Chinese Words Translated WRONG?
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- Опубліковано 14 чер 2024
- 📍TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 || 请/please
1:17 || 笑/smile or laugh
2:06 || 字/word or character
2:53 || 对不起/sorry
3:39 || 青春/youth
4:50 || 幸福/happiness, wellbeing, blessing
5:42 || 佩服/esteem or admire
6:22 || 温柔/gentle
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I always see Qing used in animes to politely dare someone. "be my guest, I Will break your legs"
You mean Chinese dubbed anime?
@@phambinhan17 Dubbed? nah, subbed only, Im trying to slowly learn, and well, I love chinese voice acting
@@sesinhosantos5047 You do? As a China born Chinese, I consider Chinese voice acting to be one of the worst😂. Neither could most of them grasp how to put in the right emotion in the right spot nor could they make good enough cute or handsome voice as Japanese voice actors. Though I don’t know if it’s just me or is it fact, since there are definitely Chinese out there who doesn’t mind those voices. Maybe it’s because that I grew up listening to Japanese voice acting, and in comparison to the Chinese counterparts the way they act are just different.
@@zhanlin6179 I mean, I know there are differences in anime vs real life drama, there are differences between period and contemporary, and contemporary and actual chinese real life.
But Anime voice acting is good, it definetly has more than the Japanese. But I agree that once you start knowing the usual voices you notice that they are pretty much doing the same thing every time. Still, i have been hearing the same voice actors in my native language for like 25 or more years some of them. For Japanese I grew tired of 20 years of random shouting and high pitch screaming. I have only experienced chinese voice acting for 3 years, I am enjoying it.
It kind of have the context of en garde, such as prepare to attack, or it can still translate to please in this context, as in "please attack" in a polite manner of speaking. Or, it can be used as a humble invitation, such as "please attack (so you can teach me)" but it really varies in context. But using "qing" by itself leaves that interpretation up to the user and to the person it's said to. "Qing" can even be used to welcome someone in, similar to saying "Welcome, please come in", again, it's all contextual.
I love how the example for拜托 is followed by 请让我 in the same clip.
In fact, the first 拜托 could easily be substituted with 請 it would sound fine (although not as strong a plead but still valid).
拜托 often has a hint of irony or accusation, which 請 does not deliver as effectively (still possible with the right intonation).
Great find! 😂
I’d love a video about 不好意思 cuz it is definitely more complex than just “excuse me”.
不好意思 to mean 'sorry' is a calque from Cantonese. When I lived in China in the '80s it meant 'embarrassed' in Mandarin.
This is something like "the meaning was bad", "it went wrong"
不好意思 is translated to that?? That’s really weird…
we use 不好意思 to show sorry, for example, breaking something, making things messy, letting people waiting long, disturbing someone, etc. 'excuse me' often means you have to interrupt what people are doing, so we use 不好意思 for 'excuse me'
I also note 爱好, which is translated as "hobby" but is also a verb in Chinese, and you can 爱好 things in Chinese that are not considered hobbies in English.
Chinese here, personally I think a better translation of 爱好 should be "preference"，which indicates that you have special feeling towards something, it can be an action/activity/hobby or even a person. A classic joke is used when Chinese introduce ourself is 性别男，爱好女，which means "I am a male and I love female/ am interested in females"
Yeah! As you can assume from the pronunciation that 爱好 is originally a verb, since 好 in 4th tone is a verb and in 3rd tone is an adjective. So 爱好 originally means "to love, to like", and derives a noun meaning "sth you like (to do)", which is translated as "hobby".
That's what youth used to mean in English. It's not an incorrect translation, just an archaic one. Also we have a phrase from Shakespeare, "salad days" (apparently this is a riff off being "green") which refers to this period of youth and exploration.
Youth is sometimes used by governments or non profits exactly as you explained as a softer sounding synonym for "minor", but "young" is frequently used in the names of interest groups for people up to 30 or 35. There were a lot of jokes made about Republicans who allow "young Republicans" up to age 40 or refer to stuff they did at age 40 as "youthful indiscretions".
I really appreciate your efforts making these videos and I must say I've noticed a lot of these archaic glosses specifically with Chinese and English and sadly I think it's because China was a closed country for decades and the number of Westerners proficient in Mandarin was very low at the time so the influence of pre WWII scholarship still looms large. Americans even refused to use pinyin until around 2000.
I was just learning some of these words/characters and although I’m very new to Chinese, I’ve started to notice the fact that i can’t just plug them into sentences the way i think English would work. So this video helped a lot! These kinds of misunderstandings of usage are quite the hurdle to all language learning along with idioms and slang, but Chinese is on a whole ‘nother level, but that’s part of the fun.
