{"id":11071,"date":"2011-11-23T22:15:46","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T03:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/?p=11071"},"modified":"2015-07-08T17:12:15","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T21:12:15","slug":"a-translation-is-a-woman-by-yk-chan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/?p=11071","title":{"rendered":"“A Translation Is A Woman” by YK Chan"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been said that a translation is like a woman, who is either beautiful or faithful, but not both.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, try to translate this Chinese doublet:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u5149\u9634\u4f3c\u7bad \u65e5\u6708\u5982\u68ad\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u4eba\u751f\u51e0\u4f55 \u5bf9\u9152\u5f53\u6b4c<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My friend, SL Chow of Regina (a psychology professor), rendered it this way:<\/span><\/p>\n

Like an arrow time travels in haste<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As sun and moon interlaced<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

To Bacchus and Terpsichore<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Fleetingness of life submits<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It has an appeal of western art and culture.\u00a0 He also corrected the order of the last two phrases. <\/span>On the other hand, in my attempt I keep their order as written above because \u68ad <\/strong>rhymes with \u6b4c <\/strong>in Cantonese:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Time flies like an arrow; sun and moon shuttle forward.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Life lasts only so long; drink together and sing along.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This rendition remains faithful to the oriental flavor without allusion to Greek mythology,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

while preserving the original imagery<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The native English speaker may identify with the first version more easily, while some may <\/span><\/p>\n

prefer an<\/span>\u00a0unfamiliar taste of na\u00efvet\u00e9 or uncouth literalism.\u00a0 I have also made each phrase <\/span><\/p>\n

conform to a five-word\u00a0structure similar to the four-word phrase of the Chinese format.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

It is even harder to make each phrase\u00a0with the same number of syllables for uniformity <\/span><\/p>\n

as in the original Chinese, which consists of\u00a0monosyllabic characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is more than one way to skin a cat.<\/span><\/p>\n

We, SL and I, agreed that for the reader, each has his\/her own taste and interest.<\/span><\/p>\n

A last word: The Chinese doublet reminds me of the wit of Groucho Marx, who once said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been said that a translation is like a woman, who is either beautiful or faithful, but not both. For example, try to translate this Chinese doublet: \u5149\u9634\u4f3c\u7bad \u65e5\u6708\u5982\u68ad\u00a0 \u4eba\u751f\u51e0\u4f55 \u5bf9\u9152\u5f53\u6b4c   My friend, SL Chow of Regina (a psychology … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,3],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-11071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-poems","tag-yk-chan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11071"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20489,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071\/revisions\/20489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}