Hot answers tagged translation
13
The meaning is: 我爱你.I love you. 爱(ài, love) sounds like the English "I"; 老虎(lǎohǔ, tiger) sounds like "love"; 油（yoú, oil) sounds like "you".
It originally comes from the movie 狮王争霸. In the movie 十三姨 teaches 黄飞鸿 (played by 李连杰 (Jet Li)) how to say I love you. 黄飞鸿 pronounces it as 爱老虎油. Afterwards 黄飞鸿's father overhears it and asks what it means. 黄飞鸿 says it ...
11
First, as fefe said, this idiom should be “民以食为(wéi)天" and it comes from 《汉书·郦食其传》“王者以民为天，而民以食为天。” (biography of 郦食其 in the historical record of 汉 dynasty). That sentence means "People are the most important to an emperor, while foods are the most important to the people". Note that the correct pronunciation of the name is: lì yī jī
Why? Remember in ancient ...
10
This idiom comes from the famous book of 《论语》, a book recording the Confucius and his disciples' words. Here is the source:
《论语·卫灵公》：“子曰：‘当仁，不让于师’。”
Explanations:
卫灵公 is the name of a chapter of that book.
In that chapter, you can read this sentence(the 36th) "子曰：‘当仁，不让于师’。“ The Confucius said:" when [you are] facing 仁(see note), you should ...
10
This is actually a common problem in newspapers and television in Singapore, where the original report may have been filed by a reporter who did not or cannot use Chinese. In these cases, the author simply chooses phonetically matching characters to fill in the name of the person, then add (音) or (译音) to indicate that the name shown is only a phonetic ...
10
“而已” is always used at the end of a sentence and with words like “仅仅”,"只","不过". A similar word in Chinese is "罢了"(actually, this word comes from 满语). You use the structure "......(part A),不过......(part B)而已" to emphasize the expression that A is just limited within B. You could only use "不过", also, and "而已“ weakens your mood and sometimes expresses that you ...
10
A reasonable translation of "你说的" is: "That which you spoke".
的 turns 你说 (a verbal phrase) into 你说的 (a noun).
你说是什么 doesn't make any sense grammatically - it means "You said is what?" You can say, "你说什么" - which is literally, "You said what?" or in proper English, "What did you say?"
你说的是什么, however, means "That which you said is what?" or properly, "What ...
10
谁让 expresses weak causality with a mood. Depending on the context and the tone, the mood can be humor, banter, sarcastic, helplessness, complaining or something else. Accordingly the translation can be "since", "after all", "only because", "God knows why", etc.
In your example, it seems the speaker is just grumbling or expressing helplessness in a cool ...
8
What's the pinyin for this/that character? 这个/那个字的拼音是什么？
What's the character for this/that pinyin? 这个/那个拼音代表的(or 对应的)汉字是什么？
I would use the words “代表(dài biăo)的” or “对应(duì yìng)的" for the second translation, because in general, you can determine the PinYin for a specific character (though some characters have two or more pronunciations). However, ...
8
I think 請回收利用/请回收利用 can apply to lots of stuff as well, for example, plastic bottles, tins, cans, glass and so on.
If you really want to be specific about recycling paper, you can try
請回收廢紙/请回收废纸 = Please recycle used/unwanted paper
or
請回收紙張/请回收纸张 = Please recycle paper
Note that the above Chinese examples are written in Traditional/Simplified.
8
书名肯定不行 The book title doesn't work.
卖不出去 It won't sell well.
人比黄花 (The title comes from "人比黄花瘦.") See notes below.
文了 (literally) It's too "academic." (Only those trained in classics
would understand.)
也温了 It's also too vague. (温 means "not too hot and not too cold (lukewarm)." I think the man is trying to say that the title doesn't ...
8
No.
A quarter in a sports game is usually translated as 节. For example, fourth quarter is 第四节. The first and second quarters are collectively referred to as 上半场 and similarly, the third and fourth quarters are referred to as 下半场. A sports season is usually translated as 赛季．
季度, when tranlated into English, only refers to a quarter of a year, as you have ...
8
Overall both translations are fine and fluent, with some small issues below:
Grammatical/Syntactic issues:
I think there is only one issue, in (2) 我们想酒保因为要省钱的. Either use 要省钱 as verb (i.e. remove 的), or use 要省钱的 as adjective (i.e. add 是 before 要).
Semantic issues:
In (1), margarita mix is translated into 玛格丽特混合物. In Chinese, people don't refer food/drink ...
7
It's translated as “actually", "really", "just"; it is used to show your emphasis. It's a very tricky expression because it has no negative meaning, while it has a negative look (不).You usually use this word in a sentence as a response to show your disagreement with the speaker.
You and your friends go hiking in a big mountain, and you get lost. ...
7
Adding to Ciaocibai's answer:
"你给我滚" could be same to "给我滚" and then further reduced to "滚".
In both "你给我滚" and "给我滚", personally, I think the "给我" part is used to make emphasis on strong emotions, such as contempt or strong anger. It will therefore depends on the tune/context to translate it.
E.g. "给我滚一边去", can be used by a gangster head to someone else ...
7
The most appropriate translation to make sense would probably be 有道理, which literally means has sense or reason. For example:
你说的有道理
What you said is reasonable / What you said makes sense.
