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Culture Language Learning

piānjiàn

piānjiàn (piān·jiàn {inclined; slanting; leaning → [partial; prejudiced]} · seeing → [prejudice; bias] 偏见 偏見) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”. 📖 📄 📘 icons mean 📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and 📘 Reveal None re all the “flashcards” in the heading, paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]

At the time of this writing, jw.org was featuring the article “Prejudice​—Are You Infected?”. The Mandarin version uses this week’s MEotW, “piānjiàn (piān·jiàn {inclined; slanting; leaning → [partial; prejudiced]} · seeing → [prejudice; bias] 偏见 偏見), to translate “prejudice”.

The “piān (incline; slant; lean [→ [insist on | diverge; deviate]] | inclined; slanting; leaning [→ [partial; prejudiced | stubbornly; wilfully; insistently; persistently; contrarily]] 偏) in “piānjiàn (piān·jiàn {inclined; slanting; leaning → [partial; prejudiced]} · seeing → [prejudice; bias] 偏见 偏見) literally means “inclined; slanting; leaning”, and the “jiàn (see | seeing → [view (opinion)]) used here is a well-known expression that means “seeing”. So, “piānjiàn (piān·jiàn {inclined; slanting; leaning → [partial; prejudiced]} · seeing → [prejudice; bias] 偏见 偏見) literally refers to a way of seeing that’s not on the level—an accurate way of describing prejudice. The “piān (incline; slant; lean [→ [insist on | diverge; deviate]] | inclined; slanting; leaning [→ [partial; prejudiced | stubbornly; wilfully; insistently; persistently; contrarily]] 偏) in “piānjiàn (piān·jiàn {inclined; slanting; leaning → [partial; prejudiced]} · seeing → [prejudice; bias] 偏见 偏見) literally meaning “inclined; slanting; leaning” is an interesting contrast to the “píng ({[being] flat, level, even} [→ [[being] peaceful; calm | peace | [being] equal; fair; just | standard; level]] | {make [to be] flat, level, even} [→ [make peace; pacify; calm down]] 平) in “gōngpíng ({[is] just; fair; impartial} · {[is] flat, level, even → [[is] equal; fair; just; objective]} → [[is] fair; just; impartial; equitable | fairly; justly] 公平) (“fair; just; impartial; equitable”) literally meaning “flat, level, even”.

Buried Prejudice Illustrated

Of course, we who are Jehovah’s people especially consciously avoid having and displaying prejudice. However, as it happens, last week’s MEotW post on “Dōng (East) (West 西) mentioned that scientists have observed that there is such a thing as buried prejudice (prejudice that we may unconsciously have and act on), while the above-mentioned article (which originally appeared in Awake!) being featured on jw.org applies the following interesting illustration to prejudice:

English:

Prejudice is like a virus. It harms its victims, and people can be unaware that they are infected.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Piānjiàn (Piān·jiàn {inclined → [prejudiced]} · seeing → [prejudice] 偏见 偏見) jiù (exactly 就) xiàng (like 像/象) bìngdú (bìng·dú disease · {poison → [virus]} → [virus] 病毒) yíyàng (yí·yàng {(of) one} · {pattern → [way]} → [the same way] 一样 一樣) huì (will) duì (towards) rén (people 人) zàochéng (zào·chéng make · {to come to be} 造成) shānghài (shāng·hài {hurting → [harming]} · harming → [harm] 伤害 傷害), érqiě (ér·qiě and · moreover 而且) (one 一) ge ([mw]個/个) rén (person 人) wǎngwǎng (wǎng·wǎng {going towards} · {going towards} → [often] 往往) chájué budào ((chá·jué scrutinizes · {to wake to → [to become aware of]} → [is aware of] 察/查觉 察/查覺) (bu·dào not · {arriving at} 不到) [is not aware]) zìjǐ (self 自己) (already 已) bèi ([passive signifier] → [is] 被) gǎnrǎn (gǎn·rǎn {feeling → [being affected by]} · {having caught (disease)} → [infected] 感染) le ([indicates a change] 了).

We Don’t Have Time for This!

As also mentioned in last week’s MEotW post on “Dōng (East) (West 西), the Mandarin field is one in which East often meets West, and while people can find the differences interesting, differences can also pose spiritual challenges, since something being different than what we are used to means that we are not used to it, and it generally means that we do not deeply know or understand it.

Will we respond to the unknown with fear of the unknown? Let us make good use of the above-mentioned Awake! article and other provisions from Jehovah and his organization, to help us rise to the spiritual challenges posed by the people and things we encounter in the Mandarin field that are different from what we have been used to. That way, we can focus on contributing positively to all the important God-honouring and life-saving work we still have to do in this field.

