version of the film Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted January 14, 2017 at 06:28 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2017 at 06:28 PM V的是... I think it is reasonable to interpret this as a pseudo-cleft (type of relative clause), but know that this is much more common in Chinese than in English, and that the plain translation would just be "King Fu Panda talks about a panda protagonist called Po". I don't agree with "the one that...", because this is more like "what... is...": 功夫熊貓講的是... What Kung Fu Panda talks about is ... 我說的是 ... What I'm saying is ... 他買的是我最愛吃的雞排 But in English, we can achieve this focus with our intonation: 我說的是我不想去 I said I don't want to go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davoosh Posted January 14, 2017 at 08:33 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2017 at 08:33 PM I think 'the one that...' and 'what...is...' are semantically similar. Both just dummy pronouns for a cleft sentence.What/That which/The thing/The one I bought was....Or 'who/the person/the one I spoke to was...'In this case 'the one...' might not be a good translation, but could it be context dependent? I was thinking that, for example, Kung Fu Panda could be talking about a number of Pandas, but he wants to emphasise he was talking about a Panda called Po, 'the one Kung Fu Panda is talking about was a Panda Called Po.' If the subject is taken to be 'Kung Fu Panda (the film)' and not the character, then I agree it would be 'What Kung Fu Panda is about is a Panda called Po.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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