Chinese character translation

[Prairie]

First of all, I'm not knowledeable of spoken mandarin. Also, I'm not knowledgeable of pinyin meanings in english. I'm clueless about all but about 10 chinese characters.

Yesterday I began a friendship with a chinese-english dictionary as I wish to translate a book.

I have found that one must first identify the radical in the character. Once the radical is identified one can find the whole character. Once the whole character is found, the pinyin is listed with it. The english translations are found along with the pinyin which is listed in alphabetical order.

So far I've figured out 12 new characters. This is a very slow process for me as in many cases I'm not even sure of what the radical is in the character. I'm hoping that with experience I'll better be able to identify radicals and perhaps remember the meanings of more characters.

The goal of course is to translate the book. The time frame is indefinite as it will likely take me years of sporadic effort.

Have I condemned myself to a hellish pursuit?

[CrushingFist]

yes you have. Knowing a character does little to nothing unless you know combinations.

You can have two totally out of context words put together to mean different meanings, so unless you check what combinations can be made you are really in for it.

You can try, but i think you might get tired after a while of doing it...cuz it takes an hour to translate maybe, 1 paragraph after it's been semi-clearly read.

take the words: guo2 shu4 means country, and skill, but when you put it together, it means an association or a federation. those aren't two words you can just deduce country-skill means Federation, you have to look stuff like that up.

75% of chinese texts are made up of a mere 400 characters, however those characters made up thousands of combinations, which is why 75% of text is made up of only 400..

like i said, try, but you'd be better off finding a friend who can do a page or two once in a while for you, vs trying to do it yourself.

but to speed up your process: download NJstar chinese word processor, from there, you can look up words by radical, which isa lot faster on a comp than flipping thru pages of a book, and it also doesn't require the main radical of each word, but rather, any of them. however, it's dicitionary sucks butt, so you still will often end up going to the paper one once you have found out the pinyin

[Prairie]

I too am worried about interpreting characters out of proper context and have concern about not knowing when characters should be grouped together to form meaning.

Thus far, I have been noting classification of the word into noun, verb, adjective, ect..., for the various definitions of each character. Hopefully experience will increase my knowledge of the grammatical structure and will assist me in forming the proper context. Still, this will not remedy many future trouble spots. Fortunately I'm at least aware of the problem.

Thank you for your suggestion of using software. I'm undecided on using it as if I'm going to become literate my brain muscle needs all the flexing I can give it.

Thanks also for the honesty regarding hell :)

Here is the title of the book in pinyin: (ok, some of the title was obvious)

Chen2 Shi4 Tai4 Ji2 Quan2 Shi2 Yong4 Quan2 Fa3

I believe this translates something like: Chen Style Greatest Extreme Boxing. True Practical Boxing Method.
Although Chen is the family name, I believe it is an adjective which means "old."

Yes? No?

[Tainan Mantis]

I have lived in Taiwan since 1989. The first 8 years were as an English teacher while at the same time studying Chinese.

Of the several methods available to learn Chinese using a dictionary is one step ahead of guessing.

There are many books that are designed to teach understanding characters. A lot of these text books are used in western universities. I recomend you go to the uni and get a text book.

If you can't join one of these classes arrange a private tutor. If it is too expensive do a language exchange. Otherwise you must struggle alone which is a frustrating path to take.

When learning Chinese many aspects seem to be extremely illogical to a western mind. A teacher will help at those times.
On average it will take 1 year of study at 4-6 hours a day to get past that point.

Furthermore, there is a minimum amount of time that must be dedicated to the study or you will make negative process.
What does that mean?
It means that you will forget more than you learn after a certain quantity of info is acquired.
At that point the only solution is reviewing old material without learning new. 2-6 hrs a day 6 days a week. By the way, learning Chinese characters and conversation is similar to learning 2 languages at once.

You must be prepared to write characters thousands of times each. Not all at once, but you will be spending a lot of time writing. Most characters have between 3 and 15 strokes and the order of writing each stroke is fixed and unchangeable(for you).