The worldwide Mandarin field may in fact be the largest language field that has ever existed in human history, and with about 95% of the planet’s Chinese people living in China itself, all the government opposition there has been to our work, all the traditions-based encumbrances and propaganda-fueled confusion that Mandarin field language learners have had to deal with, etc., we may just have scratched the surface of the work that still needs to be done in this massive worldwide field. So, we really don’t have time for the problems that can be caused by prejudice, buried or otherwise.

Screenshot of spreadsheet table and chart showing the estimated numbers of Chinese people inside & outside China in 2023

(The above is from a spreadsheet which contains source links. A PDF file (with working source links) for that spreadsheet can be downloaded here.)

Categories
Culture History Language Learning Science

tóngbèi yālì

tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩)
yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”. 📖 📄 📘 icons mean 📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and 📘 Reveal None re all the “flashcards” in the heading, paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]

At the time of this writing, jw.org was featuring a video with the following title, which includes this week’s MEotW, “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)”, in the Mandarin text:

English:

Stand Up to Peer Pressure!

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Xiàng (To向/曏/嚮) Tóngbèi (Tóng·bèi (from People of the) Same · Generation → [Peer] 同辈 同輩) Yālì (Yā·lì Pressing · Force → [Pressure] 压力 壓力) Shuō (Say說/説) (No 不)!

Morphemic Breakdown

In “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)”, “tóng (same; similar | {together [with]}; {in common}同/仝) means “same”, and “bèi (generation | lifetime | {people of a certain kind}; class) means “generation”. Additionally, in this context, we can consider it to be implied that the “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) effectively means “(from people of the) same generation”, or “peer”, used as an adjective.

As for the “yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)”, in this expression, “yā (press; {push/hold down} [→ [control; quell]]) means “pressing”, and “lì (power; strength; force [→ [ability]] | forcefully 力) means “force”. So, “yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力) here effectively means “pressure”, and thus “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力) effectively means “peer pressure”.

As mentioned in the MEotW post on “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war; warfare] 战争 戰爭), Satan and his underlings undoubtedly continue to view peer pressure as a highly effective spiritual weapon of mass destruction for them.

Should We Fear the Dead?

What do dead people have to do with peer pressure? As ones educated in Bible truth, we know that the dead are not conscious, so they can no longer affect those of us who are living, right? (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) Well, they can if we let them, as illuminated by this English saying:

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.

Yes, while many may assume that peer pressure is mainly just a problem that affects young people who have not yet come into their own as individuals with their own minds and hearts, the truth is that people of all ages who follow traditions handed down from those who came before us are going along with peer pressure from these dead people—they all did x so we also do x. Sometimes, such following of tradition can be good, just as some peer pressure can be positive. However, just as peer pressure to smoke, to take drugs, to engage in nationalistic, immoral, or false religious practices, etc. is bad, some traditions can be bad too.

Peer Pressure and Chinese Characters

Since Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used writing system, lots and lots of tradition has accumulated around them, that is, lots and lots of peer pressure from lots and lots of dead people. However, even with this exceptional weight of tradition, is there any more reason to go along with the traditions associated with characters than there is to go along with any other traditions or peer pressure from imperfect humans in Satan’s world? No! For example, the exceptional weight of tradition involving Christmas, so beloved and celebrated by so many for so long, does not make it any less problematic for God’s true people.

汉字 / 漢字? Pīnyīn?

Regarding characters and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), after decades of learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field and several years of research into how first principles of linguistics apply to such learning, the advice I now give is: Use the simple, elegant Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) system when you can, and just use the unnecessarily extraordinarily complex characters when you have to.

That advice may be contrary to the traditional consensus of thousands of years’ worth of dead people, as well as that of most living people, but as Jesus taught us, the wide road can lead to a bad place, and the narrow road can be the one that leads to a good place. To walk such a narrow road when most are on the corresponding wide road, we need to overcome peer pressure, whether it comes from the living or it comes from the dead in the form of tradition.—Matthew 7:13, 14.

Categories
Culture Technology Theocratic

bǐyù xìng de zhànzhēng

bǐyù (bǐ·yù comparing · {explaining → [analogy; metaphor; simile]} [→ [illustration]] 比喻)
xìng (nature 性)
de (’s 的)
zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war; warfare] 战争 戰爭) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

After reading last week’s MEotW post on “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war; warfare] 战争 戰爭), one reader sent me an email with some informed and expert input. I especially appreciated the power-user searching example that he shared.

