Tag: Translation

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Culture Language Learning

fēicháng

fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

“Fēicháng (Fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” was probably one of the first words you learned as a Mandarin field language learner. In fact, one of the first things your Mandarin instructor may have said to you in Mandarin may have been “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usually → [very] 非常) hǎo (good 好)!”, if you had just said something well in Mandarin. So, having learned that “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” means “very”, you may have been confused when seeing how “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” is used in the Mandarin New World Translation Bible at 2 Timothy 3:1:

2 Timothy 3:1 (WOL CHS+Pinyin)

“Fēicháng shíqī ((Fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常) (shí·qī {(particular) times} · periods 时期 時期) → [times of emergency])”? The corresponding term that the English NWT Bible uses in this scripture is “critical times”, but this Mandarin translation seems to mean “very times”, which doesn’t make sense. What’s going on here?

Breaking It Down

While especially as our Mandarin learning journeys begin we may want to keep things simple and mentally just have the view that this Mandarin word means that English word, eventually we encounter the more complex reality that Mandarin and English are two very different languages that come from different cultures, and that have different techniques and histories relating to how speech sounds are put together to convey meanings.

To help us get a grip on this sometimes messy reality, let us remember that while phrases and sentences can be broken down into words, words can in turn be broken down into morphemes. This excerpt from the introduction of a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resource briefly discusses Mandarin morphemes and how they are handled in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material:

As far as is practical, the meaning of each individual Mandarin morpheme (smallest unit of language sound with meaning) is translated literally according to how it is used in the context in which it appears. (In Mandarin, morphemes usually correspond with syllables, but some syllables are sound-only (without meaning) and thus not morphemes, and some morphemes have more than one syllable.)

The morphemes in “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常) ” are:

  • “fēi (not; no; non[-]; un[-]; in[-] 非)”
  • “cháng (ordinary; common; normal | constant; invariable | often; usually; frequently 常)”

Putting It Together

So, while “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” as a whole word is often used to effectively mean “very”, a look at the literal meanings of the morphemes that make it up helps us to understand that it actually literally means “unusually” or “uncommonly” when it is used to effectively mean “very”. In the context of 1 Timothy 3:1, “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常)” is used as an adjective meaning “unordinary” or “uncommon”, and it is put together with “shíqī (shí·qī {(particular) times} · periods 时期 時期)” to make up “fēicháng shíqī ((fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常) (shí·qī {(particular) times} · periods 时期 時期) → [times of emergency])”, an expression that is used to effectively mean “times of emergency”.

Plus

The curious case of “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” in 1 Timothy 3:1 illustrates some of the advantages of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material (which you may have noticed is used in this blog) compared to older generations of Mandarin language-learning material, such as 3-line material.

In 3-line material, which was originally designed for paper printouts, all the English information was always visible, and it had to be practical to print out and use on paper. So, there was no room to show luxuriously long amounts of information like literal meanings in addition to effective meanings. In contrast, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material takes advantage of the dynamic displays of modern smartphones, tablets, etc. to put the English information (and other information too) in “flashcards” that can be hidden from view when they’re not needed. (Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) word/expression to reveal its “flashcard”, tap/click on a “flashcard” to hide it.) Thus, there is room for more and richer information—as Doctor Who fans would say, “I thought it’d be cleaner it’s bigger on the inside/smaller on the outside”!

The “dimensional transcendentalness” and flexibility of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material also make it possible for it to render compound expressions such as “fēicháng shíqī ((fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常) (shí·qī {(particular) time} · period 时期 時期) → [time of emergency])”, which I believe no one was crazy enough to even attempt with 3-line material.

A list of the currently available Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resources can be found at tiandi.info/pyp.

Categories
Theocratic

zuìxìng

zuìxìng (zuì·xìng sinful · nature 罪性) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Appendix A2 of the English New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), entitled “Features of This Revision”, discusses vocabulary changes that have been made in the current revision, words that have been translated differently than before. As noted in various entries in the excellent resource Referenced Theo. Expressions (RTE), Appendix A2 of the current Mandarin version of the New World Translation Bible (nwtsty) correspondingly discusses words that have been translated differently in the current revision of the Mandarin NWT Bible, compared to how they had been translated before.

Since we base what we say in Jehovah’s service on his Word the Bible, the vocabulary used in it—and the way those vocabulary words are translated—should be reflected in how we speak in our ministry, at our meetings, etc. So, it is beneficial for us Mandarin field language learners to be familiar with the latest thinking from the organization on how Bible terms should be translated into Mandarin.

Referring to “Flesh” in Mandarin

For a long time, we in the Mandarin field had been using the Mandarin word “ròutǐ (ròu·tǐ {(of) flesh} · body (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “ròutǐ” to “shìsú”, “zuìxìng”, etc.) 肉体 肉體)” to correspond with the English word “flesh”. However, Appendix A2 of the current Mandarin version of the New World Translation Bible (nwtsty) points out that not only can the word “ròutǐ (ròu·tǐ {(of) flesh} · body (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “ròutǐ” to “shìsú”, “zuìxìng”, etc.) 肉体 肉體)” be hard to understand, it can also make people think a scripture is exclusively referring to things related to sexual desires. So, the current revision of the Mandarin NWT Bible (nwtsty) instead uses expressions with clearer meanings, with the context determining which expression is used.

