Sentence confusion: glossika

[Flickserve]

I am just going through the old glossika mp3.

 

There's a question and answer which seems quite puzzling.

 

English: Are you enjoying this movie?

中文： 你喜歡這部電影嗎？

 

English: yes, it's very funny

中文： 喜歡，這部電影非常有趣 

 

 

"非常有趣" appears both in the mainland and Taiwan Mandarin. Since I am trying to practice a bit of translation from English to Chinese, can 非常有趣 be used to also mean "very funny"?

 

[889]

I think so, bearing in mind that funny-funny isn't that easy to translate into Chinese. And Pleco does show "amusing" as one meaning of 有趣.

[markhavemann]

There is also a chance that the English part of this sentence was written/translated by a non native. I've notice people in China (when they are speaking English) very very very often say something is funny when they mean enjoyable/interesting/fun.

 

I don't know enough about Glossika to even be able to guess if this is the case though.  

[Flickserve]

@markhavemann

 

Fair point. I think there was rigorous cross checking and Chinese is better for glossika.

 

I heard German and Portuguese had many errors.

[Dawei3]

23 hours ago, Flickserve said:

非常有趣 be used to also mean "very funny

Yes.   While 有趣 can also mean interesting (as markhavemann noted), it more commonly is used to mean funny and 非常有趣 would mean very fun (as you noted). 

 

In contrast, 有意思 tends to mean interesting.  However, both 有趣  and 有意思 overlap in meaning and context may provide clues.   

 

To use a related English example, you could say "He's a very funny guy" meaning he's humorous and this is it's most common usage.  However, it some contexts, it can mean he's a weird or strange guy.  

 

If you want to read a fascinating exploration of how words evolve different meanings, I highly recommend "The unfolding of language."   He has a whole chapter on how metaphoric usage of words evolves to become commonplace.  

 

 

[Leslie Frank]

If you wanna be more precise to say sth is funny, you could say, 好笑.

 

In your example, that would make 这部电影非常好笑.

 

Note that ppl can use 好笑 in a sarcastic way, just like the way you can say "that's funny" sarcastically, meaning sth entirely different in English.

[Flickserve]

3 hours ago, Leslie Frank said:

If you wanna be more precise to say sth is funny, you could say, 好笑.

 

This was actually my first thought if I try to translate from English to Chinese.

[Leslie Frank]

11 hours ago, Flickserve said:

This was actually my first thought if I try to translate from English to Chinese.

And you would be spot on.

[Dawei3]

To add to the above:  I asked another friend who has relatively good English skills, but who has only lived in China.  To my surprise, she asked "what's the difference between "very interesting" and "very funny?"  She's an intelligent person.   When I explained the difference, she understood, but she never knew the difference previously.  Whereas in English, the meanings of very funny/interesting are clearly demarcated, in Chinese they aren't.  In contrast, Chinese friends living in the US, make the distinction I noted above (usually 有趣 = funny, 有意思 = interesting)

 

I've had something similar happen to me in Chinese.  I used 同事 the same way I used colleague in English for many years.  I didn't realize 同事 is really better seen as just "coworker".  One day, I was talking about a 同事 at another company and this confused a Chinese friend.  She pointed out 同事 can only be someone at your company.  In contrast, a colleague can be someone with whom you have a professional affiliation who doesn't work at your company.  In addition, colleague implies a level of respect & friendship whereas 同事 just has coworker connotations.    

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

  

[道艺]

On 9/29/2020 at 10:06 AM, 889 said:

funny-funny

most chinese friends I know just say 搞笑, pretty clear they mean haha-funny

 

On 10/1/2020 at 10:08 PM, Leslie Frank said:

And you would be spot on.

I think 搞笑 may be a bit more accurate, although could be region dependent

[Leslie Frank]

Well, I tell you what--the following video uses all of the above (搞笑、有趣、好笑) to describe a video I didn't find cringe-worthy (don't like stupid pranks or kids getting hurt stupidly):

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=2329804660474226&_rdr

[Flickserve]

Here's another sentence

 

They read a lot

 

他们读了很多书

 

When I see the English, I translate it to 他们读很多书. However，the Glossika Chinese equivalent is with the 了. Should I just assume that 'read' is the past tense?