Autor Wątek: Chinese translations?  (Przeczytany 18488 razy)

pinyin

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Chinese translations?
« dnia: Maja 06, 2005, 10:12:35 am »
I'm happy to have come across this site.

Another thread in this forum quotes Lem as saying in an interview in 2004:
Cytuj
See, they are already publishing me in China.

This site's bibliography, however, doesn't list any translations into any of the Chinese languages. Does anyone here know anything more about this?

I live in Taiwan and have never seen any translations of Lem here. When I lived in China back in the early 1990s, nobody I met had even heard of him, much less read anything by him -- a situation I did what I could to rectify by loaning out The Cyberiad (my favorite) and the other Lem books (in English) I had brought with me.

I hope his books are finally getting the large audience they deserve in China.

skrzat

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #1 dnia: Maja 06, 2005, 05:40:52 pm »
In fact, two Lem's books will be published in China: A PERFECT VACUUM and SOLARIS, both in the complex and simplified Chinese. Also IMAGINARY MAGNITUDE and ONE HUMAN MINUTE will be translated into the complex Chinese.

pinyin

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #2 dnia: Maja 06, 2005, 05:51:30 pm »
That's great news, thanks. Any further information (publisher, translated name of the works, etc.) would also be greatly appreciated.

Do you know what originals the translators are working from? I'd be surprised if they knew Polish. English would be my guess, but I haven't seen good things written here in this forum about the English translation of Solaris.

I have an English translation of another Lem book -- which one I can't remember offhand -- that has a grammatical error in the very first sentence! Unfortunately, the translation continues in that vein, which I suppose is a legacy of the fact that lots of early SF publishers in America didn't bother with copy editors.

Terminus

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #3 dnia: Maja 08, 2005, 01:54:46 am »
Wow, great hearing from Taiwan  :D
We have a member here who  is a translator himself. I mean Socrates and he is the one You can always ask about english translations, I mean the details. He translated some of Lem's book himself.

Best Regards from Poland.
Cheers !
« Ostatnia zmiana: Maja 08, 2005, 01:55:18 am wysłana przez Terminus »

wetal

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #4 dnia: Maja 09, 2005, 01:04:18 pm »
That`ll be amusing if Mr.Lem be translated into Japanese language. He would be called not MISTER but SENSEY or Lem San.

Socrates

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #5 dnia: Lutego 26, 2006, 01:12:13 pm »
What about Lem in Pinyin?  Simplified Chinese is still Chinese (in fact thewords "simple" and "Chinese" should never be used together), but a Pinyin edition might be somewhat readable by non Hanzi speaking foreigners.
Cheers from the mainland,
Socrates

pinyin

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #6 dnia: Lutego 26, 2006, 03:11:16 pm »
For those unfamiliar with this, Pinyin is a way of writing Mandarin Chinese with the Roman alphabet instead of Chinese characters (Hanzi).

I'd love for Lem to be available in Pinyin and would certainly be willing to help out. But translation itself -- especially from Polish -- would be beyond me.

As for the notion that "simplified" Chinese characters are in no way simple -- so true, unfortunately.

jacekmw

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #7 dnia: Lutego 26, 2006, 04:20:08 pm »
I'm just wondering who would read any book in pinyin ?
Wouldn't such a translation introduce huge number of awkward ambiguities ?

My Chinese friend told me the intention was to help foreigners recognize certain names and orient themselves (not necessarily understand) in China. I believe it's also used to enter Chinese characters using Latin keyboard.
Why would any native Chinese speaker (meaning Chinese reader) read pinyin ?

cheers from snowy Germany ...

Socrates

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #8 dnia: Marca 01, 2006, 06:18:21 am »
My Chinese is not good enough for translating yet; give me, say, 10 more years in snowy Harbin and maybe I'll try...
Why would people read pinyin?  Well, because, well, actually, you're right, it would not make sense since the book would be for chinese people who can all read hanzi.  But it would be nice to learn Chinese that way, with a pinyinized copy of Lem.  "Wo ai ni Hari!"  "Wo ye ai ni Kris"! etc, etc.
Cheers, Socrates

Terminus

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #9 dnia: Marca 01, 2006, 12:55:19 pm »
In that case I'm waiting for your first translation ::)
(Can take 10 years... ok.)

Deckert

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #10 dnia: Marca 01, 2006, 01:01:34 pm »
Yeah, and the next 10 years for You to learn that Pinyin...  ::)

CU
Deck
« Ostatnia zmiana: Marca 01, 2006, 01:02:09 pm wysłana przez Deckert »

jacekmw

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #11 dnia: Marca 02, 2006, 08:01:23 pm »
Cytuj
[...] But it would be nice to learn Chinese that way, with a pinyinized copy of Lem.  "Wo ai ni Hari!"  "Wo ye ai ni Kris"! etc, etc.
Cheers, Socrates

Sounds like a plan :-).
Exciting, challenging, virtually useless - and therefore quite romantic.
I would not try however, to utter any word learned that way. Unless trying to entertain the native speakers...

innate

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #12 dnia: Marca 02, 2006, 09:14:53 pm »
Does the fact that it's a tonal language make it pretty much impossible to make a "good" alphabet for it?

jacekmw

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #13 dnia: Marca 02, 2006, 09:37:40 pm »
Well, I think it's possible, but there is no a 'good' way - in my opinion. In fact, that is exactly what pinyin is meant to accomplish. I have been laughed at in the past when trying to say something meaningful in Mandarin - thus my lack of optimism.

Terminus

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Re: Chinese translations?
« Odpowiedź #14 dnia: Marca 03, 2006, 01:47:38 am »
What's a tonal language, excuse me?