Supercharging WOL Searching

One of the suggestions that this user made was that when looking for official Mandarin translations for an English expression, it can be better to search for the English expression and then use the Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY’s (WOL’s) Synchronization feature to see what Mandarin translations turn up, rather than to search for specific possible Mandarin expressions that may or may not be used to translate that English expression.

Looking back at the browser tabs I had opened during my research for the MEotW post on “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war; warfare] 战争 戰爭), I noticed that I did try searching for “spiritual war” and comparing any English results with their corresponding Mandarin translations, which is how I found the May 2018 Watchtower example. However, the reader’s email provided an example that improves upon the simple search string “spiritual war” by using search operators, which include logical operators, wildcards, etc.

I tried looking up related information in jw.org’s Help section, but their section on using the Search feature doesn’t mention such search operators. I was, though, able to find a JWTalk forum post on WOL search operators, in which someone shared the following information from the Watchtower Library program’s Help section:

*** wtlib-help section 4 ***
Search Operators

& And operation
+ And operation
Space As specified in the Search menu
| Or operation
/ Or operation
ˆ Exclusive Or operation
% Exclusive Or operation
! Not operation
&!, +! Not operation
&-, +- Not operation
&& Adjacent And operation
++ Adjacent And operation
"..." Searches for the phrase that is enclosed in quotes
* Represents one or more characters (including nothing)
? Represents one character in a word
#number Allows searching for words using their word ID number
\ Forces the following operator to be a literal character
(...) Allow for setting precedence

Examples:

Jesus & Christ
Finds all documents that contain both words within the specified scope.

Jesus | Christ
Finds all documents that contain either word.

Jesus && Christ
Finds all documents that contain the word Jesus followed by the word Christ.

"Jesus Christ"
Finds all documents that contain the exact phrase Jesus Christ.

Jesus ˆ Christ
Finds all documents that contain either word, but not where both words occur in the specified scope.

Christian*
Finds all documents that contain words that begin with “Christian” followed by any additional characters (words such as Christian, Christians, Christianity).

Organi?ation
Finds all documents that contain words with 12 letters, where the first 6 letters are “Organi” and the last 5 letters are “ation” (words such as Organization, Organisation).

Jesus | Christ & Jehovah
Finds all documents that contain either Jesus or Christ, and then further limits the results by finding only the documents in that group that also include Jehovah in the specified scope.

Jesus | (Christ & Jehovah)
Finds all documents that contain Christ and Jehovah in the specified scope. It then searches again for all documents that contain Jesus and adds them to the results.

Jesus ! Christ
Finds all documents that contain the word Jesus without the word Christ in the specified scope.

From testing so far, it seems that the WOL uses the same search operators that the Watchtower Library does, which makes sense, since the WOL was created to be the online version of the Watchtower Library.

Using this knowledge of the WOL’s search operators, I tried searching the WOL for “spiritual & (war | warfare)” (not including the quotation marks), which returns documents that contain both “spiritual” and “war”, or that contain both “spiritual” and “warfare”, with no restriction on which word occurs first.

Some Noteworthy Results

Did searching the WOL for “spiritual & (war | warfare)” point me to more results of note than searching for “spiritual war” did? Yes! Here are some of them that are more recent than the May 2018 Watchtower result that I had found when searching for “spiritual war”:

From the October 2022 Watchtower:

English:

In our spiritual warfare,

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Zài (at 在) gēn (with 跟) Sādàn (Satan 撒但) zuòzhàn (zuò·zhàn {engaging in} · {fighting (a war)} 作战 作戰) shí ({(particular) times}),

From the September 2020 Watchtower:

English:

That warfare was, not literal, but spiritual.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Bǎoluó (Paul 保罗 保羅) shuō ({was speaking of}說/説) de (’s 的) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [warfare] 战争 戰爭) bìng (actually並/竝/并) (not 不) shì (was 是) shíjì (shí·jì {being solid → [reality]} · {boundaries → [inside]} → [real] 实际 實際) de (’s 的) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [warfare] 战争 戰爭), …

From the Organized (od) book, © 2005, 2015, 2019:

English (November 2021 Printing):

This puts us at the battle lines of the spiritual warfare

Mandarin (December 2021 Printing):

📖 📄 📘 Yīncǐ (Yīn·cǐ {because of} · this 因此), wǒmen (wǒ·men we · [pl] 我们 我們) dōu (all 都) yào (must 要) (strike → [fight] 打) (one 一) chǎng ({large gathering place of} → [mw for recreational, sports, or other activities]場/塲) bǐyù (bǐ·yù comparing · {explaining → [analogy]} → [illustration] 比喻) xìng (nature 性) de (’s 的) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [warfare] 战争 戰爭).

