I know what 明明 means and I can use it fine in Chinese, but when I was translating it into English I didn't really like the way it sounded. In the dictionary, it says "clearly", "obviously", "undoubtedly", etc. Here's some examples + the way I translated it: 明明是他先來招惹我的，最後卻和別的女子互許終生. > Clearly it was him who came to provoke me first, but in the end he promised his life to another woman. 做什麼癡心妄想，自己這副嬌弱的身子還想著嫁人，明明決定了一輩子就陪著父皇母後的，怎麼就被梁邵迷了眼了呢？> She clearly decided to stay with her father emperor and empress mother for a lifetime, how did she get misled by Liang Shao? Anyways, something about it just doesn't sound the way I would mean it when I use it in Chinese. So, how do you guys translate it?
Oops, here's simplified: 明明是他先来招惹我的，最后却和别的女子互许终生. > Clearly it was him who came to provoke me first, but in the end he promised his life to another woman. 做什么痴心妄想，自己这副娇弱的身子还想着嫁人，明明决定了一辈子就陪着父皇母后的，怎么就被梁邵迷了眼了呢？ > She clearly decided to stay with her father emperor and empress mother for a lifetime, how did she get misled by Liang Shao? I have the source switched to traditional and forgot to change it to simplified before copy/pasting
Yeah, I feel like clearly works the best. I get how it might feel a bit awkward, but I don't think there's a better substitute. Maybe instead of changing the translation for 明明, rearrange the sentence a bit? Like maybe try "Clearly he was the one to provoke me first..." for the first one? I also feel like adding a "had" might help the second one, to differentiate between the past and the present since it seems to all be written in past tense: "She had clearly decided to stay..." But honestly yeah I feel like your translation works just fine.
It's one of those filler throw away words used for emphasis... Ditto for using past perfect in the second sentence. I'd probably use clearly in one sentence, obviously in another and kinda switch synonyms around based on the general feel about the whole sentence. I'd probably also stray from the original sentence structure. Like: It was obviously him who provoked me first, but he promised his life to another woman in the end. I might change 'promised his life' to something else depending on context. Like: he ended up marrying another woman. I get the intention, but it sounds weird to me. But if I saw the sentence in a novel, I wouldn't even blink and think about it, I'll just get it. So it's up to preference. As long as it's not literal MTL, it's all good.
I feel like if you want to translate it into a smooth sounding english sentence, you sometimes give up words which might be superfluous or out of place. My take on the two sentences translated into nice-sounding english: He eventually promised his life to another woman although he provoked me at first. How did she get misled by Liang Shao after she had decided to stay with the emperor and empress for the rest of her life? edit: I don't think 明明 needs to really be emphasized in either sentence after translation, but your translation does not lose any meaning
None of what you wrote is wrong technically, it's just when you see how it's used specifically in each sentence, and emulate that, it makes a sentence that much better. 1) Personally, I don't think I would choose to use a specific word here. It's emphasis on the fact that he did something to her, so I'd go with "He provoked me! ...Then went and promised himself to some other woman." Up to you if bold italics are overkill, but the word's not all that necessary here when there are other ways that don't up word count. 2) Here it's emphasizing her decision, so I'd use certain words to affirm her decision to do something. "She was so firm in her decision to stay with her father and mother for a lifetime... How did she (allow herself to) get misled by Liang Shao?"
I would use Cleary for 1 and undoubtedly for 2 ( she undoubtedly planned) as the word has more than one meaning I would use the interpretation that feels the most natural in each instance.
Hmmm depending on the sentence I might use clearly, obviously, undoubtedly, definitely, certainly, plainly. My choices would probably be: 1. He was clearly the one who... (from the sentence though, I'd think you might want to reconsider the use of provoke. then again, it really depends on context, and without knowing the full story, I can only guess based on your sentence but somehow provoke seems weird to me.) 2. She had already/plainly decide... / there was no doubt that she had decided... Just my two crappy cents! And I agree with the other comments you might sometimes need to drop certain words or rephrase the sentence. TBH tho, I think your lines are pretty much fine!
Thanks, everyone! Since I'm just starting to translate I wasn't really sure about how close I should stick to the original, but I'm glad to see there's a lot of different ways to do things Also thanks for the advice about how to make the sentence flow better!