One example that the appendix provides is that Galatians 5:19 (Mandarin NWT (nwtsty)) now uses “zuìxìng (zuì·xìng sinful · nature 罪性)”, this week’s MEotW, instead of “ròutǐ (ròu·tǐ {(of) flesh} · body (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “ròutǐ” to “shìsú”, “zuìxìng”, etc.) 肉体 肉體)”:

Galatians 5:19 (WOL CHS+Pinyin Parallel Translations)

Appendix A2 of the current Mandarin version of the New World Translation Bible (nwtsty) explains that the new translation uses “zuìxìng (zuì·xìng sinful · nature 罪性)” instead of “ròutǐ (ròu·tǐ {(of) flesh} · body (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “ròutǐ” to “shìsú”, “zuìxìng”, etc.) 肉体 肉體)” here because the “works” that are listed afterwards are not only sins involving sex. Rather, other kinds of bad conduct are also listed, which come from the imperfect tendencies of humans, sinful human nature.—Galatians 5:19 (English NWT (nwtsty)).

Categories
Culture Theocratic

zìzhì

zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The ninth and final part of the fruitage of the spirit listed is self-control.— Jiālātàishū (Jiālātài·shū Galatia · Book → [Galatians] 加拉太书 加拉太書) 5:22, 23.

Galatians 5:22, 23 (WOL nwtsty-CHS+Pinyin)

The English word “self-control” is translated into Mandarin in the above scripture as “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)”, this week’s MEotW.

Literally a Verb, Effectively a Noun

Note that in “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)”, “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” is effectively used to mean the noun “control”, even though in this context its literal meaning is actually the verb “controlling”. This seems to be a case of “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” acting as a verbal noun, or gerundial noun. Verbal/gerundial nouns were discussed in the MEotW post on “jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teaching · {guiding [→ [instructing]]} 教导 教導)”:

One interesting thing to note about “jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teaching · {guiding [→ [instructing]]} 教导 教導)” (and about “jiàoxun (teaching → [reprimanding | knowledge gained from an error] 教训 教訓)”, for that matter) is that their component morphemes seem to basically be verbs. In certain contexts, however, they are used as nouns. An example of this being done in English is that “teach” and “teaching” are verbs (e.g. “Jesus was teaching the crowd.”), but in certain contexts, “teaching” is used as a noun (e.g. “The crowd was amazed at the teaching Jesus shared with them.”). When a word is used this way, it’s called a verbal noun, or a gerundial noun. Verbal nouns are quite common in Mandarin.

Over-Simplified But Still Extaordinarily Complex?

The character “制”, used to write the “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” in “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)” in both simplfied and traditional characters, is an interesting example of the different compromises involved in those two different writing systems.

If one looks up the simplified character “制” in a dictionary, one may see possible meanings as varied as “restrict; control; govern”, and “make; manufacture”. It turns out that this is because the simplified character “制” can correspond to the traditional character “制”, which can mean “restrict; control; govern”, and it can also correspond to the traditional character “製”, which means “make; manufacture”.

While using the single simplified character “制” to correspond to both “制” and “製” results in not requiring people to learn and remember the relatively complex traditional character “製”, it also results in the simplified character “制” getting “overloaded” (a term that’s used in computer programming) with multiple meanings, which in turn can result in greater ambiguity. At the same time, the simplified character “制” is still a character—it’s still significantly more complex and hard to learn and remember than an alphabetic represention would be. In comparison, the traditional characters “制” and “製” offer reduced ambiguity and can perhaps be said to work better as characters, but at the obvious cost of even greater complexity.

Too Many Words That Sound the Same?

Those invested in characters may point out that even simplified characters are often less ambiguous than Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which renders “制”, “製”, and also every other character pronounced “zhì” as just “zhì”. The great advantage of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), though, is its elegant simplicity and significantly greater ease of learning and remembering compared to any character writing system.

It is indeed unfortunate that Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) has inherited a spoken Mandarin language that has come to have many homophones in it, probably from centuries of inappropriate cultural reliance on characters that are seen to disambiguate speech that is heard, instead of just making sure that the speech itself is not riddled with homophones. Even so, the truth is that today homophones are no more a problem in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) than they are in spoken Mandarin, which people speak to each other all the time without having problems with homophones. How do Mandarin speech and the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) that simply and directly represents it accomplish this? “Content is king, but context is God.”

(For a more in-depth discussion about homophones in Mandarin and whether they really make Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) unworkable as a writing system for Mandarin, see the subheading “But There Are So Many Words That Sound the Same!” in the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A”.)