Question Why are cultivation novels so Flowery?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Twilight Fox, Sep 19, 2017.

?

Does almoat every cultivation novel you read sound like a Cryptographer dying in his sleep?

  1. Yes, I hate it when novels do that.

    28.6%
  2. Yes, but it's more like shakespeare getting gangbanged as you said.

    54.8%
  3. No, I am blind to the faults of my favorite fictions

    11.9%
  4. No, but I still like the idea of shakespeare getting it up the ass from SAO

    33.3%
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  1. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    Plus a lot of it actually sounds pretty good in Chinese. It must be a pain to make it sound halfway decent in English though.
     
    mir likes this.
  2. SummerX

    SummerX Well-known fujoshi

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    Words like this don't sound flowery in Chinese at all.....
    This one is pretty rude and not prettied up.
     
  3. lnv

    lnv ✪ Well-Known Hypocrite

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    No it would not. It would be a lot easier without idoms. They spend like 50 words just saying "I'll beat you up"
     
  4. Wing0

    Wing0 Well-Known Member

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    flowery words, means more words, means more money...
    ...because word count means money counted !
     
  5. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    Then why is the same kind of language used in works where the word count doesn't matter? Historical paper novels are almost indistinguishable from their web novel counterparts and TV shows will have very similar dialogue. Hell, Gu Long was hard up for money, and he was paid by the word (actually by the column), and he developed a different style because it paid better!
     
  6. pinkrainmi

    pinkrainmi Well-Known Member

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    I second that! Watching historical Chinese (and Korean) dramas will make your head spin if you don't understand basic Chinese to begin with, but people fluent in the language will pick up the style more quickly.

    A comment on idioms - the Chinese language/culture itself just uses idioms/figurative language more. And what can be easily understood in Chinese may be hard to translate to English just plainly because English language/culture doesn't have that "style". I don't think idioms like that are very flowery.

    Just like there are words in English that if you understand the subtle meaning behind it, it's an easy word. But if you had to explain the meaning (and difference between other similar, but different words), it would take a couple words to explain. Basically mostly another translation thing.

    A comment on word count - I think it may be a mix of possibilities - increasing word count for money reasons and increasing word count to make up for poor writing skills. OR the author just feels like describing the same scene/information/conclusion in 2-4 different ways...right after each other :blob_coughblood: (overdosing on the repetition)
     
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  7. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    I think this is the main crux of the complaint. Ye olde Chinese expressions don't translate very cleanly into English so translations can read awkward or confusing. While translators shouldn't get the blame for this, it's equally misplaced to think that the original author is somehow at fault. I'm not a translator, but my English is halfway decent and there are a ton of Chinese expressions that I can't think of an elegant way to convey.

    I'll also admit this is one of the three main reasons I don't read translated Chinese novels.
     
  8. pinkrainmi

    pinkrainmi Well-Known Member

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    While there are certaintly awkwardly translated novels, many are done well if the translater themselves have an excellent grasp of English (simialrly for editor).

    To me, the occasional unfamilar/flowery idiom or description that seems odd is fine to me - as long as the novel isn't mostly purple prose. It's ironic because there's another thread about favorite idioms that show up in novels in the same Novels General section :blobpats:.
     
  9. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    John Minford translated "the Dream of the Red Chamber" so he definitely counts as a professional. But his translation of "the Deer and the Cauldron" was terrible, so I don't think it's quite enough. And when I come across a clever turn of phrase in Chinese, I know that it can only aspire to sound adequate in English.

    I can easily see the same idiom show up in both threads!
     
  10. akki

    akki [Ani's C☕ffee-mate #3] [Shady Merchant]

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    If you wanna know why you should ask the writers and not the readers~
     
  11. pinkrainmi

    pinkrainmi Well-Known Member

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    Hence the irony :cookie:
     
  12. Yemallis

    Yemallis Well-Known Member

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    Some authors really do go all in with descriptions, but western authors do that too it's not something new.

    Toad trying to eat swan meat however is just a Chinese idiom there's nothing especially flowery about it. We have tons of idioms in English that probably sound weird to foreigners. Just look at this and think about it http://www.smart-words.org/quotes-sayings/idioms-meaning.html
     
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  13. _Selutu_

    _Selutu_ 灭世魔尊

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    Err... No. I'll give you an example. "Toad wanting to eat swan meat" is translated from 癞蛤蟆想吃天鹅肉, which is 8 characters.. If you were to write it out without an idiom, it would be 你这个屌丝竟然妄想高攀上她, which is 13 characters.
     
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  14. Wing0

    Wing0 Well-Known Member

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    I repeat what I said, "(more) word count means (more) money counted".
    This applies to novels, TV shows, and every other form of literature. (except word limited literature works, like Haiku)

    more words written for a novel = more pages = larger novel = more money
    more words said in a TV show = more episodes = larger show/series = more money
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2017
  15. KnightN00

    KnightN00 A single dog cultivator of LNMTL sect

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    What a wonderful me, i vote the choice that have Shakespeare getting gang bang, perharp i hate him for making English too hard
     
  16. mir

    mir Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I can confirm that part. I have family who have English as their second language who say that the idioms are the hardest to get used to, since they don't know/understand many of them even after speaking english fluently for many years.
    I know that they struggle with them because I often get enlisted to explain them, since english is my first language.
     
  17. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, one of the points of using idioms to begin with is to condense information into smaller chunks. There's a reason that they exist in just about every language. Chinese language and culture are more historically focused, and that's why idioms are more commonly encountered.
     
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