Not Being Direct

One thing that sticks out about the above-mentioned search results is that these don’t seem to be direct translations, but rather, cases of translating around “spiritual war/warfare/…”, to get to the desired result. They seem like cases of “we don’t commonly say this expression directly in everyday Mandarin, so let’s express the meaning indirectly instead”. However, it would seem that “spiritual war” is not really in particularly common use in English either, but nevertheless, the organization does use this English expression. Maybe the original writers of the English material felt more free to exercise a sort of “creative licence” than the translators of the Mandarin material did (perhaps because of organizational hierarchy, culture, etc.), in using a particular fitting expression even if it’s not in common usage. Maybe these recent indirect Mandarin translations, which are all different from each other, are the results of the Mandarin translators feeling their way towards eventually coming up with a consistent direct translation of “spiritual war/warfare/…” that they can feel good about. I suppose time will tell.

Looking at the above-mentioned search results in more detail, “gēn (with 跟) Sādàn (Satan 撒但) zuòzhàn (zuò·zhàn {engaging in} · {fighting (a war)} 作战 作戰), when used in relation to us humans, implies warfare limited to that of a spiritual kind, since we humans have no means to actually injure, kill, or restrain Satan’s actual spirit body. However, Jesus and loyal angels do have such means, or can be given such means by Jehovah, so when they “gēn (with 跟) Sādàn (Satan 撒但) zuòzhàn (zuò·zhàn {engage in} · {fighting (a war)} 作战 作戰) in what we could call “spirit warfare” or “spirit realm warfare”, it’s different from the kind of spiritual warfare that we humans are limited to fighting against Satan, unless we humans are one day given fighting abilities like those of angels. (Daniel 10:12, 13, 20; Revelation 12:7–9; 20:1–3) However, with so many actual angels already in Jehovah’s service, there doesn’t seem to be any need or reason for Jehovah to ever do this. Anyway, what “gēn (with 跟) Sādàn (Satan 撒但) zuòzhàn (zuò·zhàn {engaging in} · {fighting (a war)} 作战 作戰) means will, strictly speaking, continue to be a superset of what “spiritual war/warfare/…” currently means for us humans, not a direct translation of it.

As for the result from the September 2020 Watchtower, it translated the “that warfare was, not literal,” part, and then it translated the “but spiritual” part by not translating it! (Well, computer programmers do say that the best code is the code that you don’t have to write.)

“Bǐyù (Bǐ·yù comparing · {explaining → [analogy]} → [illustration] 比喻) xìng (nature 性) de (’s 的) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [warfare] 战争 戰爭), this week’s MEotW, is a correct translation, as far as it goes, and close to being a direct translation, but since “bǐyù (bǐ·yù comparing · {explaining → [analogy; metaphor; simile]} [→ [illustration]] | compare · {explain → [draw an analogy]} [→ [illustrate]] 比喻) means “analogy” or “metaphor”, and since an analogy or a metaphor compares two things, something is still missing—the Bible uses physical warfare as an analogy or metaphor for x warfare, and sometimes it might be nice to be able to directly refer to that x.

Do We Need to Be Direct?

For now, it seems correct to say that “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war; warfare] 战争 戰爭) is the most recent official direct translation for “spiritual war/warfare/…” that can be found, for what that’s worth. Besides the May 2018 Watchtower example that I found, I have also found examples in the Mandarin Insight book, e.g. here, and this WOL page tells us that that publication is currently dated 2022.

Should we expect, though, that the Insight book is too big to keep completely updated with all the latest translation preferences? In a follow-up email, the reader mentioned above provided an example showing that even though revised printings of official publications do contain relatively minor revisions, they may leave in relatively major passages that really should also be corrected. This is undoubtedly because of time/manpower/etc. constraints. From my own efforts producing this blog, other Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resources, etc., I can certainly understand that even the official production teams may often be faced with simply not being able to do all the work that they wish they could do.

At the least, when the Mandarin NWT’s Appendix A2 explains why the revised Mandarin NWT doesn’t use “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) anymore, it says that “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) is hard to understand for many people, not that it is actually wrong or misleading like some other expressions are.

Of course, even if my analyses above are completely correct, it could also be that the organization will continue to be satisfied that indirectly translating “spiritual war” is good enough, or maybe even better, for native Mandarin speakers, and that it is not necessary to contort common Mandarin usage to come up with a new direct Mandarin translation for “spiritual war”. Again, time will tell, but this seems to be the approach that the organization’s Mandarin translators have been taking since about 2018.

As is probably becoming obvious, translating is hard, and doing it as well as possible is an ongoing process, as is monitoring and documenting some of the organization’s Mandarin translations, as this blog, the other Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resources, the Referenced Theo. Expressions (RTE) resource, etc. try to do.