rainy season ramblings

[nnozomi]

Note on politics:

Here and elsewhere, I don’t want to talk or think about US politics/election/etc. until further notice; I’m voting and donating and hoping for the best while expecting the worst, so not ignoring it altogether, but that’s it. I might at some point temporarily unfriend people who post a lot about it—not criticism at all, I know some people need to chew over upsetting stuff to deal better with it, just me doing my thing. Please don’t comment on this either, this is just for the record.

Work: I had a job translating one family’s handwritten family register (koseki), which was hard on the eyes but fascinating. Wait, the date of their oldest daughter’s birth is only three months after their marriage! And she later married an American and became a US citizen. Why does the register skip from second to fourth daughter, did the third one die young? …oh no, good, she was adopted by her aunt and uncle as a child, they must have been childless. Oh look, both brothers moved to colonial Korea with their whole families and worked for the railroads, I wonder when they moved back to Japan. Wow, daughter #2 must have been over fifty when she married, I hope it was a happy one … and so on (details slightly randomized for privacy). (Also reminded me of the GHQ-era joke recounted by Seiden-sama: the US army sergeant applying for permission to marry his Japanese girlfriend, “and have you seen her koseki yet?” “Oh no sir, I swear we haven’t done anything like that!”)

Veranda: My veranda plants are mostly thriving, either because of or in spite of the recent heavy rain. The morning glory vines are growing almost visibly in real time, twining everywhere, and I get one or two blossoms a day, the three different plants (lavender, purple, and purple-spotted) trading off blooming duties. They have also wound themselves up with the chili peppers and cherry tomatoes (God help me the next time there’s a typhoon and I need to move the plants indoors, they’ll just have to take their chances), I’m a little afraid that the morning glories will take on a spicy scent and the peppers will ripen purple instead of red. Lots of cherry tomatoes to start with, but the tomato plant seems to have stopped growing/flowering and I don’t know why. Outgrowing its strength? Outgrowing its pot? How do I repot a huge sprawling tomato plant without killing it? More happily my habanero plant also got HUGE when I wasn’t looking, with something like three dozen fruits at last count (eat your heart out, Zhuo Yuan). I’m going to have to eat a lot of Thai curry this summer… .

Chinese: See my previous post about doing more Chinese study in July, many thanks for many useful suggestions and encouragement. So far I think I’m putting in about three hours plus a day (if you count show-watching, which is fun rather than work). Will report further later.
Trying to translate a couple of short fics (purely for my own amusement, not for publication, for various reasons) and finding that translating from Chinese feels very different from translating from Japanese. Obviously the biggest reason for this is my hugely differing fluency and experience, but I feel like there are language-specific things that are getting to me too? (Not making sweeping statements about the actual nature of the languages, just reflecting my senses at the moment. Also, talking about literary translation as opposed to commercial/academic/technical work, which I’m pretty sure is more straightforward in Chinese as in Japanese.) Notably chengyu and similar expressions, which are less common in Japanese and which I find hard to translate without being either poetic in a way that doesn’t hit right in English or just long-winded compared to the compactness of the source text. Also, in a way that I find similar to some prewar Japanese texts, the syntax of a given sentence or even paragraph doesn’t always clearly indicate what its main point is, so that you have to think it out to figure out how to structure the English. Also I feel like there’s more…this is very abstract…more intermediate space between the two languages? I spend less time thinking C word → E word and more time with C words → intermediate space rearranging meaning in my head → E words (if that makes a lick of sense). I mean, it’s fun! I am terrible at it because my Chinese just is not good enough yet, but it’s still fun to do.
Latest gathering from the farmboy show as below:

One of the neat things about this being a documentary/reality show rather than a drama is you get the regional accents as they are. They’re all speaking standard Mandarin/普通话, but with various accents and local quirks; the one native Cantonese speaker has a very pronounced accent that only goes away when he’s really concentrating; to me the most prominent aspects are zh → z and sh → s, so that the name of the well-known singer becomes “Zou Sen-laoshi.” (My guess is that his tones are probably different too, but I can’t hear tones well enough to tell.) The northerners, especially the two Shanxiren, have 儿化 for days: 宝贝儿， 路边儿，一块儿and so on (also 网儿, confusing a colleague who keeps hearing 瓦 or 碗 instead of 网). One of them is prone to making W’s into V’s when speaking emphatically (玩, 为啥 and so on). The Inner Mongolian guy (ethnically Han, like all the rest of them; I wonder if any of the original applicant pool weren’t?) says meiwanle for 卖完了 (cf Bai Yu’s “Bei-laoshi”) and tsifan for 吃饭. The guy from middle-of-nowhere western Xinjiang has a few distinctive regional words (皮芽子 for onions, apparently from the Uyghur) and they all tease him about a song he recorded back when he was fresh from the hinterland, in which 走吧 becomes zu ba. I’ve picked up less from the southerners, other than fewer 儿s (点 rhymes with “when,” not with “far”); of the three southern guys, one is the Cantonese speaker above, one is what they call 话不多, not of many words (except on topics of money, which I can’t follow anyway) and the third went to college in Beijing and got some of his southern edges rubbed off (although he can occasionally be heard talking on the phone to his family in thick Chongqing dialect). Needs further study.

