December, 2008

Blogs / Chinese / Translations / Websites / 成语俗语 — No Comments
10
Dec 08

你知道你吃几碗干饭 Know one’s own limitations

Source: 你知道你吃几碗干饭么

Whilst reading the blog post above, I came across the expression “你知道你吃几碗干饭么”.

This expression refers to knowing one’s own limitations – to know the reach and limits of one’s abilities. Quite literally it means knowing how many bowls of dry rice one can eat!

Here are some other common Chinese expressions which share a similar meaning:

人贵有自知之明

To know oneself is true progress. Self-knowledge is wisdom.

没有金刚钻，别揽瓷器活儿。

If you don’t have a diamond cutter, don’t become a ceramist.

Basically all these expressions suggest that one must have a clear-headed understanding of oneself – without which it may become easy to take on a haughty air and cause trouble.

BBS / Chinese / Translations / Websites / 成语俗语 — No Comments
10
Dec 08

肥水不流外人田 Charity begins at home

Source: 老外把女大学生当成性工具 Mop BBS Forum Post

Whilst reading the somewhat controversial BBS post quoted above, I came across the expression “肥水不流外人田”

I found a definition of this expression on 百度知道：

原意是自家田里的肥水不要流到别人家的田里，引申为是有利益的东西不分给别人。自己的利益不让给别人

The word 肥水 [féishuǐ] can be translated as

Water with fertilizers; used as a metaphor to refer to interests or benefits.

This expression could be translated in a literal sense as “To be unwilling to allow nutrient rich water in one’s own fields to flow into other people’s fields.” This can be extended to mean keeping all benefits for one’s own people or for oneself.

Possibly the best and most commonly used translation of this expression would be “Charity begins at home”. In case you are not familiar with this english expression, here is a definition:

Something that you say which means you should try to help your family and friends before you help other people

I also came across a few other possible translations of the expression which share a similar meaning but which are used less frequently:

  • Rich water should be kept in one’s own fields
  • No rich water should be let out of one’s own fields.
  • One should always keep all benefits for one’s own people.
  • Every miller draws water to his own mill.
  • Keep it in the family
DVD / French / Translations — No Comments
6
Dec 08

J’ai envie de me le faire

Whilst watching “Taken”, I came across the French expression “J’ai envie de me le faire”

After some consultation on the Wordreference forums, I decided that this can be translated as:

I feel like doing him, I want to sleep with him

Wonder when I will get the chance to use this handy expression :-p

DVD / French / Translations — 2 Comments
6
Dec 08

Taken 飓风营救

Just me in the house today so I took advantage of the free time to improve my Chinese and French. Read a couple of chapters of 哈利波特与凤凰社 whilst downloading “Taken” which I had heard about recently and of which I had missed the cinema release (yes, China imported this film despite its explicit content, although of course they may have cut scenes).

I was pleasantly surprised that the only bits of dialogue that I didn’t grasp boiled down to the following:

Emballer (être emballé par)

to be taken with

Ca m’emballe pas vraiment

I’m not that keen

Appréhender

to arrest

Bichonner

to pamper, dress up

Connard

Bugger

Se faire larguer

To be dumped

That will be all for now :-) Hopefully I will find some more time to watch some more french films too, don’t want my French to get rusty…

French / Libération / News / Quotes / Translations / Websites — 2 Comments
6
Dec 08

Prime à la casse

Source: Relance : Sarkozy bat la mesure

Whilst reading the article entitled “Relance : Sarkozy bat la mesure”, I came across the expression “prime à la casse”:

L’accent est mis sur la relance de la demande grâce à une prime à la casse de 1 000 euros, instaurée jusqu’à la fin 2009 sur les véhicules particuliers et utilitaires légers de plus de 10 ans.

The word “prime à la casse” means:

Scrappage premium, a benefit given to people in order to encourage them to get rid of their old vehicles and replace them with newer, more environmentally friendly vehicles.

Scrappage is defined as: the scrapping of discarded objects (e.g. automobiles)

Hence the whole sentence could be translated as:

Stress is placed on the revival of consumer demand thanks to a 1000 euro scrappage premium for cars over 10 years old which will be valid until the end of 2009 and which applies to all private vehicles and light vehicle users.

Chinese / News / 世界新闻报 — No Comments
1
Dec 08

产业升级 新兴市场国家

Source: 世界新闻报

In the article entitled “危机时期，中国应向南方看”, I came accross the terms “产业升级” and “新兴市场国家”

而从当前美欧为拯救金融危机开出的药方来看，他们的意图依然是不变的，那就是在不损害美欧的金融和科技霸权的优势下，让拥有高储蓄的发展中国家和新兴市场国家来替自己埋单，并尽最大可能防止美欧的科技优势、金融权力向中、俄，印，巴等新兴国家转移，并延缓这些国家的产业升级。

From observing America and Europe’s current remedy to the global financial crisis, it can be seen that these countries’ intentions remain unchanged. In the context of protecting their current technological and financial hegemony, they intend to let developing nations and emerging market countries (EMCs) with large financial deposits foot their bill, at the same time doing their best to prevent their technological superiority and financial power from being shifted to emerging nations such as China, Russia, India and Pakistan, seeking to retard the industrial upgrade of such nations.

“产业升级” is formed up of 产业 which means “industrial” and 升级 which means “to go up, to escalate”. The term can be translated as:

Industrial Upgrade, Upgrading of industrial structure

“新兴市场国家” is formed up of 新兴 which means “emerging” 市场 which means “market” and 国家 which means “country”. The term can be translated as:

Emerging Market Countries (EMCs)