"Admire" doesn't mean that you necessarily want to be like them.
But it's probably the closest single word for the meaning the Chinese phrase is trying to express.
@@cmaven4762 Sure, but that wasn't my point at all.
Anybody who has spent any time studying any foreign language, soon realises that it's rare that there is a word in each language that has a one-to-one relationship with your own.
Youth as in "don't waste your youth" extends into one's 20s, maybe even 30s, in English as well. But "youth" as a noun to refer to a person, like "the two youths," is definitely student age.
Yeah, but in Chinese, 青春 is a time period, can't be used to refer a type of person, instead, we'll use another word 青年
Sono un boomer italiano che si interessa di linguistica. volevo farti i miei più vivi complimenti per il tuo lavoro in questo canale. Non avrei mai creduto che una persona così giovane si interessasse attivamente della bellezza della lingua cinese. Bravissimo!
Oh hey I'm Interested on linguistics too, infact I'm focused on Chinese and Italian so far 😅
There’s also words like 方言, which is translated into dialect, but they refer to different things.
方言 literally ‘regional language’ similarity of two or more languages isn’t focused on, but the region of the language is.
Exactly!
also 言 has a strong meaning of "spoken language", different from 语
I speak zero Chinese, never heard much Chinese either, but I learned the same Chinese characters as I'm Korean(and also, I speak a bit of Japanese).
I somehow came to stumble upon your channel by random. But still, it's really interesting to watch your video with this background 😂
Many of the words you mentioned, we use them in similar ways, so it was fun getting to recognize them.
In Korean, we use 請 as a verb "請하다" = "to ask (someone) to do (something)".
As you say, 微笑(writen as 미소 and read mi-so in Korean) means a smile.
大笑, we don't use it as a single word but it forms a part of an word 拍掌大笑(written as 박장대소 and read bak-jang-dae-so).
However, 不起 is a word that is not in Korean vocabulary. Although I do recognise the characters one by one, I wouldn't have quessed the Chinese definition.
靑春(청춘, chung-choon) is a word we use very often also in Korean, and has pretty much the same meaning. A word with such a positive quality.
幸福(행복, hang-bok) is read vastly differently in Korean, it means happiness as well, but less vibrant than Chinese equivalent. In Korean it just simple old happiness, nothing too fancy.
Anyways, it was interesting to watch this as non Chinese speaker, and I hope this comment interests you in return. Lol
Really cool to hear your perspective as well!
I don't speak Korean, but according to some Cantonese speakers that also speak Korean. A lot of Korean words sounded like Cantonese. For instance幸福 in Cantonese pronounced as heng fok, which is very similar to hang-bok.
Please is a fine translation for 請, as Chinese characters usually carry many meanings and fit a variety of usages. The word 請求 is an example. It means to request or plead, and doesn't have anything to do with inviting.
Definitely do more of these videos!
Hey! I just want to say how much I love this video. I'm an intermediate learner and it really brought a lot to the table for me. The smile to laugh continuum, the meaning of 请 being invite etc. Cleared up some things and confirmed some suspicions.
Thank you! Subscribed.
(I don't know your other videos but I liked this format. All familiar words but more in depth tips were helpful)
Thanks for explaining the various usages so clearly with examples
Thank you so much, such a good explanation!
great video as always!! thanks for sharing it!!
turns out "youth" has the same meaning in Chinese as in Russian and I wasn't aware that it's different from English.
also the last word has a precise equivalent in Russian, a really common word used in pop songs right and left, it's
kinda weird that in English it's not the same.
.
.
p.s. my now 9 y.o. is still learning English, French and Chinese on italki after you first recommended it a while ago.
it's the best thing, not only for language learning but also for working on some important soft skills I otherwise wouldn't really know how to address.
🙏
Hi. I recommend that they learn how to write in Chinese as that will drill the characters and words into their memory. Its good that they're learning at a very young age because then it's easier
I'm surprised this video didn't get a copyright strike yet... 🤷Don't forget to use my affiliate links when shopping this holiday season! It doesn't cost you anything and helps support me financially.
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Edit: Correction at 7:07 夕阳 does mean "setting sun," I messed that up and was thinking of 西 for some reason. Thank you Liuzh1han for catching that!
Typically, short clips like yours won't conjure up a strike. Longer uses tend to because they contain more copyright identifier tags, thus setting off alarms that so in so's content is being used.
Anywho, awesome video. I just ran into this issue with 'please' and decided to table it until I came across a video going into more detail on the matter.