This is essential for:
-memorizing characters
-being able to read other people's characters
-writing legible characters

A definite purpose like having a book to translate is a good start

[Prairie]

I am planning on writing out the characters as I work with them. I do have a text on the language and I'm sure will pay dividends in the future. I'll be taking a university class on mandarin beginning in May as well.

Although slow going, the dictionary is what is paying immediate returns. I'm expecting to have to go back through and rethink some of the sentences as I gain knowledge.

I can see why you say that learning the speech and learning the characters is like learning two languages --> it's completely true.

Thanks for the advice!! :)

[Prairie]

Stumblefist:

I agree with what you say. However, one step at a time for me. A chinese-chinese dictionary will do me no good for quite a while. When the time comes when I could understand what's in one then I will absolutely begin using one (or many if needed) This kind of reminds me of the bootstrappping of an computer operating system.

Thanks to you too :)

[DF]

Hi prairie,
How are you doing? I will be happy to lend you a hand if you need help in the translation. Just email me.

DF

[Prairie]

Hi DF,

Things are ,for the most part, wonderful for me. I'll email you soon.

Take Care

[wangsizhong]

Prairie,

it looks like you have someone to help you with translation, which is good
but just to give an example of how hard (and misleading) it is to translate chinese character for character, what you have translated as:

"greatest extreme boxing"

is more commonly known in the west simply as "tai chi"
you may already know that but it makes a difference. another example, is dongxi literally means "east west" but translates in english to "stuff"
this will become clearer when you start your class in may
-Wang Si Zhong

[guohuen]

Try (Welcome to Speaking Chinese.com)

[Prairie]

Characters with more than one meaning are difficult as the context isn't always clear and as said - some (perhaps many) expressions will alude me as I work with a literal translation. I haven't gotten very far this week as I returned to work from holidays and university classes started again. I'm looking forward to the class in May.

I don't have great expectations for the class, but it is one door to a language that developed with a completely different structure to my mother language. Attempting to translate a book is a good way too even if it's largely a futile attempt. It's the hard work that makes one learn. There is no better learning tool than making mistakes and then making the correction (so long as there is thought and understanding in the correction)

I was aware of the meaning of the taiji characters. However, I've never liked the "grand ultimate" translation as it has the wrong nuance in english. "Grand ultimate" will lead people to think that it's the "top" style - or practitioners think of it that way. I've been told that "taiji" could well be translated as "god" I've thought about this and like "greatest extreme" best as the greatest extreme from anything is it's opposite. In a way, I could see the english word "contradiction" being a suitable translation for taiji. As a contradiction has two opposite meanings - each being true. In physics, an example would be particle-wave duality. It occurs in many religions - for the Qabalists we have the two sides of the tree of sephiroth, for the Gnostics one has the fake god, satan, and the true creater (taiji-contradiction; wuji-unity). Another physics example of contradiction is the big-bang. Here we have all space,matter,time, and energy condensed to a point of nothingness. Everything and nothing at the same time.

... I've babbled enough...

[No_Know]

Coca-Cola would translate as carbonated water and syrup from coco plants.~

T'ai Chi of T'ai Chi Ch'uan is like a brand bname and doesnot require translation or transliteration. One should get a feel for what it represents over trying to isolate it to having a Single meaning. Ch'uan is O.K. to translate--style~some-such.

Translate as you go along is fine. Each week of daily translation would yield great understanding. If you learn the radicals and study what simple characters mean together you can perhaps better get it~. It's more concept than definition.--A woman and a boy (child) (barring disfunctional, a nice family/Life~)--Good.

The Chinese written is very refined systemization of pictographs. Learn the systemization-picture relation and you can better grasp the concepts, even without an English translation.

There are idioms where two or more words together have a meaning at least not quite what they might mean seperatly, one after the other. But these too are standard-ish. And general, most-likely-to-find/much used groupings are listed with it's respective first word of the phrase...


Very whatever. Very good.