improving grammar, vocab, translations - suggestions?

[TheWind]

Hey Everyone - 

Wanted to ask how you improve your translations, vocab and grammar? I'm a few lessons in HSK4 now as we speak, reading these lessons I understand them fine and can translate them from Chinese to English without much effort. 

But when I try to translate something from English to Chinese like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" I get so much of it wrong.
 

[imron]

Good translators will typically only translate from their 2nd language in to their native language, and not really the other way around.

 

It can be fun to do that sort of translation as an academic exercise, but in my opinion, it would be a better use of your time to consume native material to build not just vocab and grammar, but also your 'feel' for the language.

[TheWind]

I guess that kinda makes sense... 

I mean, I have no intention on being a translator. But I do and will use the language on occassion in my work life. That being said - once it comes to speacialized words for different industries. I get kind of lost. 

Would reading "graded readers' fix this problem?

Maybe theres a huge gap that I'm unaware of from HSK 4-5 and from 5-6. Can't really say as of now. 

[imron]

Using the language in real life often has a far lower bar than literary (or other) translation.  People won't care so much if you make a couple of mistakes in an informal email - and anything formal (business contracts or similar) should be handled by professionals.

 

1 hour ago, TheWind said:

That being said - once it comes to speacialized words for different industries. I get kind of lost. 

How well do you know this specialized vocabulary in English?

 

In turns of gaps, there will still be a 'huge gap' even after HSK6 and beyond.  Translating is not just about knowing the meaning, it is about being able to express that in a way that feels right to native speakers of that language.  It is very rare for people to reach that level of ability in their second language, it's not even that common for people to reach that level of ability in their native language (not everyone can write at the level required to be a professional writer - whether that's a copywriter, a journalist, an author, or whatever).

 

The only thing that can really 'fix' this problem is to consume hundreds of thousands of hours worth of native content (think about all the books, tv shows, movies, songs, conversations and instruction you've had in your native language - you'll need at least that amount (and probably more) in Chinese).

 

Grader readers are a start, which can hopefully get you accustomed to reading longer-form texts in Chinese.  Then you can move on to native content.

[TheWind]

thats true - were usually our own worst critics which doesnt help in the least?

 

and Yes I certainly dont know a lot of english, beit medical or techinal terms. But i was more reffering to specialized words in my own industry and other industries closley related

 

Never really considered whats beyond HSK 6. just figured id be good to go once i made it that far ?

[imron]

1 hour ago, TheWind said:

just figured id be good to go once i made it that far

 

Nope   HSK 6 gets you halfway.

[roddy]

9 hours ago, TheWind said:

But when I try to translate something from English to Chinese like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" I get so much of it wrong

If you're translating as a student, you should ONLY be translating into structures you've already got a very good handle on. This was actually once the only way it was done, the grammar-translation method.

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The grammar–translation method is a method of teaching foreign languages derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional) method of teaching Greekand Latin. In grammar–translation classes, students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between the target language and the native language. 

If your source text doesn't take into account the structures you've learned (Dr Seuss can be forgiven, I think) you're either going to have to be very strict with yourself about breaking it down into structures you're sure of, or you're going to end up with numerous errors of ambition. 

 

And don't, for the love of the Cat in the Hat, start with Dr Seuss. That's a PhD thesis, not an HSK4 exercise. 

[TheWind]

Quote

7 hours ago, imron said:

Nope   HSK 6 gets you halfway.

?

 

 

2 hours ago, roddy said:

 

And don't, for the love of the Cat in the Hat, start with Dr Seuss. That's a PhD thesis, not an HSK4 exercise.

Im realizing this now. - I guess there are different grammar rules for rhyming and stuff that I had no idea about. 

[Jan Finster]

On 2/1/2019 at 5:55 AM, imron said:

On 2/1/2019 at 4:31 AM, TheWind said:

just figured id be good to go once i made it that far

 

Nope   HSK 6 gets you halfway.

Is "HSK 6 gets you halfway" really accurate???

 

When I watch TV dramas and analyse them with CTA, yes, about 50% of the unique words are non-HSK. But those 50% vary from drama to drama. There is obviously some overlap, but there is also a big difference in vocabulary between a romantic drama and a war or sci-fi drama... 

 

I would think maybe it is more like HSK 6 gets you 10% (?)

[anonymoose]

On 2/1/2019 at 12:02 AM, TheWind said:

Wanted to ask how you improve your translations, vocab and grammar?

 

In my opinion, translation into the language you are learning is a very useful learning tool provided that you are translating appropriate material, and that you have someone reliable who is able to check your translations.

 

As for appropriateness, in my opinion, the best material contains the kind of language you would be want to be using yourself. For this purpose, I like editorials, which usually are critiques on current affairs in semi-formal language, though this is still too advanced for HSK4. Personally, I don't think fiction/literature is good for this purpose, because there is often additional meaning beyond the literal use of the words which is open to interpretation, difficult to capture in your non-native language, and not the kind of language you would ever use in your real life anyway.

