# Why does Chinese translate so badly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 29, 2002, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450 "2002-07-29T23:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/41 "2002-08-09T07:34:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shoshana \* > \*\* > > My college linguistics professor told us that when he told his colleagues in China that it was easier for him to understand Confucius than many other Chinese writers, they told him that for them, Confucius was very hard to understand. They characterized Confucius’ writing style as “too Western.” \*\* This is kind of strange, and brings up an interesting point: some well-known writers and philosophers like Confucious and Sun Tzu have their works written in what amounts to a different language called “classical Chinese”, “literary Chinese” or _wenyanwen_. What China Guy said about context would apply tenfold to any readings of classical chinese, since it uses an extremely concise, “telegraphic” mode that often relies heavily on the reader’s knowledge of a literary context. This form of language tends to be much different than the vernacular form of Chinese, called _baihua_, which is used in everyday speech. Moreover, this style tends to contribute to not just stilted translations, but ones that are altogether incorrect. In order to interpret an ancient author’s meaning correctly, whether in modern Chinese or in English, one must sometimes rely heavily on the work of commentators. An interesting example can be found in [this on-line copy of Giles’s translation of the Art of War.](http://www.armory.com/~peterr/suntzu/szbook5.html#energy) The tranlator has extended notes on the difficulties of understanding the meaning of a particular passage. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/42 "2012-04-13T21:35:33Z")
Maybe Three Aspirations, Three Goals, Three Advocacies? It could even be Three Voices perhaps. It clearly enough means “three categories of goals/aspirations we represent” and no English noun I can think of means “thing/category represented” which is what the Chinese word seems to mean. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/43 "2012-04-13T21:43:55Z")
How about “The Ten Years” since anyone contributed to this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/44 "2012-04-13T22:28:06Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > …“This orange juice manifests new pleasure life to happy you for breakfast.” And if it’s still available I’d like some of this. With vodka (prease). 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/45 "2012-04-13T22:57:52Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > [raises zombie] Okay, seriously, how does this happen? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/46 "2012-04-13T23:04:35Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Okay, seriously, how does this happen? Because in Chinese, the date translates to “three days ago.” ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/47 "2012-04-13T23:58:34Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > My Mandarin is so-so to say the least, however, I’m fluent in Japanese, a language that borrowed most of its vocabulary from Chinese. On a side note, I question this assertion. Japanese borrowed Chinese writing, yes. But spoken Japanese was a relatively mature language before contact with the Chinese. Chinese characters were used for two purposes - one was to provide a written character so they could write down Japanese words, and then secondarily to introduce new words. Pretty much every kanji has a Chinese and a Japanese pronunciation; which ones are used more is, I think, open to debate. It seems to me that you find imported Chinese words mainly as 2-character concept words; most of the time single-kanji words (with kana declensions) are Japanese based. At least that is my current understanding; I have studied Japanese formally, but I am nowhere near fluent. On the other hand, I have lived with native Japanese speakers for most of the last 30+ years. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/48 "2012-04-14T00:19:30Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > On a side note, I question this assertion. Japanese borrowed Chinese writing, yes. But spoken Japanese was a relatively mature language before contact with the Chinese. Chinese characters were used for two purposes - one was to provide a written character so they could write down Japanese words, and then secondarily to introduce new words. Pretty much every kanji has a Chinese and a Japanese pronunciation; which ones are used more is, I think, open to debate. > > It seems to me that you find imported Chinese words mainly as 2-character concept words; most of the time single-kanji words (with kana declensions) are Japanese based. > > At least that is my current understanding; I have studied Japanese formally, but I am nowhere near fluent. On the other hand, I have lived with native Japanese speakers for most of the last 30+ years. > Roddy I’ll quote myself: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14639567&postcount=55](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14639567&postcount=55) > [@](#): > > In 1956, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics conducted a study of word usage in magazine articles. Japanese lexicographers categorize words as either native (和語), Chinese (漢語), imported (外来語) or mixed. Imported refers to words that come from languages other than Chinese wheres mixed are compound words whose parts are of different origins. Their study showed that the vocabulary at the time was: > > Native: 36.7% (53.9%) > Chinese: 47.5% (41.3%) > Imported: 9.8% (2.9%) > Mixed: 6.0% (1.9%) > > The first number represents vocabulary ratio (each word gets counted only once) and numbers in parentheses represent usage frequency. As you can see, writers of the times used a smaller number of native words more frequently than Chinese words. > > In 1994, they repeated their study. The results are: > > Native: 25.7% (35.7%) > Chinese: 34.2% (49.9%) > Imported: 33.8% (12.3%) > Mixed: 6.4% (2.1%) So, “a majority” was a bit of an over-statement, it’s more like exactly half of the words used are of Chinese origin. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/49 "2012-04-14T15:43:48Z")
