Translating a quote from a poet

[JerryG11]

So, i've been learning for a little over a year and a half and I'd consider myself "good". However, one thing i've found difficult is translating and keeping the same meaning to sentences and phrases. I can see the challenges diplomats and translators face

 

Anyway, I'm trying to translate this Charles Bukowski quote (from a poet) and I think I have it right. I didn't bother to check on google translate either because their translations get spotty after a few words.. I'll attach both languages here. I'm fairly certain I have a problem or two in it. Let me know. Cheers!

 

"We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us"

 

"我们在这里笑的几率和生活我们的生活这么好那个死神会颤抖带我们"

 

 

[Publius]

Hate to break it to you but It's worse than Google Translate. At least the machine gets the part of speech right and is trying to give us a sentence instead of a pileup of dictionary definitions.

[Lu]

It looks like you translated that sentence word for word, and while you translated most of the words well enough, English and Chinese have very different grammar. If you don't take that into account, your sentence will make no sense, or a different sense than you intended.

[陳德聰]

4 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us

 

You could start by parsing the English:

 

We are here to [1 and 2].

 

1. [laugh at the odds]

 

2. [lives our lives so well that 3]

 

3. [death will tremble to take us]

 

Try translating in phrases or "chunks" rather than word by word, and translate the corresponding meaning and semantic relations not just plotting in the Chinese equivalents to each English word.

 

You completely skipped the meaning of "for the purpose of" or "in order to" expressed by the first "to" in the sentence. You also skipped over the relationship marked by "so ... that ..." that shows the extent of the adjective and the result of it being so. Like "I'm so full that I regret eating that fourth cheeseburger" can answer "how full are you?" and the part after "that" is part of how full you are. Also maybe it's a misunderstanding of the original sentence but "tremble to take us" should be understood as "tremble (in fear of/out of fear of) taking us", but you end up with something that's more like "shakily bring us along".

[lips]

我们在这里笑的

几率和生活

我们的生活

这么好

那个死神会颤抖

带我们

 

Pretty interesting modern poetry!

[JerryG11]

6 hours ago, Publius said:

Hate to break it to you but It's worse than Google Translate. At least the machine gets the part of speech right and is trying to give us a sentence instead of a pileup of dictionary definitions

 

 

So that's all you can do is say it's wrong? No advice?.. what a help you are!

[JerryG11]

4 hours ago, 陳德聰 said:

 

9 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us

 

You could start by parsing the English:

 

We are here to [1 and 2].

 

1. [laugh at the odds]

 

2. [lives our lives so well that 3]

 

3. [death will tremble to take us]

 

Try translating in phrases or "chunks" rather than word by word, and translate the corresponding meaning and semantic relations not just plotting in the Chinese equivalents to each English word.

 

You completely skipped the meaning of "for the purpose of" or "in order to" expressed by the first "to" in the sentence. You also skipped over the relationship marked by "so ... that ..." that shows the extent of the adjective and the result of it being so. Like "I'm so full that I regret eating that fourth cheeseburger" can answer "how full are you?" and the part after "that" is part of how full you are. Also maybe it's a misunderstanding of the original sentence but "tremble to take us" should be understood as "tremble (in fear of/out of fear of) taking us", but you end up with something that's more like "shakily bring us along".

 

 

 

I'm sorry I've been told I'm wrong by a few people here without any correction to the Chinese translation. What would your Chinese sentence look like in your opinion then? 

[JerryG11]

3 hours ago, lips said:

我们在这里笑的

几率和生活

我们的生活

这么好

那个死神会颤抖

带我们

 

 

It's a quote from a poet, Charles Bukowski. Fairly famous in the US 

 

And judging by the consensus of others on here I'll take it you're being sarcastic 

[JerryG11]

6 hours ago, Lu said:

looks like you translated that sentence word for word, and while you translated most of the words well enough, English and Chinese have very different grammar. If you don't take that into account, your sentence will make no sense, or a different sense than you intend

 

 

Okay fair enough, but like others you didn't correct anything to it lol. I didn't come here to be told I was wrong with no recommendation or correction. How would you say it? 

[JerryG11]

陳德聰

 

Okay, I gave your advice a shot, so here it would be. This is the the best of my vocabulary ability while also keeping the same exact meaning to the quote

 

“我们在这里”

 

“笑的几率” If you know a better way to say odds/chances let me know, but jilv (in pinyin) is my only knowledge of a word like that. Holds the correct meaning too

 

Third part is tricky. It's not a new sentence and technically will start with 和. I said ”和生活我们的生活这么好“ or could you say “和生活我们的生活太好” I feel like the second way is incorrect. I understand grammar rules, but since it's not a new sentence does the SVO sentence structure hold true? If I were to treat it with the SVO structure it would be "和我们生活我们的生活这么好“ It doesn't sound bad, just a little repetitive. 

