5月16日，北京发了一个关于2017年中国留学生的调查

[i__forget]

Apologies if this is not the right forum. I'm trying to understand this sentence, but I can't. Google translate translates it as :
"On May 16, Beijing sent a survey of 2017 Chinese students"

The part that I'm missing is the last, 的调查. I translate is as "of a survey".
So I would translate the above as: May 16th: For the 2017 year, Beiging sent study abroad students to investigate. 
But my translation makes no sense

Any help?

[imron]

发了一个调查

 

What kind of 调查？

 

一个  关于学生   的调查

 

What kind of 学生

 

一个  关于留学生   的调查

 

留学生 from what country?

 

一个  关于中国留学生   的调查

 

What year was survey for?

 

一个  关于2017年中国留学生   的调查

 

So it's a survey regarding international Chinese students in 2017.

 

Note also that 发 here means 'published' not 'sent', and also '调查' is the results of the survey rather than just a survey itself.

 

56 minutes ago, i__forget said:

But my translation makes no sense

This is actually a really useful thing to be able to notice!  Cherish and develop the ability to detect this.  That's a trigger to let you know that you've made a mistake, and you can then figure out where you went wrong and ultimately learn not to make the same mistake in the future.  It's far worse to translate something and not realise that it makes no sense.

 

On a related note, even if your translation is 'correct', have a think about whether it's something a native English speaker who has no exposure to Chinese language and culture would ever say.  If not, then it's not a good translation, regardless of how correct it is.  See for example, almost any English translation that mentions 'Spring Festival' rather than 'Chinese New Year'.

[i__forget]

Wow , my translation was really off. I can understand it now. Thanks a lot! This is insane!

[JerryG11]

Okay to me it looks like it says 

 

May 16th Beijing issued a 2017 survey of Chinese foreign students

 

 

北京发了- Beijing issued

 

一个关于2017年 - On/in 2017 a..

 

中国留学生 - Chinese foreign students

 

的调查 - survey

 

 

That's the way I see it

 

[imron]

In your opinion, what does it mean to issue a survey?

 

To me it means to send out the questions.

 

I don't think that is what this is talking about.

 

Also, what does it mean for 'Beijing' to issue a survey.  Is it the Beijing government? Is it the Chinese government (or a government department) and 'Beijing' is being used a proxy for that?

 

This gets back to what I was saying above.  Does 'May 16th Beijing issued a 2017 survey of Chinese foreign students ' sound like a natural English sentence to you?  It doesn't to me, and that means something is off.

[JerryG11]

How does that not sound fluent? 

 

"the action of supplying or distributing an item for use, sale, or official purposes."

 

 

"the issue of promissory notes by the bank" for example. Sounds fine to me

 

I occasionally hear people refer to the govt as Beijing. I hear it in film and tv shows a lot too. If you want to add and say Beijing/Chinese govt go for it

 

 

[陳德聰]

3 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

Okay to me it looks like it says 

May 16th Beijing issued a 2017 survey of Chinese foreign students

 

But it... doesn't? This looks like a poorly watered down paraphrase a la Chairman's Bao.

 

The "发" here means 發布, and it wasn't the government, as far as I know it was 新東方 who published the results of their survey.

 

To "issue a survey" should generally be understood as sending the survey (questionnaire) out to receive answers. 發布 means they already have the answers and they're releasing that information via publication. To translate it as "issue" would be wrong.

[JerryG11]

Oh for the love of God this place is full of trolls

 

Ok pimsleur. You got it you're right

 

totally can't understand the sentence I construed. Right! That might as well be pikey English 

[JerryG11]

This forum makes Reddit look amazing

 

Goodbye! 

[陳德聰]

 Apparently correcting your inaccurate translation makes me a troll. There's a difference between what an individual word can mean and what it actually means.

 

My comment about Chairman's Bao was meant to allude to the fact that this sentence is from a Chairman's Bao article that paraphrases real news, but tries to do it like a graded reader. Which means that an original sentence which probably read "新东方5月16日在北京发布了blah blah blah的调查" turned into "北京发了一个blah blah blah调查".

 

It's one thing to offer what you think a translation is in an effort to be helpful, and something completely different to offer an incorrect translation and then get upset when people tell you that your translation means something different from what the original text said. 

[JerryG11]

No you're right I suck. I'm always wrong. You're always right

[陳德聰]

[JerryG11]

Word of advice that I'm sure the admins and moderators would like. In order to keep traffic flowing to this site try not to be an ass. You think my translation was wrong? Fine, but it's the way you say it

 

I don't need this type of negativity

 

 

[Flickserve]

15 hours ago, imron said:

In your opinion, what does it mean to issue a survey?

 

To me it means to send out the questions.

 

That was also my first impression reading the sentence.

[Ori_A]

Out of curiosity, why is it wrong to read this as "issued the survey"?

There is no clear indication in the sentence that they're talking about the *results* of the survey (let's ignore any existing context for the sake of argument) and to my knowledge, 发 by itself can have both meanings (publish, send, issue).

 

If the only reading here is "published the results of the survey", then if I'd want to say "issued a survey", how would I say it?

[Publius]

1 hour ago, Ori_A said:

why is it wrong to read this as "issued the survey"?

Because the next sentence is

调查说，美国排名第一，已经连续三年被中国留学生选为最想去的国家，英国排名第二。

[Ori_A]

I understand that in this specific context it has this one meaning. That's why I ignored the context and asked, in general, can this sentence by itself hold both meanings, given different contexts, or will it always be "publishing the results of the survey"?

[Publius]

Of course it can have different meanings. But talking about meaning without context is meaningless. Beginners don't understand the importance of context (otherwise they wouldn't be beginners). When the meaning is unclear, I just go find the context myself instead of asking them to provide more context and possibly making them upset and think I'm an ass.

[Ori_A]

Context is important when we want to understand what the original meaning was. I wasn't talking about that, but rather about understanding what possible meanings could be considered correct, given different contexts, or maybe given no context. 

Someone here suggested that it might mean "to issue the survey". Since no context was given in the question, I wondered if it's possible to get this meaning from this specific sentence.

 

I (think) I understand from you that yes, both meanings are correct, given different contexts.

So thank you for the answer.

[Publius]

There is only one context, where the OP's sentence is taken from. Talking about alternatives is beside the point.

Notice I said " When the meaning is unclear". Knowing "when" is what separated imron/陳德聰 from others.