Reading:
Winifred Holtby’s letters to Vera Brittain; I forget if I’ve posted bits from them here before, but they’re delightful.

June 30, 1921: History and fiction both offer new interpretations of life, only viewed from a different standpoint. I believe the best history to be as creative as the best fiction. If historical writing is “largely synthetic and borrows from the work of other people,” bless you , my dear, so is fiction! Merely a synthesis of the things people see and hear, with constant plagiarisms from the conversation and characters of their friends and enemies.
June 29, 1925: At present I am not a person, but a List. It is an exceedingly diverse and attractive List, and I have been living in this incarnation for about five days, and have on the whole rather enjoyed it.
July 20, 1925: Hilda has told me what is admirable for my soul. I have a woolly mind. Well, well. One can card wool and spin it, and dye it with rare colours. One can make it into ropes for strength, and garments for warmth, and carpets for beauty and elegance. I may have a woolly mind, but it is not to be fleeced.
May 11, 1925: Damn the Capitalist Press. Damn the contradictious imperfection of things, which present no single clear issue for choice, allow no perfect cause, no uncomplicated loyalty, in this tedious, embittered world. Damn. Damn. Damn. Now I feel better.
August 21, 1928: At Monte Carlo everyone is so much afraid of complexes and inhibitions that they all run about having relations with men, women, and both—and get more and more hot and bothered. Now when one watches the Russian ballet one realises that one’s own body is full of inhibitions. Discipline and training relaxes and liberates. Control liberates. Lack of control binds and makes clumsy in a thousand ways.
September 13, 1931 [Vera to Winifred]: Have written 50 pages of book since I came; it’s very bad, but I’m going on the principle that it’s psychologically better to get it down somehow; even though one has solidly to write the whole thing out again, it’s a stage further than having it all toiling and moiling in one’s head.

Writing: Nothing whatsoever exciting to report but managing about 100-300 words a day. Me and the turtle, we are in there.

Photos: Various veranda views; also the beauty salon cat, on the job at nine am, and the same cat on the same day at noon.

</details Be safe and well.

Comments

[qian]

(点 rhymes with “when,” not with “far”)

LOL it took me several moments to work out how 点 would ever rhyme with "far". #justsouthernchinesethings 儿化 is very mysterious to me, it is not a feature of Malaysian Mandarin at all.

[nnozomi]

儿化 is very mysterious to me, it is not a feature of Malaysian Mandarin at all.
Some of these guys absolutely scatter 儿s everywhere like confetti! As a language learner with no ties to either north or south I never know which accent to get into the habit of...

[clevermanka]

I’m going to have to eat a lot of Thai curry this summer
Yummmmmm and also those cherry tomatoes look delicious

[nnozomi]

the cherry tomatoes are indeed delicious! Nice and sweet <3

[luzula]

Oh, I love those quotes from the letters. And good work sticking to your writing! \o/

[nnozomi]

Thank you for good wishes! Yeah, Winifred Holtby's letters are wonderful, I wish she'd lived longer to write more of them.

[umadoshi]

Hooray for the plants overall! I hope you can figure out what's going on with the tomato.

I’m going to have to eat a lot of Thai curry this summer… .

OH NOES. ^_^

[nnozomi]

I'll keep you posted on the tomato (and the curry ;)!

[chestnut_pod]

Ballet quote alert! Winifred Holtby would be SHOCKED by the complexes at play in the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.

And hot Thai curry summer, hurray! I've been trying to reverse-engineer this melting green Thai curry with eggplant that I get on my trips to my parents' house, because it's the perfect summer food and I cannot live without it. No success as of yet, but I am happily continuing to try.

The beauty salon cat is an excellent advertisement.

[nnozomi]

It took quite a lot to shock Winifred Holtby! I figure she would have looked at the dancers' private lives as separate from their dancing, but who knows.

