26 replies to this topic

[Liu]

Thank you all for your nice versions and thanks Tang Scholar for your botanical research !

For the 15th weekly translation, I would like to nominate another frenchy CHF member (the only one I guess) : fcharton

Please note that it has been decided that the poems to translate should not be dated earlier than the Tang period, in order to keep the difficulty level from getting too high.

Edited by Liu, 15 November 2008 - 06:22 AM.

[William O'Chee]

Well, it is melancholy twilight here in Moscow, no Chinese trees out my window, just the Russian birch. Here is my translation of this poem.

I'm seeking, searching, looking,
So desolate and chill,
So mournful, filled with woe.
Now warmth, now cold in sudden change,
Hardest just to draw my breath.
How can a few cups of weak wine
Fend off the night wind come swift?
Wild goose passes by above,
And my heart swells with hurt
Old echo of he I once knew.
Chrysanthemums fallen thick on the ground,
They lie faded and bruised,
And who shall come gather them now?
Alone here at the window,
How to hold on as day creeps by?
Parasol tree wears a shroud of fine rain,
Endless drizzle on and on into the dusk.
One drop after another,
What word could I take from their saddened stream.

My congratulations - what a superb piece of translation!

[Yizheng]

Thanks, William O'Chee,
i must say, I like reading all the different translations. I liked Yun's translation a lot, and last week's one too. And I like to see the French translations. Unfortunately, I don't know Spanish, so I have not the same appreciation of the translation in Spanish, but it;s interesting to see how everyone interprets the poems.

[urofpersia]

it sounds better in cantonese just like most of poems do.

I guess most people will find it sounds nicer in their own dialects, so perhaps this is subjective.

Personally I don't like the accent and the way of speaking of the speaker in the video.

Ok, after a long absense, I will take part in the next translation (as long as it is not too difficult)

[sylvester]

I guess most people will find it sounds nicer in their own dialects, so perhaps this is subjective.

no perhaps.
cantonese preserve anicent pronuciation much much more better than the putonghua(普通話).
putonghua is a wrong pronuciated chinese language by 金 and 滿 people, they force chinese to follow as they rules.
you have a cantonese read it out for you, then you will know poems written before 元 dynasty is better to read in cantonese, may be best to read in cantonese.
some poems even not suit the 平仄 rules if read out in putonghua.

another shame of chinese other than the simplfied character, both putonghua and simplfied chinese character blocks the way to old chinese.

[Liu]

Thank you all for your nice versions and thanks Tang Scholar for your botanical research !

For the 15th weekly translation, I would like to nominate another frenchy CHF member (the only one I guess) : fcharton

Please note that it has been decided that the poems to translate should not be dated earlier than the Tang period, in order to keep the difficulty level from getting too high.

-----> Just a kind reminder for fcharton

[urofpersia]

another shame of chinese other than the simplfied character, both putonghua and simplfied chinese character blocks the way to old chinese.

This is a chauvinist andbigoted point of view. There is no doubt there are some 'old' sounds and even some terms that are better preserved in say Cantonese (according to those who study the languages), this does not make Cantonese any 'purer' compared to Mandarin, all dialects today are descended from it and reflect regional changes, each retaining different aspects of the older language, all valuable from a linguistic and scholarly point of view. This also does not change the fact that some prefer how the poem sounds in their own dialect (say Mandarin) as compared to Cantonese.

Using this argument to suggest that putonghua blocks the way to 'old Chinese' borders on the nonsensical.

If one continues with this line of thought one might even begin to claim that the northern Chinese are less Chinese because their language and some of their customs are from non-Chinese people, perhaps even suggest they are less Chinese by blood since there is so much intermingling there from northern non-Chinese while the real Chinese successively migrated south over centuries. You should look up Xng on the forum, you two will get along just fine.

[Yun]

Sylvester and Ur, we have other threads on the history of Cantonese and Mandarin, so let's not get into it here.

-----> Just a kind reminder for fcharton

Liu, perhaps you should PM him. He may be too busy recently to come to CHF.

[Liu]

Liu, perhaps you should PM him. He may be too busy recently to come to CHF.

Yep. Done 1 hour ago. If no reply today, then I will nominate someone else...

Edited by Liu, 17 November 2008 - 02:20 PM.

[fcharton]

Sorry got the PM... Will post something in a few minutes...

[Tang Scholar]

Sylvester and Ur, we have other threads on the history of Cantonese and Mandarin, so let's not get into it here.

Thank you, Yun. This has been a very friendly and easygoing subforum. Let's keep it that way.

[urofpersia]

Sylvester and Ur, we have other threads on the history of Cantonese and Mandarin, so let's not get into it here.

Sorry! All the more so because I knew it was wrong of me to do so.