 

Fourth part would be tricky. I know that I used nage in the first comment, but I actually had it as 所以 before I decided against it. So it looked like “所以死神会颤抖带我们“

 

For the sake or argument I also pasted it into some translators and it came out looking like this..

 

"我们在这里笑的几率和我们生活我们的生活这么好所以死神会颤抖带我们“ That's with a separate/new third part 

 

The translator came back and said 

 

"We are here to laugh chance and we live our lives so well so Death will tremble to take us" 

[Lu]

My recommendation is to learn more Chinese grammar. You could also try reading more native Chinese texts, to get a better feel of how the language is actually used. Translating poetry is very tricky, especially when you're translating into a foreign language, because there are infinite ways of saying the same thing, and most of them are not quite the right translation. If you're not a native speaker, it's very difficult to find the right word.

 

A few more suggestions:

笑的幾率 means something like 'chance of laughter', not what you intend. It's rather something along the lines of 嘲笑, and you need to find a better translation for odds/chance here. I don't have one handy, I'm afraid (this is why I don't translate into Chinese).

生活我們的生活 is not strictly speaking incorrect, but this is not how you say it in Chinese. Consider using 過日子.

 

Online translators are useful for getting the general gist of a text, but not for getting a correct, let alone a good, translation. For this reason, they are also mostly useless for checking your own work.

[JerryG11]

Lu,

 

Okay thanks. I agree translators generally are wrong, especially once the sentence is longer. I always feel that way when translating. I want to keep the meaning of what I'm translating, but you almost have to change some things because of grammar rules and just word usage. For example, I almost said 机会for chance/odds, but I thought better since that direct meaning is more like opportunity. So I had nothing else to go on except 几率

 

The grammar is really difficult. I understand most Chinese grammar. I know it's SVO or sentence like "I run very fast" for example would be ”我跑步跑得很快“ instead of “我跑的很快” at least that's what my Taiwanese instructor tells me. However, once the sentences get longer, I start to question my sentence structure and where I'm placing the nouns, verbs and objects/adjectives. Like this quote for example

[Lu]

我跑得很快 is actually fine... You just need to keep in mind that the underlying structure is 我跑步跑得很快. From what you're posting, it sounds like you're doing fine on your Chinese studies, but need to wait with poetry translation until you're much more advanced. Just keep at it, and you'll get there. Meanwhile, consider reading some Chinese poetry and literature to get a feel for the nuances of words.

[Ori_A]

*Apologies in advance, there is no recommendation here for a better translation.*

 

You want to keep the meaning of the original text and that's great, but that's also the hardest part of translation. It's hard to do it even when translating to your own mother language, let alone to a different one, let alone a poem. Sometimes I give my Chinese friends a Hebrew song to listen to, and they want to know the meaning. It's very hard for me to explain, even if the Hebrew words are very simple, because it's usually made up of phrases normally used in the language, but not so much in others.

Another point would be that it's not enough (not even close) to just know the grammer. You need a very rich vocabulary and knowledge in the language.

"laugh at the odds" for example, is a phrase which doesn't necessarily exists in all languages, and even if it does, it will be written differently. Translating words, even using correct grammer, is not close to being enough.

 

If you just want this one thing translated, then I hope someone can help you here. But if you're into translation in gerenal, this paragraph is the best advice you could get:

37 minutes ago, Lu said:

You could also try reading more native Chinese texts, to get a better feel of how the language is actually used. Translating poetry is very tricky, especially when you're translating into a foreign language, because there are infinite ways of saying the same thing, and most of them are not quite the right translation. If you're not a native speaker, it's very difficult to find the right word.

 

[陳德聰]

Some words I might have expected to see if you were translating for meaning rather than word-for-word: 是為了, 對, 並, 過, 到, 得, 走 or the like.

 

I'm not going to give you a translation because I would rather you learn where the gaps in your knowledge are and fill them, not work backwards from a translation based on my interpretation of poetry.

 

My intention was to give you an easier English sentence to translate. The problem is that you have several words that will be difficult to translate alone because they are vague and seem metaphorical. "The odds" of what, exactly? Presumably death "taking" us means us dying. Where is "here"?

 

If you're interested in translation, you need context. You need to actually understand what you're trying to translate first.

 

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."

 

"We are here to" therefore seems to mean "our purpose for being alive".

 

"Laugh at the odds" seems to mean "happily disregard risks".

 

"Take us" then could be any permutation of "take us away", "kill us", "end our life" etc.

 

If you would agree that it is a close enough interpretation of the original text, perhaps try translating: Our purpose for being alive is to laughingly disregard risks and live so well that death is afraid to take us away.

 

P.S. "laugh at the odds" can not be literally translated without turning into absolute nonsense: 對機率笑 is meaningless. "Live our lives" 生活 does not take itself as an object, so you need to use 過我們的日子 or 過我們的生活. If you want to use 帶, you need a complement of direction: 帶我們(走) "take us (away)".