I've been trying to reverse-engineer this melting green Thai curry with eggplant that I get on my trips to my parents' house, because it's the perfect summer food and I cannot live without it
ooh! Post the recipe if you figure it out? (My Thai curry relies on one of those kits where you get curry paste, coconut milk, Thai bay leaves (I know that's not what they're called, but you know) and fish sauce plus chicken, eggplant, shiitake, baby corn, and bamboo shoots, very basic but it works for me.)

[grayswandir]

I spend less time thinking C word → E word and more time with C words → intermediate space rearranging meaning in my head → E words (if that makes a lick of sense).

Interesting, I'm trying to decide whether I relate to this or not. XD I've never translated from any other language besides Chinese (except on college exams), so I don't really have anything to compare it to. I do feel like a lot of the time it's like, I hear/read a Chinese sentence and it makes perfect sense, but the literal meaning isn't something anyone would ever say in English, so the intermediate space is like "so what would we say?" Like instead of translating the semantic content of the sentence, I have to translate the intent or social function behind saying that kind of sentence in that context. That may not be what you mean, though, since I assume that would happen with Japanese as well...

I enjoyed reading your thoughts about all the guys' accents and regionalisms on the farming show. :) I'm still not really familiar enough with Mandarin to notice if someone has an accent in most cases, so I'm always interested to know what stands out as different. It's funny about "zh" and "sh" -- if I hear a heavy emphasis on those sounds, I immediately go "ah, sounds like a Beijing/northern accent," but if I don't hear any zh/sh at all, I just... don't really notice they're missing. It's just "sounds like Mandarin" in some vague, general way. Same with 儿; if I hear it I think "Beijing/north," but if I don't hear it, I just don't even think about it. (And, like, if I heard Li Hao say "Zou Sen," I probably would just assume those were words or a name I didn't know. >_>)

I've heard that Taiwanese Mandarin also doesn't have the zh/sh/ch sounds of northern Mandarin, so I'm curious, have you encountered that with your speaking buddy in Taiwan?

[nnozomi]

Like instead of translating the semantic content of the sentence, I have to translate the intent or social function behind saying that kind of sentence in that context. That may not be what you mean, though, since I assume that would happen with Japanese as well...
That is definitely at least part of it! It may simply be not that Chinese and Japanese are so different but just that I'm so used to doing that with Japanese already that my brain already has all the shortcuts downloaded, whereas with Chinese I'm starting from scratch, if you follow the mixed metaphor?

(And, like, if I heard Li Hao say "Zou Sen," I probably would just assume those were words or a name I didn't know. >_>)
This one was easy because Zhou Shen was there (he came to visit like Wang Yang did and Li Hao talked him into buying them a lot of expensive puppy equipment ;) ) I'd be interested in hearing how Li Hao's accent sounds to you, for instance (if it's easy to recognize that he's a Cantonese speaker even when he's speaking Mandarin) and what accents you can hear in Cantonese.

I've heard that Taiwanese Mandarin also doesn't have the zh/sh/ch sounds of northern Mandarin, so I'm curious, have you encountered that with your speaking buddy in Taiwan?
I should ask her about it! The thing is that 99% of our communication is text-based rather than voice-based, and even when we did meet up in May we spoke English (because my spoken Chinese is so bad, also because both of our husbands were there and hers has little Chinese and mine none at all). Need to inquire.

oh, and thank you for bringing up guardian_learning elsewhere! (geraineon linked me below). Much appreciated as always.

[grayswandir]

but just that I'm so used to doing that with Japanese already that my brain already has all the shortcuts downloaded

Yeah, that makes sense -- I can imagine that it would become a lot more intuitive over time. Like others have said, I'll be interested to hear any other translation thoughts you end up having!

Li Hao talked him into buying them a lot of expensive puppy equipment ;)

Hah, that's adorable!

I'd be interested in hearing how Li Hao's accent sounds to you, for instance (if it's easy to recognize that he's a Cantonese speaker even when he's speaking Mandarin)

I 100% did not notice he had an accent when I watched the Wang Yang episode. XD Or even when I watched the extra clip where Wang Yang mentions his being Cantonese. Like, to the extent that I actually wondered how Wang Yang knew where he was from, and figured maybe they'd already talked about it earlier offscreen or something. XD

I have sometimes correctly guessed that someone had a Cantonese accent, but I think it mostly happens when I hear them say something in Mandarin and I'm like "wow that sentence was weirdly clear to me, almost like it... was in Cantonese?? wait a minute..."

