Just my observation, and curious about others opinion

I've being reading novels nonstop for a while, but I don't know why I can't get into "Chinese" novels...

I'm not a native English speaker, and I have noticed that it's got something to do with either the "rhythm" or the "tone" of the translations, but whenever I try to read a Chinese novel, I feel iffy on the translation, it's not that it's particularly "bad" heck I've read "machine translated" Japanese novels, but there is something in Chinese novels that makes me feel weird...

It's this feeling where the "phrasing" isn't quite right or like there is something missing on the scene... or something just doesn't connect with my understanding of how the language works, I thought at first it was the naming sense but I've read Korean novels where the characters have similarly "foreign" names (like xi, shu or choi) and I can read those just fine... anyone else got this problem?, how do you handle it?

I think it's got something to do with the language structure, I understand the structure of Japanese fine so I can correct stuff on the go when I'm reading a Japanese novel, I'm not familiar with Korean but I guess it's similar to other structures because it just "clicks", but with Chinese I draw a complete blank... so to correct this I was thinking on trying to watch a chinese series with subtitles, anyone got recommendations?

thank you for your time!

 

There's tons of proverbs being used in Chinese novels and they can't be translated literally unless they give a TL note. Coughing blood, giving face, seeing Mt Tai etc.

p.s. more often than not kr and jp novels are based around fantasy/gaming/systems and Chinese novels tend to incorporate a lot of philosophy or religious details, like the chakra points or Qi etc. It's all based on existing culture so it's hard to get into at first. I've seen novels use so many different terms for Foundation or Golden core stage for instance.
Immortal, undying, undead. Just imagine the different ways of perceiving a translation based on a single choice for translation.

(as a side-note, maybe the closed-offness of China and their strict indoctrination has kept their culture relatively authentic, whereas countries like Japan have globalized and changed to meet certain understanding with other regions. I'd guess that ancient japanese literature being translated would also end up being that awkward unless done by an expert.)

 

Its the world fill.

Try avoiding xiaxia and go for more normal written novels like say release that witch

 

Try 'The Legend of Sun Knight'

 

I myself have the opposite problem, I grew up watching the wuxia drama adaptions. But if you ever want to watch a series with English subtitles, may I suggest Joy of Life, this is only the first season, of course, this drama is adapted from a novel of the same name by mao ni, it is quite interesting, and a lot of people liked it. We are looking forward to the 2nd and 3rd seasons.

The novel translation is completed.

 

I've noticed that, but I believe it's gotta be more about how the translation works with the world around the character because I've read chinese manhua and I don't have a problem with those... my native language is Spanish specifically Mexican Spanish, so we also have a shit ton of idioms and I understand most of them even if I haven't heard them before because of this.

Added to my reading list, thanks for the suggestion, skimming the first chapter seems like my problem's got to do with the "world fill" as you put it because I don't have that iffy feeling on this one hehe

Thanks for the suggestion, added to my reading list too.

Thank you! will watch and read.

 

i found douluo dalu rather eays/fun to read since the author keeps things in proportion no serveral 1000 chapters filled with pointless details and repetitions just to keep the story alive (or undead at times while a clean death would have been better for all but perhaps the authors bank account - but getting the fame of writing boring drawn out stories shouldnt been good in the long run too)

 

If you ever wondered wtf they are talking about in Xianxia then you should read this and it'll all be clear in no time.

https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/glossary/wuxia-xianxia-xuanhuan-terms/

 

Thank you! this will definitely help me understand better the structure of the "world" up until now that other people mentioned it, I hadn't realized that most novels I've tried to read were "Xiaxia", perfect glossary for beginners!

 

It makes a lot of sense to not really click with translated Chinese. The biggest reason for this is that there are a lot of Chinese concepts and phrase that have no English equivalents and because translators will often translate the words being used rather than the meaning.

Here's an example: people will be referred to as having no "底线". A common translation for this is "bottom line"; which is what those words are. However, a bottom line in English is how much a thing costs with all of the different factors added up. Trying to attribute that to a person just doesn't make any sense. So what does "底线" actually mean? It means that that person doesn't have any limits; usually it's based on context, but not always. And the thing is, in some books you can expect this kind of translation challenge every single page. Literally translated Chinese is pretty unreadable.

So you're really at the mercy of the skill of the translator and his ability to articulate ideas in English. Interestingly, the sentence structure between English and Chinese is pretty similar. The main difference is that there's no conjugation in Chinese so the translator has to work a bit harder to ensure that all the sentences are in agreement.

