Category: Translation

One Another

By Simon

The other day I came accross the word 彼此 (bǐ​cǐ) in one of my Chinese lessons. It means each other or one another, and while I’d seen both characters before, I hadn’t seen them together like this.

Illustration of the Chinese and Japanese word 彼此

There is also the idiom 彼此彼此 (bǐ​cǐbǐ​cǐ) in Chinese, which means you and me both or that makes two of us [source].

彼 (bǐ) on it’s one means that, there or those in Mandarin Chinese [source].

I’m more familiar the character 彼 in the Japanese words like 彼 (kare – he, him or boyfriend) and 彼女 (kanojo – she, her, girlfriend), 彼ら (karera – they, them) and 彼氏 (kareshi – boyfriend, he, him)

彼 can also appear in Japanese words like:

  • 彼 (are) = that (thing / person / time / place)
  • 彼の (ano) = that, those, the – usually written あの
  • 彼処 (asoko) = there, over there, that place, yonder, you-know-where, private parts, that far, that much – usually written あそこ
  • 彼方 (achira) = that way, that direction, over there, yonder, that (one / person), foreign country (esp. a Western one) – usually written あちら
  • 彼方此方 (achikochi) = here and there, various places, all around, all over, everywhere, throughout, muddled, confused, back to front – usually written あちこち
  • 彼是 (arekore) = this and that, one thing or another, this way and that, around about, roughly, nearly, almost – usually written あれこれ, can also be written 彼此

Source: https://jisho.org/

此 (cǐ) on it’s one means this or these in Mandarin Chinese [source].

In Japanese 此 can appear in words such as:

  • 此れ (kore) = this (one / person) now, this time, here – usually written これ
  • 此の (kono)= this, last, these, parts この
  • 此方 (kochira) = this way, this direction, here, this (one) – usually written こちら
  • 此処 (koko) = here, this place, this point, here, now – usually written ここ
  • 此奴 (koistsu) = he, she, this fellow, this guy, this person, hey you! – usually written こいつ

Source: https://jisho.org/

I’ve seen some of these words written with kanji in subtitles for songs online, perhaps to save space on the screen.

When I first started learning Japanese, I tried to learn all the rarely-used kanji like this, and wanted to know the kanji for every Japanese word, if they existed. I’ve since forgotten a lot of them, but the Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese lessons I’ve been working on recently have helped.

When I try to read texts in Chinese or Japanese, I can usually understand enough to get some idea of what they mean. However, there are often characters I’ve forgotten, or haven’t learnt yet, which can be frustrating. Fortunately, I can usually find them in a dictionary or translation app on my phone, or I can ask someone.

Language skills in just 10 minutes a day with Ling




Beware your shoes!

By Simon

Here are a few more signs I spotted recently that have ‘interesting’ English versions.

Sign on escalator

I saw this sign on an escalator in the local college campus. If you want to use this escalator, you have to hold the child and the pet, and if you haven’t got them, just borrow or hire them.

The use of handcarts is banned. Handcart is a translation of 手推车 (shǒutuīchē), which, based on the picture, refers to pushchairs, baby buggies, strollers, or whatever you call them. It can also mean trolley, cart, barrow, handcart or wheelbarrow, and literally means “hand push vehicle”. Other translations of pushchair / stroller include 推车 (tuīchē) and 童车 (tóngchē).

You have to watch your sreps to keep safe while waking in the mall, and you must keep your children from plating or running.

Here’s another sign from a different escalator.

Sign on escalator

Here you must hold the child’s hand, carry he pet in your arms, hold the handrail and beware your shoes. The use of carts is banned, the bulky item is forbidden in, and you should not play, slapstick, climb or look at the phone. Most people seem to look at their phones all the time, so the last one is asking a bit much, perhaps.

Rather than slapstick, 打闹 (dǎnào) could also be translated as to quarrel, squabble, be rowdy, play boisterously, or engage in horseplay. So no rowdy or boisterous playing, squabbling or quarrelling with horses on the escalator.

Sign on escalator

This sign, in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, forbids you from striding. A better translation might be “No Climbing on/over the fence”. Are the Japanese and Korean versions well-translated?

Here’s a sign I spotted on a litter bin / trash can:

Sign on litter bin

If you have any disposable tableware, old pottery (who carries old pottery around with them?), pericarp skins or the dust, you can dispose of it/them here. I’ve no idea where ‘pericarp’ came from – a better translation of 果皮 (guǒ​pí) would be ‘fruit peel’, and 瓜壳 (guāké) would be better translated as ‘melon rind’.

Merry Christmas, by the way, if that’s something you celebrate.