what accents you can hear in Cantonese

I do sometimes notice people have accents, but I can't guess where they're from based on their accent (unless it's US/UK). Though often when people have strong Mandarin accents, I just don't realize they're speaking Cantonese at all. >_> Embarrassingly this happened to me in HK last year. A guy from Beijing wanted to talk to me, and I said I only understood Cantonese, and then he said something else that as far as I could tell was still in Mandarin. He waited and then turned to his friends and said (in Mandarin, but I understood) "I guess she doesn't actually speak much Cantonese." From which I infer that whatever he said in between was in Cantonese, but it had zh/sh sounds and was incomprehensible to me, so I just heard it as Mandarin. >_>

The thing is that 99% of our communication is text-based rather than voice-based

Ah, got it! Well, I'll be interested to hear if you find out. :)

[nnozomi]

I have sometimes correctly guessed that someone had a Cantonese accent, but I think it mostly happens when I hear them say something in Mandarin and I'm like "wow that sentence was weirdly clear to me, almost like it... was in Cantonese?? wait a minute..."
Ha! I usually have the opposite effect, "wait, that sounds like something I should understand but I don't understand it, it must be..." in various contexts. (I can usually recognize Cantonese because of the "oi" sounds, although I can't understand a word.)
(Also I'm pretty sure I didn't notice any accents whatever when I first watched the Wang Yang episode of the farm show; it's one advantage of watching hours and hours of content with the same people talking in it, you eventually start picking up on these things.)

Haven't had a chance to ask re Taiwanese accents yet but I will keep you posted!

[trobadora]

I had a job translating one family’s handwritten family register (koseki), which was hard on the eyes but fascinating.

It does sound really interesting, thank you for sharing!

the syntax of a given sentence or even paragraph doesn’t always clearly indicate what its main point is, so that you have to think it out to figure out how to structure the English. Also I feel like there’s more…this is very abstract…more intermediate space between the two languages? I spend less time thinking C word → E word and more time with C words → intermediate space rearranging meaning in my head → E words (if that makes a lick of sense).

This is so fascinating! I'd love hearing more about your adventures in translating Chinese, if you feel like talking about it.

They’re all speaking standard Mandarin/普通话, but with various accents and local quirks

Oh, that's awesome! I love it when regional accents don't have to be hidden, and I love learning about them.

点 rhymes with “when,” not with “far”)

This broke my brain a little because I completely see what you mean but to my ears it still doesn't sound like it actually rhymes with either, 儿化 or no. *g*

it’s very bad, but I’m going on the principle that it’s psychologically better to get it down somehow; even though one has solidly to write the whole thing out again, it’s a stage further than having it all toiling and moiling in one’s head

So so very true!

Gorgeous pics, as usual! I love the umbrella stand kitty especially. :D

[nnozomi]

I'd love hearing more about your adventures in translating Chinese, if you feel like talking about it.
I will try and post more if I ever have anything more coherent to say!

I completely see what you mean but to my ears it still doesn't sound like it actually rhymes with either, 儿化 or no. *g*
Yeah, I know what you mean, it's just as a kind of shorthand. (The C-subtitles on the farmboy show, which are a blessing, naturally don't include the 儿s, so picking them out by ear is kind of a game...)

It's always reassuring to find people 100 years ago struggling with the same writing issues! and I'm glad you liked the photos <3

[eglantiere]

this cat looking out from beyond the umbrellas looks a bit like that viral photo of a spring-woken bear. she Disapprove of the shenanigans.

be safe and well too ♥

[nnozomi]

she Disapprove of the shenanigans.
I pass by there almost every week and I think it's the first time I have seen that cat actually standing up. She wants you to know she was not placed on this earth to work.

<3 <3 <3

[geraineon]

Also I feel like there’s more…this is very abstract…more intermediate space between the two languages? I spend less time thinking C word → E word and more time with C words → intermediate space rearranging meaning in my head → E words (if that makes a lick of sense).

I'll be interested to hear more about this when you have more thoughts!

Also, this is off topic but would you be open to cnovels pointing to guardian_learning for Chinese language learners? (or being affiliated?). There are some who would like to have more language practice, and it came up in the replies to this post.

[nnozomi]

I'll be interested to hear more about this when you have more thoughts!
I'm sorry to be so incoherent about it ;) Will post more if I have anything useful to say!

would you be open to cnovels pointing to guardian_learning for Chinese language learners?
If you think people would find it useful, I'd be delighted if you wanted to link, etc.! Feel free.

[geraineon]

<3 Thank you! I've linked it here: https://cnovels.dreamwidth.org/14935.html

tbh I think I know what you mean about the intermediate space XD The distance between the two languages are quite far, so it's often an exercise in translate to meaning, translate back to sentence (at least that's how it felt when I had to translate Cantonese to English, and back [not professionally but as a kid whose extended family have varying levels of English proficiency]). Really curious about the space between J-E vs. C-E though!

