Chinese Translation Help! PLEASE! This is the third time I have asked!

POSTED BY: SerenitysGirl
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 23:30
VIEWED: 7531
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SERENITYSGIRL

Saturday, June 4, 2005 3:19 AM

If I can. Can I please get some help chinse translations?

The words I need are

Safe

Is it safe to come out?

Promise

CANTON

Saturday, June 4, 2005 4:00 AM

seriously I would so help you if it was japanese. . .just wanted you to know that.

TRIBES

Saturday, June 4, 2005 4:24 AM

Try here. Has Firefly translation. Hope it works for you.

http://fireflychinese.home.att.net/

Peace
Serenity

ZOL

Saturday, June 4, 2005 6:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SerenitysGirl:
If I can. Can I please get some help chinse translations?

The words I need are

Safe

Is it safe to come out?

Promise

try on-line free translation - here`s the chinese (traditional)

安全

它安全消失嗎？

承諾

& here`s the Chinese Simplified

是安全的

它安全消失吗？

允诺

I can`t tell you why the word `Safe` is longer in the simplified chinese, but, this will probably help you anyway.

Darin (Zol.)

JASONZZZ

Saturday, June 4, 2005 11:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zol:

try on-line free translation - here`s the chinese (traditional)

安全

This must have been from Babelfish (e.g. altavist...) or something... I wouldn't trust bebelfish to translate chinese phrases...

Ok, these two characters (ideograms) put together means "safe" in the context of the feeling of safety or of being safe. These two characters can't really be anymore simplified. So, they are it if you find them in both the traditional writing system and the simplified writing system.

And it's pronouced:

An1Quan3 - or Romanized
Aun (as in Aunty) - obviously in the 1st tone (high level)
Chuan , in the 3rd tone, low going high.

Quote:
Originally posted by Zol:

它安全消失嗎？

The closest translation for this phrase is:

Has he (or she) safely disappeared?
(or perhaps safely hidden themselves away, but dependent on the context)

But no one would ever say this - even to mean that translation - that's the problem with babelfish and chinese, it doesn't really do it correctly.

Note that the translation machine got confused and translated "it" literally as "it" the way an English sentence is written - but in this context the word ended up meaning "they".

In this case, to convey the meaning for "Is is safe to come out?" You might have to use two short phrases...

安全嗎? Is it safe?
可以出來嗎? Can I come out?

Quote:
Originally posted by Zol:

承諾

Need some context around promise to really effectively translate it... There are lots of concepts of promise that might be different between Chinese and Americanisms... This one that you have, sort of means a "grudging acceptance"...

Quote:
Originally posted by Zol:

& here`s the Chinese Simplified

是安全的

它安全消失吗？

允诺

I can`t tell you why the word `Safe` is longer in the simplified chinese, but, this will probably help you anyway.

Darin (Zol.)

Those 4 characters that you have for "safe" is really a phrase for "It is safe" or "It has a safe quality [to something]"... Notice the middle two characters are exactly the same as the ones you have used before - for "safe"...

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HELL'S KITTEN

Thursday, June 9, 2005 2:31 AM

I'm not sure this will be of any help after JasonZZZ's post, but what the hell....

First of all, by "safe," do you mean it to be a noun or an adjective? Second, do you want "promise" to be a noun, transitive verb, or intransitive verb? In other words, how are you using both "safe" and "promise"? Context, as JasonZZZ said, is everything. And online translators don't take into account the grammatic useage of words, which is why they're really no good.

Finally, "Is it safe to come out?" is kinda odd. My sentence structure is pretty sketchy, but could it be said:

安全出亲吗?
an1-quan2 chu1-lai2 ma? ({Is it} not dangerous {to} go out?) or

安全不安全出亲(吗)?
an1-quan2 bu4 an1-quan2 chu1-lai2 (ma)?

I wouldn't put much faith in that, though, on account of my grammar sucking muchly. The simple, single word translations are much easier to handle, given context.

Cheers.

无党派人士

JASONZZZ

Thursday, June 9, 2005 7:06 AM

Yeah, that's the trouble with Chinese, a lot of the usage are heavily dependent on context. And often times the translation is difficult, even in the simplest of phrases, simply because it isn't a Romance or western language - the thought pattern is different. Most of the grammatical styles for Chinese might even be closer to English - practical simple stuff like Subject Verb Object (well, speaking in terms of comparison with languages like Korean & Japanese where the sentence structures most often then not have the conjugated verb end the sentence - but actually it's pretty convenient that way, you almost never have to guess... unlike Latin...)

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:

...

安全出亲吗?
an1-quan2 chu1-lai2 ma? ({Is it} not dangerous {to} go out?)
...

In case of this, again depending on the context, if these set of words would be uttered like this - it just doesn't sound right - but it *might* possibly mean "Have you come out safely?"... It's just ambiguous as to what that phrase is trying to mean... I think if you break it up into those two things, "Is it safe?", "Can I come out?" There isn't any ambiguity to what exactly the speaker is attempting.

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SPQR

Friday, June 10, 2005 5:17 AM

This is a great one:

http://www.browncoats.com/main.php?parent=3e5aa2f800c31&line=3e546fb17
1d22

JASONZZZ

Friday, June 10, 2005 5:55 AM

Yeah, been to Browncoats.com before... but if you take some of those particular phrases and attempt to use them out of those particular context, they might not mean exactly those translations... and frankly, some of them are wrong - but that's probably what was printed on the captions for those scenes...

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LITHI

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 11:30 PM

In the future, you can email me directly at

Lithi@estateserenity.net

I will do translation for you. I don't check the forums as often now. If you're writing fanfic, include an introduction so i could give you the proper translation.

Lithi@EstateSerenity.net