Language skills in just 10 minutes a day with Ling




Godfathering

By Simon

When I explain to people I meet here that I’m the godfather of my friend’s children, they don’t seem to understand, even though I do so in Chinese.


Me, my friend Malcolm, his mother-in-law and the little monsters (his daughters / my god-daughters)

One person asked me if I was Catholic or Protestant, and seemed to know that being a godfather has something to do with Christianity. I had trouble trying to explain it in Chinese, as I wasn’t entirely sure what being a godparent involved.

The Chinese translation of godfather I’ve been using is 教父 (jiào​fù), however, few people seem familiar with this term. 教父 (jiào​fù) is made up of 教 (jiào​), which means to teach or class, and 父 (fù), which means father. I think 教 in this context might be an abbreviation of 教堂 (jiào​táng – church, chapel) [source]

Another Chinese translation for godfather is 代父 (dàifù) or ‘substitute father’.

According to TheFreeDictionary, a godfather is:

  • A man who sponsors a person at baptism.
  • One that has a relationship to another person or to something that is the equivalent of being a baptismal sponsor.
  • The leader of an organized crime family.

According to Wikipedia:

Within Christianity, a godparent or sponsor is someone who bears witness to a child’s baptism (christening) and later is willing to help in their catechesis, as well as their lifelong spiritual formation. In both religious and civil views, a godparent tends to be an individual chosen by the parents to take an interest in the child’s upbringing and personal development, and to offer mentorship.

Apparently you can only be a godparent to one child, and as my god-daughters haven’t been baptised, I’m not, in a religious sense, their godfather yet.

When I was young I went to our local (Church of England) church with my parents, and was christened and confirmed there, and went to church-aided schools from 5-16. So technically, I am an Anglican Christian. However, I stopped going to church at the age of 16, and these days, only go to occasional weddings, funerals and Christmas services.

There is apparently a Chinese tradition of matching a child with a relative or family friend, who becomes the 义母/义父 (yì​mǔ/yì​fù) or ‘voluntary mother/father’, or the 干妈/干爹 (gān​mā/gān​diē) or ‘dry mother/father’. These terms also mean adoptive mother or father, in the sense of traditional adoption, i.e. without legal ramifications. This is a non-religious tradition, usually involving a childless friend or relative, and helps strengthen ties between families.

Alternatively, a family friend might be known as 叔叔 (shū​shu) – uncle, or 阿姨 (ā​yí) – aunt. Other words for uncle and aunt are available in Chinese [source].

Language skills in just 10 minutes a day with Ling

To me, being a godparent means that you’re a good friend of the family, and get on well with their children. I spend quite a bit of time with my god-daughters and their parents, particularly recently as I’m currently staying with them. The little ones can be monsters at times, and angels at others, but I love them anyway.




Oceanic Lutes

By Simon

My mandolin

When looking for the names of various instruments in Chinese, as you do, I came across 洋琵琶 (yáng​pí​pá) for mandolin. 洋 (yáng) means ocean, sea, foreign or western, and the 琵琶 (pí​pá) is a traditional Chinese string instrument described by the MDBG Chinese dictionary as a ‘guitar-like instrument’. So it’s a ‘foreign pipa’ in Chinese [source].

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the pipa (see above) it as a ‘short-necked Chinese lute’ that originated in Western Asia, and has been known in China since the 2nd Century AD. Apparently the Chinese name comes from the way it’s played: pí​ originally meant to pluck in a forward motion, and pá meant to pluck in a backward motion. Different characters with the same sounds were later chosen for the instrument’s name [source].

Chinese Pipa

The word 洋 (yáng) also appears in

  • 洋葱 (yáng​cōng) = onion, or ‘foreign scallion / green onion’
  • 洋气 (yáng​qì) = Western style, foreign style, trendy, fashionable, or ‘foreign steam / vapour’
  • 洋葱 (yáng​cù) = potato, or ‘foreign taro’

Another Chinese word that appears in various instrument names is 琴 (qín), which on its own refers to a type of long zither with seven strings, plucked with the fingers, also known as a 古琴 (gǔ​qín). The 琴 (qín) is also translated as a Chinese lute or guitar [source].