 

That's exactly one of the examples that left me wondering what the "real" meaning behind the phrasing was, I accurately thought about "no bottom" (thinking literally) or "no limit" (going by what felt right) being bilingual helps because I have to do that when thinking in english vs spanish, but it really does pull you out of the story when you're trying to read a novel and at the same time fathom the meaning behind the translation, it's like trying to understand how a monster looks when the person explaining it to you has only seen it's shadow, I feel like my problem stems from the fact that I have had very little interaction with Chinese works and I tried to jump right into a Xiaxia novel with no previous understanding on the language or the mythos...

I guess I just need to read more and get used to the common sense little by little... no way around it really... good thing the replies to this post sent me into a good path to better understand this works! I'm super grateful for everyone's help.

 

It is an easy one and you can understand it based on the context. Having "no bottom line" means that a person is ready to do anything, no matter how amoral or "lowly" (this is why the line is bottom), to achieve his goals. In most cases, the best translation would be "unscrupulous" and its synonyms. There is also a similar idiom in English - being at the bottom of the barrel.

IDK, many people read google translated works, I probably completed tens of them. Chinese is the easiest language for machine translation by far, it has very simple syntaxis, you just need to translate words, unlike Japanese or Korean. Japanese is bearable, but Korean is almost unreadable. Cultivation novels usually all use similar metaphors and idioms, so you will get used to it very fast unless you try to reinvent the wheel as some translators do.

 

Well... on your first comment I think we came to a different understanding regarding the meaning because it becomes incredibly dependant on context, the literal phrasing I had encountered was (paraphrasing) "his power had no bottom line" which would be more in line with "he had no limits to his power" which has nothing to do with "intention" or "morals" but simply a characteristic of his own perceived "power"

And regarding your second comment, I agree to an extent, even in the novel I'm currently reading (Release that witch) there were references made to the common sense of other chinese works like Xiaxia, things that I definitely would have to disregard if I hadn't read the glossary provided previously, I think it's, as you said, a need to get used to the idioms and metaphors... even now the only reason why I know what you mean by using the term "Cultivation novels" I would be confused if I hadn't read that glossary beforehand.

 

The most common translation would actually be "ruthless", but it can also be "reckless" or lots of other things depending on context. But "no limits" would be the accurate one. And yes, you can figure it out even if it's mistranslated, but the thing is that it takes the reader out of the reading experience and that's exactly why reading it can feel unnatural.

Regular Chinese is pretty easy to figure out but the thing about translations is that they have to confer more than just information. They have to be readable as well, and poorly translated Chinese isn't. The difference between Chinese and languages like Korean or Japanese is that those languages use a different grammatical structure so you can't just translate the words and expect it to make any sense. You sort of can do that with regular Chinese so it's easier for a translator to cut corners.

Of course, if you tried to MTL ye olde Chinese it'll just drive you crazy.

 

The thing about "Japanese" specifically "why" for me at least is much easier to understand, I believe is because there are no adjectives or plurals on their words, IE: "Ikimasu" doesn't just mean "to go" but also "they go, we go, she goes, he goes... etc" so the translation even if the syntax is all fusked up, you can "infer" the meaning behind the word because of the context... which in a "bad translation" can be much easier to understand, speaking about literal translations or machine translations with a bit of editing (just translate and re arrange the phrasing) you can infer the sentiment behind how something is said, I know that the Kanji used in Japanese is much harder to discern their particular meaning but in regular novels it isn't that overused.

In chinese... not so much "Bottom line" could mean a plethora of different things within different contexts... which yes as explained before pulls you out of the story...

Reminds me of the particular difference between Mexican Spanish and Argentinian Spanish, we both use the same words that have very similar roots and meanings but are used in entirely different context, my favourite example is "Frutilla" in Mexico, it would mean "Little fruit" with no added adjective, you could refer to any small fruit with this word, in Argentina, "Frutilla" is a strawberry... which in Mexico is called a "Fresa", this is just an example, I've tried to hold conversations with argentinians but we might as well be talking completely different languages, heck I understand portuguese better than argentinians.

 

Here's the thing, my main language is English and I read books in Chinese. Even so, I constantly come across a ton of phrases in Chinese that I have no problems understanding but that I still have a hard time trying to render them into English. Usually it's because the Chinese phrase is using some sort of cultural or historical reference, but a lot of the time it's just that it's talking about concepts that don't have any English language equivalents. Interestingly, the same used to be true the other way round as well. But back in the 19th century China created a number of terms to express concepts that had been foreign to them; words like "democracy" and "science" (a lot of these were actually borrowed from the Japanese who did the same thing). The end result is that English translates pretty smoothly into Chinese.

 

I've noticed that, but I believe it's gotta be more about how the translation works with the world around the character because I've read chinese manhua and I don't have a problem with those..