[nnozomi]

Thank you for linking!

Really curious about the space between J-E vs. C-E though!
I'm glad the idea of the space between languages makes sense (would love to hear more about your experiences with Cantonese and English if you feel like posting about it some time). I was saying in another comment that it's hard for me to tell whether Japanese and Chinese are really that different or if it's just that my brain is used to dealing with Japanese and has shortcuts for a lot of its issues, as it were. I do kind of feel that Japanese often spells things out more, but again that may just be due to my unfamiliarity with typical Chinese phrasing.
Oh well, the learning process is fun...

[geraineon]

Idk if I can say much more about Cantonese<->English because the point of translation then was very, very functional (as long as it works! and I also mix it with Malay). So it's very much an exercise of boiling it down to meaning, and then presenting the important points.

Without being very learned in this, I think JP is closer to EN than CN is to EN. I just tried watching a show in JP and then trying to do a quick tl of some of them into English, and then trying to do something similar with a short video in Cantonese, and I found myself pausing to rearrange words more for Cantonese > English

[nnozomi]

Idk if I can say much more about Cantonese<->English because the point of translation then was very, very functional (as long as it works! and I also mix it with Malay). So it's very much an exercise of boiling it down to meaning, and then presenting the important points.
Makes sense. (Also I love the way different languages get mixed in these contexts; so interesting to me, who knows why.)

I just tried watching a show in JP and then trying to do a quick tl of some of them into English, and then trying to do something similar with a short video in Cantonese, and I found myself pausing to rearrange words more for Cantonese > English
That's a neat exercise. It's funny, because, like, Chinese word order is closer to English in many ways, but it just doesn't seem to work out that way...

[sakana17]

I love the sample of little mysteries from the koseki - fascinating! At my workplace once I had to clear out a metaphorical rats' nest a retiree had left behind and found an envelope used as a bookmark. Inside were papers dated from 1968 - a typed letter from a military officer attesting to the "good character and morals" of a Japanese woman who'd married one of the soldiers under his command. The second paper was a form from the Japanese embassy nearest to my town, filled out with details of the marriage ceremony, conducted in Yokohama, with some life details about the Japanese woman. I went on a hunt to find out about this couple, and got fairly far along -- far enough to figure out they lived in my area and had a daughter, and that the man had died in the early 2010s -- before all trails went cold. There seemed to be absolutely no connection between the couple and the retiree. A diverting, unsolved mystery!

You're so much better at hearing the farmboys' accents than I am! I occasionally pick up something, but more often I pick up that one of them is being teased by the others for the way he said something -- but I hadn't noticed anything special in his pronunciation. *cries at my rough ears*

I love the photos! Gorgeous flowers. Important working cat business. And I can tell by looking at them that the cherry tomatoes must be delicious! Yum.

[nnozomi]

Oh wow, your unsolved mystery is fascinating! I'd love to know more. (Maybe the retiree found the envelope in a second-hand book or something like that...)

*cries at my rough ears*
Oh, you and me both. I can only tell because I rely on the C-subtitles so much, so I can sometimes pick up differences between what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing, but there's still so much I can't get at all.

and the cherry tomatoes are very tasty, thank you 🍅

[tinny]

Also I feel like there’s more…this is very abstract…more intermediate space between the two languages?

I can't really comment on this with much background knowledge, since I know *nothing* about Japanese. But I have that whole rearranging thing from Chinese to English, too. They way things are expressed is just so different, and you're right, the proliferous use of chengyu often doesn't translate well. (To my chagrin. I love them, but they're so often overkill when translated.)

Various veranda views

Oooh, the purple-spotted morning glories are so beautiful! Yaay tomatoes! We had little radishes this year (I keep forgetting what they're called in English), but the first crop only yielded maybe 5 total before the rest molded away, and the second crop got completely eaten by ... insects and didn't even produce any 'fruit' at all. *sigh* It's probably going to be tomatoes again next year.

[nnozomi]

the proliferous use of chengyu often doesn't translate well. (To my chagrin. I love them, but they're so often overkill when translated.)
Yes! It's really hard to come up with phrases or idioms that not only reflect the meaning but don't feel like overwriting.

I'm glad you liked the spotted morning glories, and sorry about your radishes! I never have any idea why some plants thrive and some don't (my gardening is very democratic, "here, have some water, enjoy the sunlight" and that's it for all of them). Hope you have better luck ongoing.