Other types of 琴 (qín) include:

  • 钢琴 [鋼琴] (gāng​qín) = piano, or ‘steel qin’.
  • 风琴 [風琴] (fēngqín​) = organ, or ‘wind qin’.
  • 口琴 (kǒu​qín​) = mouth organ, harmonica, or ‘mouth qin’.
  • 竖琴 [竪琴] (shù​qín​) = (Western-style harp). or ‘vertical qin’.
  • 小提琴 (xiǎo​tí​qín​qín) = violin, or ‘small hand-held qin’.
  • 中提琴 (zhōng​tí​qín​) = viola, or ‘medium-sized hand-held qin’.
  • 大提琴 (dà​tí​qín​) = cello, or ‘big hand-held qin’.
  • 低音大提琴 (dī​yīn​(dà)​tí​qín​) = double bass or ‘low sound (big) hand-held qin’.
  • 班卓琴 (bān​zhuó​qín​) = banjo, or ‘banjo qin’ – the Chinese characters sound similiar to the word banjo

I think it’s interesting that in Chinese, non-Chinese instruments and other things are referred to as variants on traditional Chinese instruments, etc, while in English, Chinese instruments are referred to as versions of ‘Western’ instruments like guitars, lutes and zithers.

Language skills in just 10 minutes a day with Ling




No Fierce Action

By Simon

One of the joys of being in foreign parts for a language nerd like me is spotting badly or interestingly translated signs, notices and other texts. I haven’t seen very many yet, but here’s a notice from the lift in the building where I’m staying:

Lift notice

You have to avoid taking your pets in the lift during the rush hour, whenever that is. Most of the flats in this building are empty, so there isn’t really a rush hour. Maybe there will be when most or all of them are occupied.

You also have to make sure that you don’t push the button with any hard stuff or tine. A better translation might be “Do not use any hard or sharp objects to press the buttons”

In an emergency, you shouldn’t “try to and grill the door”, whatever that means. A better translation might be “Do not force the doors or try to exit through the shaft”.

And finally, fierce action in the lift must be avoided at all times. Or maybe they mean “No strenuous exercise in the lift”. Light or moderate exercise is probably okay, but nothing too strenuous.

I saw this sign at a local KFC and thought it might be a bit of questionable English translation, but it seems to be a genuine KFC slogan. Do they use this in other countries?

Everyone has a place at my bucket

This certainly wouldn’t entice me into a restaurant.

Guangdong Business and Technology University library

This is one of the places we visited this week – Guangdong Business and Technology University (广东工商职业技术大学) – which has some rather elaborate architecture. The building pictured above is the library, which is even more impressive inside (see below). You can see my goddaughters and their parents in the foreground. I just noticed that the sign saying library is in traditional characters rather than simplified characters. The sign over their main gate is the same. I’ll look out for other uses of traditional characters.

Guangdong Business and Technology University library

Language skills in just 10 minutes a day with Ling




What do you do?

By Simon

What do you do?

Language courses usually have lessons that explain how to talk about your job / profession / work. The examples they give might include jobs like doctor, nurse, teacher, secretary, engineer, architect, writer, ninja, etc. These are all mentioned in lessons I’ve done on Duolingo (and other apps).

If you tell someone you’re a teacher or a doctor, they probably have at least some idea of what that entails. However, there are many jobs and other ways to make a living that are more difficult to define and explain, even in your native language. I’ve never come across a language lesson that includes unusual or difficult-to-define jobs like influencer, game tester, snuggler, bounty hunter or youtuber, for example.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend and he asked how my business is doing. I’ve told him what I do before, and have shown him Omniglot and explained what the site is about, but he thinks that it involves translation in some way. He’s not the only one to think this.

I wouldn’t usually call myself a translator or interpreter, although I did do a bit of translating and interpreting many years ago, mainly between Mandarin and English. These days I sometimes translate mysterious inscriptions and other bits of writing sent to me by Omniglot visitors, and occasionally help friends with translations, mainly between English and Welsh.

Sometimes I say that I’m a linguist. This usually leads to questions about which languages I speak and/or teach. I might try to explain what linguistics is all about and what I mean by linguist, but often I don’t bother. It depends on the situation.

I did teach English for a short while in Taiwan, and occasionally I teach people juggling and other circus skills. Does that make me a teacher? I don’t think so – I have no teaching qualifications, and only limited experience.

Sometimes I say that I’m a writer, and when they hear this, people assume that I write books and ask where they can find them. Maybe one day I will write books, but in the meantime I have written about more than 1,800 languages and writing systems, over 3,500 blog posts, and some silly dialogues and a short story that I’ve made into videos.

I could call myself a musician, singer-songwriter, composer and/or arranger as I have written 80+ songs and tunes. I do this because I enjoy it, and don’t earn anything from it. I share my songs and tunes online and with my friends, and occasionally perform in public.

Sometimes I say that I run my own company, or that I run a language-related business. This is true, but the company consists of just me. I am the director, secretary, marketing and sales department, and everything else.

On Twitter I call myself a Wordherder, Tunesmith and Gravityweaver.

When trying to explain this in other languages, I might just say that I’m a linguist, writer, translator, depending on which of these words I know in the relevant language. If I’m asked for more details, I direct people to Omniglot.

