I’ve been having some trouble, well not trouble, but some confusion about de 的. For example, there’s that baby-clothing store called 愛的世界… I thought that would translate into English as, “Love of the World,” but actually, it’s Love’s World. So, how would I say Love of the World in Chinese? How about World of Love, or World’s Love?!
Then, how would one translate, 世界的愛? How about 世界愛? How about 愛世界?
In one of my classes, History of Hong Kong, the teacher wrote 香港歷史. I thought considering the English translation, it should be 歷史的香港.
You can compare Chinese grammar to English, it’s just that (at least in this case) the two are mirror images of each other, just about.
To say “Bob’s dog” in Chinese, you say “Bob de* dog”. But remember that in English you COULD just as well say “the dog of Bob” (kind of sounds like you were drinking before French class, but you can get the meaning). We usually use this pattern for longer phrases that don’t refer to people, like “the year of living dangerously” – you can’t say “living dangerously’s year” because “living dangerously” can’t own anything.
So “Hong Kong’s History” is really what you mean when you say “History of Hong Kong”, so you use the same pattern: “Hong Kong” de* “History”.
If you just think of the de* as a giant “apostrophe s” that can attach to anything at all, it will work. “The man I met last week who had a big suitcase and was driving a rusty Volvo” de* “smallish cat with blue eyes and a mouse-flavored martini” is a good example. Much more efficient than in English where you have to go with “The smallish cat with blue eyes and a mouse-flavored martini THAT BELONGS TO the man I met last week who had a big suitcase and was driving a rusty Volvo.” Isn’t Chinese great??
[quote=“shawn_c”]Oh… I must’ve been using Mozilla Firefox at the time… need to use IE.
I know it’s not cool to correct people’s spelling, but, I was merely replying in kind to Dragonbones. He wasn’t very polite…[/quote]
Dear Shawn_c, thank you for your correction. I don’t mind – that’s how we learn. Sorry if I came across as rude; didn’t mean to be. Just pointing out that we could help you better if you chose an example with a clearer meaning. I hope to be of more help next time. Cheers!
DB
Hey Dragonbones… well, no need to apologize if your intention wasn’t to be rude. Maybe I took that crazy word, gobbledegook, the wrong way. Actually, I looked it up in the dictionary, because I wasn’t sure if it was even a real word! So, I hope we’re cool!
Let me re-type the Chinese words: For Taiwan’s Coffee (Coffee of Taiwan, &c.), I was thinking I could write:
Okay… this post itself is using IE’s “Western European (Windows)” language encoding… above post uses “Chinese Traditional (BIG5)” - which one can you folks not see?
What does BIG5 mean, anyway? Just thought I’d ask… considering the wisdom lurking in the forums!
Only the second one is correct. The first, using 之 zhi1, is backwards. It would be 台灣之咖啡, which is a bit literary. I wouldn’t recommend trying to use 之 too much at first; stick with 的 for a while. AFAIK there is no way to put coffee in front of Taiwan as in “the coffees of Taiwan”. So if translating from English versions containing “of” screws you up, just try always thinking of it with 's first, or in adjectival form (Taiwanese coffees), then translate.
I hope it’s not too late for me to explain all these “的” trouble for you.
First at all, Chinese grammar is totally different from English grammar. (at least in this part)
I try to explain in an easier way.
there are two different words to say " someone 's", “的” and “之”
“的"is the most comment way to describe “someone’s”, for example
約翰的狗, John’s Dog,
“之” is an old way to describe " someone’s " , but we don’t use it when we are talking to others.
Now, back to the topic, if i translate “Love’s world” and " “Love of the world” into Chinese,
Love’s World 愛的世界
Love of the World 世界的愛(also " 世界之愛”)
Can you see the different between them?
the chinese world before " 的" is the object, so
“Love’s World”, may means " a world owned by love " (so you see love is a 名詞), but " Love of the World" means " love owned by the world" in Chinese
for another example, (but not quiet the same)
John’s Dog, and The dog of John, if i translate them into Chinese
they are " 約翰的狗". If according to you, The dog of John would become " 狗的約翰", then that doesn’t make sense, it means " Dog’s John " in English
And 愛世界,世界愛，there are different meanings,
愛世界, means " Love the world", so “love” is a verb
世界愛, means " global love " so the three words combine together , then it is an adj. sometimes we do not write " 的" , but it also means " some’s one", like " 我爸", it means “我的爸爸”(my dad), therefore, 世界愛 may also mean “世界的愛”(it depends on the setences)
and “History of HK” is the same
if you still feel confused about this question, there is a good way to understand it.
everytime you try to translate “A of B” into Chinese, just switch them,
and the translation would become " B的A".
I hope my explain can help you with this question. (Reminds me one year ago, because I was studying Chinese grammar in Chinese Literature department…oh…what a nightmare!!)
[quote=“antonioprincess”]I hope it’s not too late for me to explain all these “的” trouble for you…
Now, back to the topic, if i translate “Love’s world” and " “Love of the world” into Chinese,
Love’s World 愛的世界
Love of the World 世界的愛(also " 世界之愛")
Can you see the different between them?
the Chinese world before " 的" is the object, so
“Love’s World”, may means " a world owned by love " (so you see love is a 名詞), but " Love of the World" means " love owned by the world" in Chinese
[/quote]
So, although it has been said partly above, make sure you are not confused here – “Love of the World” here means ONLY “the love that belongs to the world” and NOT “someone’s love that is aimed at the world” – that would be expressed using a different prepositional phrase.
Cheers!