Well, here I am ... ha ha ha ...
Thanks For Explaining This 'Please' Word So Perfectly. 😊
@@ChannelFiend Ahh I see, glad it was helpful for you!
"Youth" can also refer to young adulthood.
First!!!!!😊
You finally posted!!
I am ashamed at my post frequency tbh 😂
Ty for hearting my comment😄😄
@@ABChinese Tell me about it 🙄. I have a different youtube channel and the last time I posted was almost 3 months ago.
Also, I am so glad that channels like yours exist! I am not in the process of learning Mandarin at the moment, but it is interesting material for me to pick up on!
amazing video! well done
If I may, the same concept occurs in Japanese, and it also depends on the nature of the request and the person making the request. There are actually 3 words for 'please': doozo, onegai, and kudasai and they are generally not interchangeable. Of the 3, kudasai has the more general meaning of please "Doozo okake kudasai (Please have a seat)" for the person making the offer, and "(Mizu o kudasai (Please give me some water)." An example of onegai would be, "Eki made onegai shimasu (Please take me to the station)."
There are some situations where using the wrong word could be awkward. If you want to speak to Mary on the phone, "Mary-san o onegai shimasu (Mary, please)> vs. "Mary-san o kudasai (Give me Mary, i.e. to marry or another purpose)."
All of this is due to the hierarchal and transactional structure of Japanese, that is, the social positions of the speaker and listener. This makes learning Japanese horribly convoluted. There are separate verbs for speaking up or down to someone.
Actually, 请 is more likely to be cin or cing in old Chinese and 笑, yao. Both Q and X consonants came from Mongolian conquest. When Mongolian rulers learned Chinese to rule Chinese people, they messed up kee and cee to q and hee and see to x
Another amazing video
THANK YOU!
Sorry for the late comment but excellent content and welcome back!
No problem;D Glad to still see you here!
I really enjoyed this but would have enjoyed it more if you'd have kept the graphic of each new term up on the screen for a much longer time - maybe even for as long as you're talking about it. Then I could concentrate on it visually while you are talking about it. Thanks
Got it. I’ll make a similar video next and I’ll try that
I was expecting 请问 as an example because of how funny the english translation of this word is.
Please ask 😂
請假 if read by foreigners will interpret as "please fake"
it means apply off day.
What about 想 ? 🤫 As chinese learners, when we first time learn this word, teachers tell us what it means "to want to" but... Is the concept of "want to" the same in Chinese and English? 🤔🤨 Absolutely NOT!!! 😆😂 great video! 😊
yes, it means to want to, characters don't translate well into English, not exactly the same meaning
Thanks!!!
Now about 佩服, If I say to someone “我佩服了你吗”？ Does this mean that "did I surprise you?".
NOOOO... you can't use it like that. I would look up some example sentences and you'll get a feel for the context you can use it in.
Great content. 谢谢
Another fantastic video bro. Baituo baituo make more
This is cool. I'd say that 单词 is the most normal way to say 'word' in Chinese. I also like how you call the language Chinese - people overusing the word 'Mandarin' is a real bugbear of mine.
Very interesting, I didn't know the etymology of "sorry"
it helps even native speakers because they don’t usually think about these subtle differences.
Basically, youth includes young adult. Which generally is around till 35.
谢谢！ 我不知道有字典也有词典。 现在我要买两本都😂
admire /= want to be. that would cross into envy aka 羡慕
German also doesn't have a word for "frown". Dictionaries usually give "die Stirn runzeln" (wrinkle the forehead), which is inadequate in the same way Chinese is.
You oversimplify the English "youth". Yes, "a youth", meaning a young person, and is usually restricted to the age range you mention. But "don't waste your youth" in English means, very much as in Chinese, the green spring of your life, the period of youthful vitality, and certainly extends beyond childhood and adolescence. If spoken by your grandparent, for example, it most likely means simply the period before middle age - the period in your twenties and early thirties where, yes, you need to make the most of your educational opportunities and your first job in order to secure your future, but you also need to have fun.
Also, "Youth is wasted on the young." Boomers used to say this to me.
muito obrigado , já ganhou um escritoo
This is cool, and hints at the challenges faced by Chinese to English subtitles e.g. on UA-cam videos. A large number of the fiction videos in particular rely on machine translation, which means shades of meaning are frequently lost. If the character or word has multiple meanings in Chinese, auto translation engines like Google Translate and Baidu may not pick up the context, resulting in some really weird translation. It's especially bad for romantic and sexual expression, where euphemism is typically translated into English vulgar statement, even though the context requires a literal translation of the phrase.