In case you’re not sure what I do, and how I make a living from it, you can read about it here, and/or listen to my podcast about it.

Do you have a difficult-to-define or unusual job or way to make a living?

One language

By Simon

Omnigot logo

Yesterday I say a post in the Silly Linguistics Community on Facebook challenging people to write a sentence in all the languages they speak. This is what I came up with:

Tha e duilich writing une phrase ym mhob språk atá agam, pero ich 試試 red ennagh symoil を書く, kaj nun я хочу říct že il mio tomo tawa supa está cheio de țipari.

This means “It is difficult writing a sentence in every language I speak, but I will try to write something interesting, and now I want to say my hovercraft is full of eels”.

The languages, in order, are Scottish Gaelic, English, French, Welsh, Swedish, Irish, Spanish, German, Chinese, Manx, Japanese, Esperanto, Russian, Czech, Italian, Toki Pona, Portuguese and Romanian.

It’s not the best sentence ever, perhaps, but I enjoyed the challenge of putting it together. It also got me thinking about how many languages and writing systems I could use in a version of my motto “one language is never enough“. This motto appears on some versions of my logo, such as the one above, and I usually try to write it in several difficult languages.

Here are some versions I came up with today. The first version incorporates some of the languages I speak and am learning, plus a few others.

Une singură 语言 är nikdy недостаточно – languages = French, Romanian, Chinese, Swedish, Czech / Slovak, Russian.

Ett seule 言語 ist nunca yn ddigon – languages = Norwegian / Swedish, French, Japanese, German, Portuguese / Galician / Spanish, Welsh.

Jeden lingua er niemals suficiente – languages = Czech / Polish / Slovak / Rusyn, Asturian / Chamorro / Corsican / Galician / Italian / Latin / Sicilian / Interlingua, Danish / Faroese / Icelandic / Norwegian, German, Spanish / Asturian.

Can you incorporate more languages and/or writing systems into this phrase?

Universal Human Rights Initiative

By Simon

Universal Human Rights Initiative (UHRI) logo

Yesterday I got an email from one of the founders of the Universal Human Rights Initiative (UHRI), a project to record native speakers reading all 500+ translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

One aim of the project is to make the UDHR more accessible, especially to people who are illiterate or visually impaired. They already recordings of the UDHR in over 85 languages

You can see the translations and hear the recordings on their web app. You can also submit recordings.

This site could also be useful to language learners, as it provides texts and recordings in many different languages. You can read and listen to the texts on the UHRI site, with parallel texts in other languages on this site.

Big fun!

By Simon

A friend of mine who is learning Welsh likes to translate Welsh expressions literally and then use them in English. One Welsh equivalent of goodbye is hwyl fawr [hʊɨl vaur], which he translates as “big fun”, which sounds quite funny in English. Do any other languages have a phrase used when parting that has a similar meaning?

The Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru explains hwyl fawr as “a valediction, roughly equivalent to ‘All the best!’, or ‘Cheers!’. Which should not be confused with yr hwyl fawr, which is ‘the principal sail of a ship, mail-sail or main-sheet.’

hwyl can also mean:
– sail (of ship, windmill, etc), sheet, covering, pall
– journey, progress, revolution, orbit, course, route, career, rush, assault, attack
– healthy physical or mental condition, good form, one’s right senses, wits; tune (of musical instrument); temper, mood, frame of mind; nature disposition; fervour, ecstasy, gusto, zest
– merry-making, hilarity, jollity, mirth, gaiety, amusement, fun, humour

Some expressions featuring hwyl include:
– am hwyl = for fun, by way of a joke
– hwyl dda = fine state of health; good spirits, good mood
– hwyl ddrwg = physical indisposition; bad mood
– cael hwyl = to have fun, enjoy oneself, make good progress
– cael hwyl am ben (rhywun) = to make fun of (someone)
– pob hwyl = similar to hwyl fawr

Do you use literal translations of foreign expressions in your own language like this?

Untranslatable?

By Simon

Recently I was sent a link to an infographic containing some apparently untranslatable words for love, and this got me wondering if there really is such a thing as an ‘untranslatable’ word or concept.

The words featured in lists of ‘untranslatable’ words are often given poetic-sounding meanings, and other more ordinary and common meanings they have are ignored.

In some languages a single word might represent a meaning that translates as a phrase in other languages, and there are some culture concepts which can be hard to translate – that is the words themselves can be translated but the meanings they represent might be specific to a particular culture.

The Dutch word gezelligheid (“the warmth of being with loved ones”), is an example from the infographic, which has an equivalent in German: geborgenheit, so it isn’t completely untranslatable.

Are there any words in languages you know that you believe to be untranslatable?