Below is a verse from Jay Chou’s song 聽媽媽的話
Original:
聽媽媽的話
別讓她受傷
想快快長大
才能保護她
Translation 1 (Word for Word):
listen mom mom (possessive particle) words
don’t let her suffer hurt
want quick quick grow big
just can defend protect her
The word for word translation gives a meaning to each individual word but is choppy when looking at it as a whole. The repetition of the word mom in the word for word translation is not accurate because both 媽 and 媽媽 both have the same meaning of mom, however 媽媽 is more commonly used. 媽媽 was most likely used over 媽 to follow the 5 character per line pattern. The separation of certain characters throw off the translation. For example, 快 means fast/quick but 快快 means quickly. 保 and 護 have similar word for word translations, but just mean protect when put together. The same can be seen with 受傷.
Translation 2:
Listen to mother’s words
Don’t let her get hurt.
You want to grow up quickly
So you can take care of her.
This translation cleans up the repetition in the word for word translation. The translation is meant to have a more Western flow. I used the words “to” and “so,” something the Chinese language does not have a direct translation for, to help make the verse sound more collective. Like in the translations of Wang Wei, the inevitable I appears. It is quite difficult to translate without using I because many sentences in Chinese are spoken/written without a verb but is understood to be the speaker or the audience. With these given Chinese character, I feel like there are little ways to translate it because the lyrics are very straightforward and the phrases have singular meanings.
I think it’s interesting how you phrased the effects that your changes have on the poem, that they give it a more “Western flow.” I agree that adding those words like “so” really help to make that happen. I also get what you mean about how the characters are so straightforward that it limits the possibilities for translation. It’s a good way to explain it. I found this exercise surprisingly difficult for sort of the same reason; that it’s very hard to know whether or not I was staying true to the original text in my translation because I didn’t want to stray too far off base, but I still wanted to get the overall message across.
Hi Catherine,
I found your post very interesting since I took a semester of mandarin Chinese last spring. The way in which sentences are structured differ tremendously between the Chinese and english languages-more than any other two languages, in my opinion. This is something that I noticed right away and seeing it here further emphasizes my observation. I love the way in which you translated the text, you did a great job in adjusting it to the english language. Your inclusion of the words “to” and “so” enhanced the overall meaning of it by allowing the text to have a smoother flow. Great post!
Hi Catherine,
This song is awesome, I actually sang it for my mom for mother’s day a couple years back. I agree with everything that Lillian said about adding the western flow, but I just wanted to point out that in the context, for the first translation, “才” feels more like a “only then” than a “just”, so the last line would be:
only then can defend protect her
Which is still better translated in your second iteration, but I think the “only then” definition of the word applies better here.