Chinese translations for Safe
POSTED BY: FFfan
UPDATED: Monday, December 6, 2004 06:14
VIEWED: 28710
PAGE 3 of 4
Ok, about river's quote... Everyone's been going about it kinda wrong. biao-tze means "PROSTITUTE" Thus, River's term means "Drooling prostitute and a monkey's son". Possibly relating Inara and Mal since its related to Mal. Or wiat, maybe it means "son of a drooling prostitute and a monkey." That sounds more right. Anyways, River was cussing.
-Gaheris.
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OoOOOOOOOooOOOO! Biaozi! Wow, that's a slang I haven't heard in a while. Everything make sense now 
Ni hao, wo shi Lucha Nan.
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Just to add to the diversity of translations:
Quote:
Originally posted by FFfan:
3) Simon's dad: Yes, and you'd have access to any "tyen shiao duh" that filtered in from the cortex.
Heaven knows what
I think this may be mispronounced and miscaptioned, but it'd make more sense to be "tian xia de" which is "everything under the sky." If it's "heaven knows what," I can imagine it as a literal translation of English into Chinese, but it's certainly not how Chinese would express this thought.
Quote:
4) Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."
I have to side with the "big change" faction here--Simon's stodgy and seemingly well-bred father wouldn't have allowed "shit talk" I don't think; not to mention again it would be a direct translation of English without any cultural mediation (to make it a valid and equivalent Chinese phrase).
Quote:
5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."
Gaheris, you rule! I agree with your second translation, essentially, "Son of a drooling whore and monkey!" Again, I get confused when trying to figure out what they're saying--"liou kou shuei" does mean drooling/salivating, but it's just not used as part of an insult like this in Chinese.
Quote:
9) Mal: "Fei hua."
Nonsense (literally, crap talk)
I thought literally it meant, "waste of words"?
Quote:
11) Wash: "Lao tyen boo."
"Lao Tian" is Heavenly Father (King of Heaven), and I've usually heard it as "Lao Tian Ye," the "ye" having a more grandfatherly and so elderly/ancient connotation. What Wash means is, "Oh Lord, no..."
Quote:
12) Mal: Wash, I want you to go to town and see if you can find that "jing tzahng mei yong duh" doctor.
Useless
"Jing cang" means "often."
Quote:
14) Patron: You're not a witch are you "nyen ching duh?"
Youngun, youngster
Again, this is the Firefly people using a direct English translation--"nian qing" means "young"--it's an adjective without a noun (it would be better to say "young person" as "nian qing ren.")
Take care,
Quixote 13
Ivan Chan Studio: Invite Beauty: www.ivanchan.com
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Hey all.
Was watching Safe, and discovered something.
Simon does NOT say 'boo-tai jung tzhang duh' when he's talking to Kaylee. What he says sounds like (and keep in mind he says it fairly quickly, and it sounds like a voice-over):
Pien doh (or joh) duh (or juh) joh tyaren.
Any translations for that? :) I read somewhere that it's supposed to mean 'not very rational'.
Just me. ;)
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I need the hanyu pinyin for "luh-suh," can anyone help me?
So far, I've found
lājī (n) garbage
lièzhì (adj.) trashy
but neitehr of which are pronounced the way Sean and Jewel pronounce it, so I'm at my wit's end trying to figure out what they said...
--
Some take the high road. Some take the low road.
And some just go screaming down the highway, dropping flaming bits of wreckage.
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Quote:
I need the hanyu pinyin for "luh-suh," can anyone help me?
So far, I've found
lājī (n) garbage
lièzhì (adj.) trashy
Edited now that I found it on http://zhongwen.com/ .
lèsè
Le4se4 is the Taiwan pronunciation of la1ji1(2).
垃圾
For those who can't see that, you can see the characters as images on Unicode's Unihan database site:
lā la1
垃 http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5783
jí ji2
圾 http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=573E
Keep flying!
Ying/
Firefly Funsite
http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net
EDIT: and now also http://fireflychinese.home.att.net
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Quote:
Originally posted by InvisibleGreen:
Thanks! This episode was drenched in Chinese phrases and I almost started to feel lost. This helps a lot.
I'm chinese and I don't even understand what they're saying.
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I doubt some of the actors had enough practice with the language to be pronouncing it right. After all, according to Cappy, all of Alan's lines sound the same anyway.
Also, a few weeks ago I decided to learn Mandarin. Not the written language, just the spoken. I take French and that's all flowy and nice and all and English is just silly with its hypocritical rules. Mandarin is fun with all the smaller quick words. It's just fun to say and sounds cooler and I like it. Hopefully this spur of the moment "I'm going to learn Mandarin today, Mommy!" thing doesn't parish when school starts in a few weeks.
http://www.simple-assault.com/Firefly.htm
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Actually they did have a dialect coach as I understand-that from watching the DVD features and talking to a pair of my friends who had the luck to actually be on-set during filming (I didn't ask how, as, knowing these two, it probably involved bribery, blackmail, and straight-up family connections), and this is my understanding (which is based on statements from the behind the scenes special and from Sean and Emily):
That it was not really the dialect coach's fault as it was simply the fact that the actors had trouble pronouncing Mandarin. Which is understandable...having spent time with the extremely large (and liguistically gifted) wing of Sean and Emily's extended family, I have actually had the "privelege" of being swore at in well over fifty languages (they told me that later...my count was thrity-seven at that point) and having tried to speak Mandarin with coaching from no less than three fluent experts, I don't blame the actors for mispronouncing it.
Besides, it adds a sense of reality to the show...after all, how many people do you know who speak perfectly (not fluently, but perfectly) with absolutely correct pronunciation and grammar in their native tongue?
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