[JerryG11]

 

Okay, thanks for the detailed response at least. So it sounds like the reason nobody is giving me a translation is because... well maybe there isn't one. Maybe there isn't a good alternative and it's something difficult to translate directly. It seems similar to another post I had on here talking about translators having trouble with Trump because of his "Americanisms". I could translate this directly which is kind of what I did, or try to change some wording, but then in a way change the quote

 

I understand what you mean with laughing at the odds not having an alternative in Chinese. Kind of like when I have to explain to Americans what "saving face" means. It sounds odd to the majority of English speakers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

39 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

 

[Publius]

I'm not a translator. So I have a simplistic view. To translate, you have to first understand the original text thoroughly. Second, you have to be proficient enough in the target language. To me, translating is nothing more than rephrasing, only it's done in another language you speak. And meaning is paramount. You get the meaning right, everything is secondary, the technique, the style. You can choose to translate a presidential speech into hiphop or you can choose to translate it into 駢四驪六的古文. All depends on the situation and your ability to harness the language. None of these, the understanding and the rephrasing, can be achieved through a word by word dictionary lookup. And preserving the meaning certainly doesn't mean preserving the word. For instance, "We are here to ..." expresses purpose. Purpose in Chinese is expressed using different grammatical structures. So the infinitive must be discarded entirely. You can say "We are here to V" in English but its Chinese equivalent 我們在這裡V is either complete nonsense or has totally different meaning. And what is "here" anyway? Knowing the context of the quote, I would start with 我們來到這個世界是為了....

You seemed very protective of your "translation". Let me just try and parse the beginning of your second attempt and show the fallacy of your word for word approach.

我们在这里笑的几率 <= this is a noun phrase, consisting of a head word 機率 and a modifier phrase 我們在這裡笑. So the meaning is "the chance of us being here laughing". You have learned the relevant grammar, I presume. Do you agree with my analysis? Is this what you intended it to mean?

My advice: leave poetry alone while you're still grappling with grammar rules.

[陳德聰]

1 hour ago, JerryG11 said:

So it sounds like the reason nobody is giving me a translation is because... well maybe there isn't one.

 

I don't think anybody said that. What I see is people who translate for a living trying to hint at you that it's a bit more complicated than you think...

 

I don't want to offend you. Honestly! But the one-to-one translation misconception you have would need to be dealt with before offering any one of the probably several possible translations. That's the nature of translation.

[Lu]

1 hour ago, JerryG11 said:

So it sounds like the reason nobody is giving me a translation is because... well maybe there isn't one.

Virtually everything can be translated, including this line. But for poetry translation, you need to have total command of the language you're translating into. 100% understanding is not nearly enough, you need to know several synonyms of every word and you need to understand the subtle differences between these synonyms, so that you can choose the one that is just right. Once you have that for Chinese, you can try translating poetry. Before that point, the results will be poor at best.

 

I think my English is pretty decent, and if the stakes are not too high I translate into it (and get paid for that). I also translate literature into Dutch, my native language. But I don't translate literature into English, because the results won't be really good. Is your Chinese better than my English?

[JerryG11]

8 minutes ago, Publius said:

 

I'm not a translator. So I have a simplistic view. To translate, you have to first understand the original text thoroughly. Second, you have to be proficient enough in the target language. To me, translating is nothing more than rephrasing, only it's done in another language you speak. And meaning is paramount. You get the meaning right, everything is secondary, the technique, the style. You can choose to translate a presidential speech into hiphop or you can choose to translate it into 駢四驪六的古文. All depends on the situation and your ability to harness the language. None of these, the understanding and the rephrasing, can be achieved through a word by word dictionary lookup. And preserving the meaning certainly doesn't mean preserving the word. For instance, "We are here to ..." expresses purpose. Purpose in Chinese is expressed using different grammatical structures. So the infinitive must be discarded entirely. You can say "We are here to V" in English but its Chinese equivalent 我們在這裡V is either complete nonsense or has totally different meaning. And what is "here" anyway? Knowing the context of the quote, I would start with....

You seemed very protective of your "translation". Let me just try and parse the beginning of your second attempt and show the fallacy of your word for word approach.

我们在这里笑的几率 <= this is a noun phrase, consisting of a head word 機率 and a modifier phrase 我們在這裡笑. So the meaning is "the chance of us being here laughing". You have learned the relevant grammar, I presume. Do you agree with my analysis? Is this what you intended it to mean?

My advice: leave poetry alone while you're still grappling with grammar rules.

 

 

 

I don't think 我们在这里 and We are Here to have much different meanings. I interpreted the quote as it literally meaning we are here. I don't know any other way to interpret that. Your line "我們來到這個世界是為了" That makes it sound like we're arriving somewhere to me with 来and 到. Or that we came to earth.

 

Nonetheless I appreciate the effort to try to translate it