> [@SuaSponte](#): > > Translation almost always requires interpretation. As a simple example, one doesn’t translate a German sentence into English word for word because, if nothing else, the verb would usually end up in the wrong place. But you can take just about anything in German and translate it into English and get the (nearly) precise concept that was expressed in the original German. Actually no, you can’t. German and American culture might be closer to each other than Chinese and American one, but are still two different ones. Once you look at poems, philosphical texts (not necessarily Heidegger) or specific cultural aspects like Schadenfreude, Melancholie, Fernweh … a lot of words have been borrowed because the concept doesn’t exist in one handy word in the other language, and instead of using a whole paragraph to explain the concept, it was quicker to “borrow” the whole word. The job of not only a good translator, but also of a good reporter would be to explain the necessary background that the China dopers have given in this thread, instead of letting an awkward sounding translation stand. But good translators and good journalists are rare, so they may get a so-so translation instead. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/50 "2012-04-17T21:27:58Z")
That’s funny, isn’t China due for another transfer of power pretty soon, as it was when this thread started? Didn’t realize the zombie-ness of the thread at all. 🙂 What’s the new guy’s book? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/51 "2012-04-17T22:57:25Z")
> [@OxyMoron](#): > > One of the fascinating things about studying a language very different from one’s own is the realization of how little is really _necessary_ to communicate at a basic level. Japanese, which I studied for five years, lacks gendered words, articles, and plurals. (One of the big sellers when I was there was titled something like “‘That,’ ‘The’ and ‘A’” - an extraordinarily difficult set of concepts to get across when there’s no direct translation.) **Conversely, English lacks levels of diction, gendered speech, and an absolutely marvelous grammatical mood called the “suffering passive,” which lets you express “I was sat down next to on the bus by Carrot Top and I suffered” all in a brief clause**. There should be a quick sentence to convey that idea in every language! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/52 "2012-04-17T23:27:31Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I remember one Japanese friend of mine being very frustrated about English plurals. She thought they were redundant. “Why do you have to say it’s plural? People should be able to tell!” I guess she had a point – “ten dollar” or “two network card” obviously refers to more than one object even without the plural noun form. They are redundant in many situations. They’re pretty nice when you’re referring to something that most often comes in just ones and twos, since a single extra letter (usually) distinguishes between the two most common cases. If I say “My brothers and I went camping”, while it’s possible that I have seventeen brothers, I very likely have just 2 or 3. Statistically, due to [Benford’s Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law), for many natural events, the one/many split is pretty efficient. You’re more likely to have one of something than any other individual number. You could argue that a one-or-two/more-than-two split would be better, except then you lose the specificity of referring to one thing _and_ you have the two most common cases (one thing and two things) become ambiguous. An odd/even-or-many pluralization split might be even better, since you can probably distinguish the 1-case from the 3-case by context most of the time, and you get some extra information when dealing with countable-at-a-glance values. Our brains may not be good enough at Bayesian logic to make use of that extra information, though. Now I’m off to read about different pluralization schemes. I wonder if there is any language that uses a odd/even-or-many split… Imagine learning a language that had, like, four different pluralizations. I’d probably give up and go with “number singular-noun-form” too. ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/53 "2012-04-18T00:12:00Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t think this is terribly unusual. FYI, Hungarian also does not use the plural form when the noun is modified by a number. (They would say “I have many shirts” but “I have twenty shirt.”) As for Asian languages, I don’t know unfortunately. **They may follow the same pattern as Hungarian**. I suspect they have a plural form, but it may be in the form of “an A of B”; then again I may simply be talking out of my ass. I can assure you that in general, they don’t. Hungarian is an agglutinative language, and as such, most structures are compounds formed by adding the situationally pertinent affix onto a base word, i.e. “you are” is “vagy”, while “I am” is “vagyok”. In addition, subjects are not explicitly required in Hungarian sentences - you could just as well ask “vagy?” (and might, in the vernacular) as “te vagy?” if you wished to query “are you?”. With regards to Mandarin, I would refer to this article: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese\_grammar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar) I suspect the concept of “topic prominence”, detailed in the article, might at least be a contributor to the general level of difficulty inherent in translating Chinese - a foreigner simply might not possess the required intuitive understand of its influence on the actual meaning of a sentence, and thusly would parse it imprecisely at best. Agglutinative languages are profoundly rare, spoken almost exclusively amongst Native Americans and in the Caucasus, and thus are terrible models to extrapolate from. Having an entire adopted family of Hungarians, I am continuously, as someone with a linguistic interest, baffled by the ease with which most eventually master a grammatical system so vastly different from their native one as, say, English. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/54 "2012-04-18T04:18:29Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I remember one Japanese friend of mine being very frustrated about English plurals. She thought they were redundant. “Why do you have to say it’s plural? People should be able to tell!” I guess she had a point – “ten dollar” or “two network card” obviously refers to more than one object even without the plural noun form. Ask her why Japanese needs 100+ [counting particles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word). You should be able to understand that you’re counting cylindrical objects when you’re talking about pencils. Or why two counting systems are mixed semi-randomly depending on what you’re counting. Anything she finds frustrating about English numbers is infinitely more frustrating going the other way. * * * I know very little about Chinese directly, but I do know that Japanese has a literary tradition that was heavily based on Chinese texts. They still study [_kanbun_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanbun) as part of their mandatory studies in school. It influences a lot of speech and writing. In addition, the native Japanese storytelling traditions that branched off from the importation of writing in the early 8th century CE have fairly flowery and poetic flourishes that are still reflected in formal writing to the present day. Virtually no one gives a speech without some kind of reference to the season, or without some kind of literary allusion that sounds unnecessarily elaborate if translated directly. Japanese English is infamously bad despite 6 years of compulsory English education simply because everyone studies _about_ English instead of learning how to actually use it. They still use a grammar-translation model of language teaching, so no one has any real fluency and they mostly resort to direct translations that in some cases sound worse than a crappy machine translation. Take a typical overblown poetic original text, run it through a haphazard dictionary translation (usually done by some poor overworked secretary with rudimentary skills and no formal training) and a complete lack of giving a shit since no one will notice or probably much care about the fidelity or even presence of any kind of sense in the spurt of English splashed across the label, and you get very Engrish muchly prease to writing. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/55 "2012-04-18T14:41:26Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > What’s the new guy’s book? The Four Translations? –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/56 "2012-04-18T15:34:55Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Now I’m off to read about different pluralization schemes. Russian has singlular, dual, and plural. Dual is, as you might expect, for the case of two items. Also three or four, and it’s only in certain instances. And that’s about all I remember from the one class session in which we discussed it when I took Russian 20 years ago. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/57 "2012-04-18T19:04:34Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Russian has singlular, dual, and plural. Dual is, as you might expect, for the case of two items. Also three or four, and it’s only in certain instances. And that’s about all I remember from the one class session in which we discussed it when I took Russian 20 years ago. > > –Cliffy I’m in my second semester of Russian right now, so I’m going to say you’re generally correct but it’s a little more complicated (and I hope what I say is itself correct – fluent Russian speakers, please correct me!). When you don’t use numbers in reference to the noun (i.e., “I have a dollar” instead of “I have one dollar” — “I have dollars” instead of “I have two dollars”), you just use the usual nominative singular or plural form of the noun. Keep in mind that Russian does not use articles. So, in the case of my examples, to say “I have a dollar” you would say (in Roman letters), “U menya yest’ **dollar** ”. To say, “I have dollars”, you would say, “U menya yest’ **dollari**.” It’s when you use numbers that things get complicated. Numbers ending in 1 (e.g,. 1, 31, 1897721) take the singular. “I have one dollar” is “U menya yest’ adin **dollar** ”. Numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4 (e.g., 4, 22, 573), take the **genitive** singular, because you’re saying, “I have three [of the group of] dollars”. So “I have three dollars” would be “U menya yest’ tri **dollara** ” (masculine singular nouns get an -a suffix in the genitive case). Numbers ending in 5 or higher (5, 17, 39), take the **genitive** plural. So “I have seven dollars,” would be, “U menya yect’ syem’ **dollarov** ” (masculine plural nouns get an -ov or -ev suffix in the genitive case). Edit: [Here’s](http://www.russianlessons.net/lessons/lesson11_main.php) a good webpage that breaks it down more clearly. Scroll to the middle of the page to get “plurals with numbers”. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/58 "2012-04-18T19:14:44Z")
Missed the edit window: In my example using three dollars, I think it would be more accurate to say you use the genitive because you have three [of **a** group of] dollars. Also, in an interesting (to me!) cultural note, to indicate possession in Russian, you don’t say “I have…”. You say, “by me there is…” U = “by” Menya = genitive of “I” = me Yest’ = “there is”/“there are” (doesn’t change for singular or plural) ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/59 "2012-04-18T23:48:01Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Because in Chinese, the date translates to “three days ago.” I think it is actually “three day ago” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/60 "2012-04-19T02:48:13Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Okay, seriously, how does this happen? Because people use Google to see if a topic has been talked about previously before posting. IN most forums, it’s good etiquette. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450.md?page=4)