I suspect that the English to Chinese translation is just as bad 😂😂😂
The word "youth" can refer to older than 18 at least in many English speaking countries eg in NZ, Australia etc you will hear the phrase "youth vote:. Obviously those under age can't vote so it is then clear they are young adults. I think the Chinese does translate pretty much without a problem in this instance.
It is hard to describe and quite complicated but youth in mandarin is more like a concept/adjective, and usually refers to time period when you are young, free to anything and unmarried.
To actually refer to youth/young adult in English, we have another word which is 青少年
谢谢
"Frown" doesn't necessarily refer primarily to the mouth either. It is defined in the dictionary as:
1. "A wrinkling of the forehead with the eyebrows brought together, typically indicating displeasure, severity, or concentration."
2. "A downturn of the corners of the mouth, typically expressing sadness."
The first definition is basically the same as 皺眉頭.
I think that typically when you are turning down the corners of your mouth in a frown, most of the time you will wrinkle your eyebrows at the same time. But sometimes some people might frown without any wrinkling (although I don't think I personally know anyone who ever does that). In that case, I guess people might use another phrase, and not 皺眉頭.
But it does in phrases like "turn that down upside down". If you read Chinese novels they really do describe facial expressions differently from English speakers.
@@francisnopantses1108 Yeah, but that is mostly a US expression, not really a core part of English ...
Hi, I'm a native Chinese user and I don't agree with that "请" cannot be used to plead with someone. For example, "请不要这样做" ("please don't do this") and "请注意" (”please pay attention“) are both pleads, and they are common things to say.
well it's not really much pleading, it's more of asking/ requesting when you use 请. It doesn't feel as desperate as pleading or begging like 求 or 拜托
Interesting point about youth - youth as an abstract concept can be anyone who is young - objectively (under 21 or so) or subjectively - more than 25 years or so younger than the person talking - - as a group - the youth of today means people up to about 25-28 while ‘a youth’ is a person who is not a child (under about 11) and not an adult (under the age of majority) AND in my country (UK) at least in the singular it is almost always in reference to a male person. Yes - simple words can have lots of different meanings and customary usages. That’s what makes them fascinating and also hard to learn as an adult.
Sometimes, we cannot find the exact word to translate some words.
In Indonesian, 0:13 that "please" will be "silakan".
0:44 that "please" will be "tolong" or sometimes "mohon" depending on the context.
Silakan masuk.
Silakan diminum.
v.s.
Mohon bantu keluarga saya.
Mohon isi form dahulu.
7:09 "of the western sun"
When does 夕 ever mean western? It means dusk, or in this case setting
as a chinese(kinda bc im singaporean chinese 😅), i didn’t even know how to say please in chinese lmao
Cool.
woah woah wait, frown is the opposite of smile??? xD i always thought it means... that thing you do with your brows and forehad, the "curling" (stirnrunzeln in german) D: me learning english when watching a video about chinese xD xD xD
I can give a try for better translation to frown(if it's the opposite to smile)"沉下脸”or“板着脸”，四字“面色阴沉”。我暂时还没有想到两字的更常用且贴切的表达，也许实际的语境会有帮助。比如？“听到这个消息，他脸一下就黑了”
但话说回来好像smile在中文里也很少用来单独的形容人，一般也是“他面带微笑”，对应就是面色阴沉了。单独作为一个动作的话，好像确实一般只有描写嘴角上扬的，很少说反面。这也是学习不同语言有趣的地方吧。
My sister has this chinese dictionary 现代汉语词典 第六版.
Idk if it's 字典 or 词典.
Cuz it says 词典, but in the inside has 字 and the 字 has the section where theres word.
Regarding 'luck', what are differences between 幸运 and 运气?
Well for one, 幸运 is an adjective and 运气 is a noun
幸运is a positive word and 运气is a gender word. It can be "a good luck(好运气）" or "a bad luck(坏运气). in more native way u can use 好运(good luck)or霉运(bad luck)
Youth in English is not necessarily age-locked and can include adults; If a 90 year old says, "In my youth..." They might be referring to their 20s or even 30s, as well as possibly anything younger than that. If a 30 year old says, "In my youth," it is more likely they're referring to 18 or younger. "A youth," would indeed be someone under 18 in the US. But, "My youth," and "A youth," are kind of different things, and the older you are, the older a person's "youth" could be (and so you'll need context to understand what they mean). Someone who lived to be 1,000 years old might say, "In my youth..." and mean in their 100s. - "I was in the army in my youth," we would know they're unlikely to be meaning under 18 years old. (Although it was not unheard of for younger teenagers to lie about their age to get into the army back when record and verifying someone's age was more difficult.)