The phrase 说不通 would probably work, but it is not used frequently in Mainland China Mandrian(普通话) as 有道理 for the same context, if at all.
As for 符合逻辑, the phrase ...
7
There are many ways to ask this. Some examples:
您能给我们俩照一张相吗?
nín néng gĕi wǒ men liă zhào yì zhāng xiàng ma?
您能帮我们拍个照吗?
nín néng bāng wǒ men pāi ge zhào ma?
您可以给我们照张相吗？
nín kĕ yĭ gĕi wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng ma?
请问，您可以帮我们照张相吗？
qĭng wèn, nín kĕ yĭ bāng wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng ma?
麻烦您给我们照张相
má fan nín gĕi wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng
麻烦你，帮我们照张相，好吗？
má fan ...
7
The proper way to say "a game has four quarters" is:
一场比赛有四节
In terms of sports game, "game" should be translated to "比赛" rather than "游戏". "季度" is very different from the meaning you want to express. As James has explained, it only refers to a quarter of a year.
6
The word "Great" has many meanings, both in English and Chinese. It seems that Google Translate picks "magnificent", "grand" as its translation in this case.
While "Hope you'll have a great day" is said time and time again in English conversation, it's less so in Chinese - but it does not mean people do not say it.
There are a few different ways to say it ...
6
English is not my mother tongue, but I would translate 外行的想法 as "unprofessional opinion" or "amateurish opinion".
外行 is the opposite of 内行, which means expert, adept, experienced, an expert, a professional, so the emphasis is as you mentioned on the fact that the person is not experienced.
6
In addition to @Kang Ming's excellent answer.
的 is not only used as a possessive suffix (as in 我的). There are other uses, don't be confused.
In case of 你说的是什么, 的 serves as selector by an attribute. Literally, someone asks, "what is it?", but out of all possible contexts picks up a context of the recent speech.
An illustration:
你想买什么样的手机？ What kind of ...
6
The translation of energy to Chinese is really a tricky one, or very "context sensitive". I will try to give example one by one.
体力 Body(Physical) Power
我太累。 I'm not too tired, I just don't have as much energy as I used to do what I want to do (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).
[繁] 我太累, 體力不夠了,不復當年啊。
[简] 我太累, 体力不够了,不复当年啊。
Enerygy -> 体力 ...
6
It's an interjection, which means its translation relies very much on the context it's in.
In general, it's an exclamation of disbelief or disagreement on what follows the phrase.
Examples:
你真是的， 怎么没穿鞋就跑出来了？ (Come on! You ran out without any shoes on?)
你也真是的， 这么早就把我吵醒了. (Seriously? Waking me up this early?)
真是的, 他到现在还没来. (He's not here yet. Hopeless!)
5
To elaborate on Kabie's comments:
In general, the answer is that you never know for sure what is the right translation without further information but only a Pinyin of the name.
However, the clue for guessing the right family names comes from experience in real life for native speakers. E.g. Li is highly probably to be 李, Wang for 王, Zhang for 张, Liu for ...
5
Usually people ask. Like people asking if a person's name is spelled a certain way, most Chinese people ask if it is a certain character. E.g., Your surname is 'Li'? Is that 'Li/李' as in plum (李子) or 'Li/理' as in reason (理由) ?
There are commonly used names, but it's usually better to ask if you don't know. For exercises, the picking the actual character is ...
5
捅破 comes from 捅破窗户纸 (poke the window paper). Try googling "捅破窗户纸".
In the past, Chinese used paper instead of glass on their windows until the technology of making glass is imported to China. Window paper can stop the wind, but is much more fragile than glass and can be easily poked. Window paper is not transparent. If you poke a hole on it, you can see the ...
5
给 is one of these verbs that can also be a preposition (which is quite confusing when you are not used to it). When there is no other verb near to it, it means to give.
Some examples:
给我勇气: give me courage
把钥匙给我: give me the key
叔叔给他一支笔: uncle gave/gives him a pen
杭州给我的印象很好: Literally: Hangzhou gave me a good impression, a better sentence: I was impressed ...
5
看穿 and 看透 are hardly used in the literal way. They are almost synonymous as I can't think of any instances where they're not interchangeable. 看穿 has a slightly more derogatory tone as it's often used against tricks or lies. 看透 can be used against philosophical subjects such as the meaning of life.
I think the most natural thing to say about an invisible man ...
5
你明天这个时候会是在做什么? is not a very fluent sentence construction. I would have re-written it as 你明天这个时候会做什么? instead.
会 is not useless. It carries the meaning of "likely" in this context.
What will you be (likely) doing at this time tomorrow?
The way sentences are expressed in Chinese is not the same as it is done in English. What appears to be redundant in ...
5
The subject of the sentence can be a lot of things. For example:
-Your friend's book has been lost. You and another person know about that. Then after the book has been found by your friend, you say to another person that sentence. Then it means: It seems the book has been found (You don't know yet if the book is found, you are guessing).
-It can be ...
5
I would say 益虫． This is related to the compound 益害 (literally - beneficial and harmful), which means effect (positive or negative). For example, you can say 喝咖啡的益害 （the effects of drinking coffee).
Chinese has many similar antonymic compounds like this. Some examples include 高矮 (height of a person, or literally - tall and short), 长短 (length, or literally - ...
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