[imron]

21 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

Is "HSK 6 gets you halfway" really accurate???

Yes, for the definition of given in the article, which is not halfway to being able to read everything on a broad range of topics without ever encountering an unknown word.

 

Instead, the article shows that at HSK 6 you'll have about one unknown character per sentence of Chinese text, and still feel overwhelmed by new characters/vocab when reading native content.  It then shows that if you want to get to a point where you'll have approximately one new character per page of text, you'll need roughly double the vocab.

 

It's not an exact figure, but should be ball-park level correct.

 

Coming at the problem from another angle, HSK 6 has a vocab of ~5,000 words.  In my experience, if you have a working vocab (i.e. not just a flashcard deck) of 10,000 words, you should be able to read general texts without too much difficulty.  Native speakers will likely have a vocab ranging from 15,000-30,000 words and 2,000-8,000 characters, depending on education.

 

21 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

but there is also a big difference in vocabulary between a romantic drama and a war or sci-fi drama... 

Correct, but note also that people tend to prefer certain genres over others.  If your interest was in romance dramas then after HSK 6 you'd probably start to look at romance novels/content for native speakers and you'd have about half the vocab you needed (and you'd pick up the rest after reading/watching enough romance content).  Likewise for war or sci-fi aficionados.  So you'll be about halfway to wherever you want to get and it's up to you to specialize and pick up the vocabulary for the things that you're interested in.

 

As your vocab increases, it will then be easier to expand in to other genres/fields because there will be cross-over of vocab (and probably more than you'd expect).  War stories and sci-fi often have a romance plot.  Sci-fi often involves some sort of war or fighting, and so on.  Farming tools that appear in a story set in the Cultural Revolution might turn up in a Wuxia novel set hundreds of years prior (true story), and so on.

[Jan Finster]

1 hour ago, imron said:

Coming at the problem from another angle, HSK 6 has a vocab of ~5,000 words.  In my experience, if you have a working vocab (i.e. not just a flashcard deck) of 10,000 words, you should be able to read general texts without too much difficulty.  Native speakers will likely have a vocab ranging from 15,000-30,000 words and 2,000-8,000 characters, depending on education.

 

I believe the character estimate, but the word estimate sounds way too low for me.

 

Here is English: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160816111017.htm (most know more than 42000 words)

 

I have used Lingq for only about 9 months now and I already have 40000 Lingqs. These are not all new and unique words; maybe 1/3 of them are phrases. Nevertheless, I still feel  like a beginner and have barely scratched the surface as far as I can tell. For instance, I have not read any newspapers, cooking recipes, gardening, IT, scifi, or internet related topics yet... 

 

[imron]

1 hour ago, Jan Finster said:

Here is English: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160816111017.htm (most know more than 42000 words)

I guess it depends how you count.  Are 'have' and 'having' one word or two?

 

1 hour ago, Jan Finster said:

I have used Lingq for only about 9 months now and I already have 40000 Lingqs.

I'd be curious as to how well you do on something like this.  As someone who considers himself to be a fairly well read native speaker, I get an estimated vocab of just over 31,000 words.

[Jan Finster]

21 minutes ago, imron said:

I'd be curious as to how well you do on something like this.  As someone who considers himself to be a fairly well read native speaker, I get an estimated vocab of just over 31,000 words.

 

I got just over 21000. ?

(I am German though).

 

I guess this tests only everyday language. There are very likely lots of IT words you may know that others do not know.

Likewise there are surely tons of biomedical words that I know that are not tested in such a survey.

 

Anyway, this is great. 20000 Chinese words are doable?

 

(just to clarify: my 40000 Lingqs are not words I know. Just words I encountered)

[imron]

Having a working vocab of 20,000 Chinese words would put you in a very good position for reading the majority of general language material.  Note however that the law of diminishing returns is significant, and depending on what you are reading, a vocab of 20,000 may not get you much (if any) increase in comprehension compared to 10,000.

 

Knowing which words to focus on is they key, and that will be highly dependent on what you are interested in reading.

[Jan Finster]

6 minutes ago, Jan Finster said:

26 minutes ago, imron said:

I'd be curious as to how well you do on something like this.  As someone who considers himself to be a fairly well read native speaker, I get an estimated vocab of just over 31,000 words.

 

I got just over 21000. ?

(I am German though).

 

This also shows how difficult it is to achieve "native-like" levels in Chinese or in any other language.

I have had English classes from year 1-13, I have worked in the UK for 4 years, I have read 500+ English books and thousands of pages of scientific texts and papers. But I am nowhere near native level in English. Maybe I am really bad with languages, or maybe the DaShan`s are really exceptions (?)