谢谢 abc chinese 尽管我是美国人，但我在 13 岁的时候就开始学中文，并且发现韩语很难。
you should see what auto-translations do... makes you get headaches :D
Qing is still "Please" .... to plead bai tuouo
What's the name of the second movie that you used for the "拜托" example?
It's actually the end of an MV for this song: ua-cam.com/video/KqjgLbKZ1h0/v-deo.html
Edit: NVM, it's called "You are the apple of my eye"
7:07 its 夕陽 as in sunset, not 西陽, western sun lol
Yeah… I fumbled that 😭😭😭
I met the love of my life and have been looking for ways to learn Mandarin. "DL" app is horrible. I really find your videos to be the easiest way to learn with a FOUNDATION. Dope Chinese with Gloria is great too.
As a dumb white guy, yes I can do my best to reproduce your teachings. But I am trying to understand HOW some Chinese sounds are made; mouth form/shape, lip shape but also-is the sound from the throat? Or more nasal?
I mention this because if I am going to learn Mandarin I want to sound correct; not lazy or "marblemouth" lol.
Grace Mandarin Chinese is where you wanna go for that! She has the mouth diagrams and everything
the 夕 in 7:07 doesn't mean west 西 means west 夕 means evening
oh shucks, thanks for catching that! I messed that up in my head
@@ABChinese honest mistake, happens to the best of us :)
Could u pls explain how to use 二 and when to use 两 to represent the number 2? I use the app hello chinese and they taught me 两 before 二 and its rlly confusing me
Yeah, it’s pretty simple actually. When counting sequentially, use 二, like in 一二三. When counting quantity use 两, like 两支笔 (2 pens).
@@ABChineseI've been thinking about 两 as the two for both/pair ... So 你们两个 or 两个📖.... Both of you, both books. It's helpful.
@@cmaven4762兩本書而不是兩個書 「本」is the quantifier used for book
One word I thought had no translation in English was 伟大, but I have not really thought deeply into it. It's usually translated as "great", but 伟大 and "great" don't really feel the same to me.
温柔(wen rou) should correspond to the Mother-child unity of the psychoanalysis. At least 温柔乡(wen rou xiang) does.
请 + verb - the same role as in korean - verb + (으)세요 - please, do smth.
I thought 对 meant "right" or "correct"?
This is an example of a character with multiple meanings 😉
You are aware that the concept that "frown" says anything directly about mouth positions is mostly restricted to North American variants of English?
请compose of 讠青。青compose of 三丨冂=。using 三 create word. 三三三三三☞青清请玉主羊美差兰丰送约拦住。。
Wait, so do you guys have a more low key way of apologizing or do you just casually say “I have dishonored my family” all the time?
我怎么看得津津有味（
Chinese has moments of absolute inconsistency and it really irks me. If 請進 is please enter etc, then 請問 should mean "please ask me a question"
No. 请问 means “may I ask”. The main object of “请” is different. “Please ask me a question” is “（你可以）问我一个问题” but we usually don’t add “please” when we allow other people asking question to us but it could still sounds polite even without 请. English and Chinese relation is essentially not bijective because one word in both languages could refer to multiple meanings in the other. I hope it could clear some confusion for you.
@@_alexxon yes, that does actually help, thank you!
佩服 = mio padre
why do you keep saying 溫州instead of 溫柔 lmao
大便 definitely means big become in English 😊
source: trust me bro
i disagree with your English understanding of frown -- it's a furrow of the brows. otherwise it's called a pout
I’m a native English speaker, and I didn’t know that! 😮
What community of English speakers are you from? I speak American English and a pout is a matter of context. You are calling them childish. While a frown is a big grown up down turned mouth. I don't know about the etymology, but it's explicitly clear in the frowny face emoticon from the 1980s, the phrase "turn that frown upside down", and so on. It's clearly understood that way by the American English speaking community. As for a furrow in the brow we call that scrunching your brows unless the person is really angry. And even then furrow sounds a touch literary.
翻译的确会造成一些微妙的意思丢失
So instead of translating as "Please", it should be translated as "Could you please".
you contradict yourself with your descriptions ,.. you say it's not youth in usa English then you describe exactly what youth means in English. you are going on your interpretation not the proper meaning and you aren't educated in english or Chinese language
another millennial who has no real education but needs to be heard
Can you please stop using Chinese simplified? That's atrocious.
用臺灣片段又用簡體字，在做三小