"What's your angle?" translation please!

I was talking to a newspaper reporter (who spoke well English) the other day and at one point asked him what was his angle and I couldn’t get a chinese way of saying that, I just got hung up on that since then and was wondering if anyone had a translation for this.
Thanks.

I’m just Googling, mind you, but there is one reference from a Taiwan source to 地方角度 for “local angle”, and it is in the context of newspaper reporting. (etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/getfile?URN=etd-0206102-115113&filename=etd-0206102-115113.pdf)

There is a substantial but not huge number of hits for phrases like “地方角度” and “報導角度” as well, so that would be my educated guess until someone looks at you strangely and says, “No, we say it this way.” :smiley:

I’d figure something like “你是從甚麼角度來看這個情況?” would be close enough.

If you mean ‘from what angle are you approaching this story’, I think 角度 jiao3du4 ‘angle’ works just fine, as in 你要從什麼角度來寫 ni3 yao4 cong2 shen2me jiao3du4 lai2 xie3 … (zhei4pian1 bao4dao3).

I got some hits that would support ‘jiaodu’ googling for 新聞寫作 角度

I’m a little skeptical though since almost all seem to be from China and also seem to be academic. Academics will often force translations of foreign technical terms and end speaking in a code that only they understand.

zhong4dian3 ‘point’ or qie4ru4dian3 ‘entry point’, or yi4ti2 ‘issue’ might all work too.

But I think there is a more important principle at work here–we shouldn’t be looking for equivalents to English usages, especially even faintly idiomatic ones. Instead of wondering how to say English phrase x in English, we should be on the lookout for usages utterered by native speakers that we don’t use ourselves.

I ran mine by a native speaker, who seemed to think it was just fine. I believe that in this case the English and Chinese coincide comfortably.

The thing is, in many cases the English terms existed first (think about it: how analytical was Chinese reporting traditionally? How many newspapers had the luxury of taking any story from an angle other than the official one?) so often such terms are direct translations. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are not correct or widely used in the Chinese community; it just means that they tend to parallel the original English constructions.

This is true for many technical terms, including medical terms. But it’s kinda cute how many times you can actually understand what the term means by reading the Chinese version of it, even if the English term is completely foreign to you.

Actually, when I posted that the English and Chinese coincide comfortably, it did occur to me that this might well be due to the English existing first. Then I got distracted by taking care of an ill feline. Anyway, my point is that even so, the Chinese version therefrom is well established enough so as to render it colloquial rather than a stilted translation.

Yep. I was actually agreeing with you, not arguing with you. :smiley:

Doh! :homer: :blush:

Also, I think that to have an angle also often implies a certain bias, or that the person will have something to gain or lose from the subject or thing at hand. Slightly different from “point of view” perhaps?

Actually that was the context in which I used it, the bias implied when you write the story, implying, I have something to loose if you write the story.
Thanks IL and DB for the answers you’ve imput, would this work for the definition I am using?