Monthly Archives: December, 2010
33 Proverbs that Translate Well Between English and Mandarin
Following on from 23 Actually Useful Proverbs (谚语), I have come up with a list of proverbs that have some kind of equivalence between Chinese and English. I look forward to reading your comments, additions and criticisms! 1. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. 覆水难收 fù shuǐ nán shōu (“Spilt water is hard to […]
Translation Challenge: “as…as…”
How does one tackle the challenge of translating the highly versatile and meaningful English construction “as…as…”? Find out as I break the structure down into its most common variants and give you translations with pinyin along the way.
25 Ghost Words (“鬼词”)
I’m particularly fond of affix characters in Chinese, and what more vibrant an example than 鬼 guǐ (“ghost; devil”)? 魔鬼 móguǐ (“evil devil”) – demon 懒鬼 lǎnguǐ (“lazy devil”) – lazybones 酒鬼 jiǔguǐ (“alcohol ghost”) – alcoholic; drunkard 醉鬼 zuìguǐ (“drunk devil”) – drunkard
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