{"id":28718,"date":"2016-10-09T10:40:17","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T15:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28718"},"modified":"2016-10-09T10:40:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T15:40:17","slug":"trumps-vulgarities-rendered-into-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28718","title":{"rendered":"Trump's vulgarities rendered into Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judging from these recent Language Log posts and the comments thereto, it is not always easy for native speakers of English to understand what Donald Trump says, especially when he is making lewd remarks:<\/p>\n

\"A non-apology for the ages<\/a>\" (10\/7\/16)<\/p>\n

\"'Like a bitch'?<\/a>\" (10\/8\/16)<\/p>\n

\"Trump translated<\/a>\" (9\/31\/16)<\/p>\n

\"Trump's aphasia<\/a>\" (9\/5\/15)<\/p>\n

There have been many other attempts on Language Log to clarify Trumpian rhetoric.<\/p>\n

If those who are born to English have difficulty comprehending the Donald's utterances, you can well imagine how hard it must be to grasp their nuances in another language.\u00a0 Let's take a look at some of the Chinese translations of Trump's latest crudities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[N.B.:\u00a0 To preserve the \"feel\" of the Chinese, the translations given are necessarily on the literal side.]<\/p>\n

CRIonline<\/a>:<\/p>\n

N\u01d0 sh\u00e8nzh\u00ec k\u011by\u01d0 w\u00e1nr t\u0101men de xi\u00e0t\u01d0, sh\u00e9nme d\u014du x\u00edng.
\n\u4f60\u751a\u81f3\u53ef\u4ee5\u73a9\u513f\u5979\u4eec\u7684\u4e0b\u4f53\uff0c\u4ec0\u4e48\u90fd\u884c\u3002
\n\"You can even play with their nether parts; anything goes.\"<\/p>\n

people.cn<\/a>:<\/p>\n

W\u01d2 xi\u00e0ng zhu\u012b bi\u01ceozi y\u012by\u00e0ng zhu\u012b t\u0101, d\u00e0n m\u00e9i n\u00e9ng ch\u00e9ngg\u014dng.
\n\u6211\u50cf\u8ffd\u5a4a\u5b50\u4e00\u6837\u8ffd\u5979\uff0c\u4f46\u6ca1\u80fd\u6210\u529f\u3002
\n\"I pursued her like a whore \/ prostitute \/ harlot \/ strumpet, but I couldn't succeed.\"
\nNote:\u00a0 English \"bitch\" is often translated as bi\u01ceozi \u5a4a\u5b50 (for examples, see here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

ibid<\/a>.:<\/p>\n

N\u01d0 xi\u01ceng z\u011bnme zu\u00f2 d\u014du x\u00edng, b\u0101oku\u00f2 m\u014d t\u0101men de y\u01d0ns\u012b b\u00f9w\u00e8i.<\/div>\n
\u4f60\u60f3\u600e\u4e48\u505a\u90fd\u884c\uff0c\u5305\u62ec\u6478\u5979\u4eec\u7684\u9690\u79c1\u90e8\u4f4d\u3002<\/div>\n
\"You can do whatever you want, including touching \/ feeling \/ stroking \/ groping their private parts.\"<\/div>\n

inews.qq<\/a>:<\/p>\n

W\u01d2 k\u011by\u01d0 zhu\u0101 zh\u00f9 t\u0101men de [b\u00ec\u2014\u2014], w\u01d2 k\u011by\u01d0 zu\u00f2 r\u00e8nh\u00e9 sh\u00ec.
\n\u6211\u53ef\u4ee5\u6293\u4f4f\u4ed6\u4eec\u7684\uff3b\u54d4\u2014\u2014\uff3d\uff0c\u6211\u53ef\u4ee5\u505a\u4efb\u4f55\u4e8b\u3002
\n\"I can grab their [beep]; I can do anything.\"<\/p>\n

W\u01d2 k\u011by\u01d0 sh\u00e0ng t\u0101 xi\u00e0ng sh\u00e0ng bitch<\/i> y\u012by\u00e0ng, d\u00e0n w\u01d2 m\u00e9iy\u01d2u ch\u00e9ngg\u014dng.
\n\u6211\u53ef\u4ee5\u4e0a\u5979\u50cf\u4e0abitch\u4e00\u6837\uff0c\u4f46\u6211\u6ca1\u6709\u6210\u529f\u3002
\n\"I could get on her like a bitch<\/i>, but I didn't succeed.\"<\/p>\n

news.sina.com<\/a><\/p>\n

W\u01d2 du\u00ec t\u0101 c\u01ceiq\u01d4le qi\u00e1ngli\u00e8 de j\u00ecng\u014dng
\n\u6211\u5bf9\u5979\u91c7\u53d6\u4e86\u5f3a\u70c8\u7684\u8fdb\u653b
\n\"I made a strong attack on her\"<\/p>\n

Y\u00f2ng p-y zhu\u0101zh\u00f9 t\u0101men
\n\u7528p-y\u6293\u4f4f\u5979\u4eec
\n\"use pussy to grab them\"<\/p>\n

W\u01d2 xi\u00e0ng du\u00ecd\u00e0i d\u00e0ngf\u00f9 y\u012by\u00e0ng k\u00e0oj\u00ecn t\u0101
\n\u6211\u50cf\u5bf9\u5f85\u8361\u5987\u4e00\u6837\u9760\u8fd1\u5979
\n\"I treated her like a slut to get close to her\"<\/p>\n

Comment by David Moser:<\/p>\n

By the way, I don't think there is any obvious way to say \"pussy\" in Chinese.\u00a0 It doesn't mean the same thing as \"vagina\", so \"bi1 \u5c44\" doesn't really express the meaning.\u00a0 I've seen some articles translate the Trump rant with si1chu4 \u79c1\u5904 (\"private place\"), which is pretty good, but not a translation because it's not vulgar.\u00a0 Yin1bu4 \u9634\u90e8 (\"private parts; pudendum\") is also descriptive but not at all lewd.\u00a0 It's a bit like the French word \"fesses\",\u00a0 which is usually translated \"buttocks\", but it refers to the area of the thighs, buttocks AND loins, as seen from behind.\u00a0 We don't really have a word specifying that bodily region in English.\u00a0 (Another example may be \"lap\", that seems to be a peculiarly English word.)<\/div>\n

[Thanks to Jichang Lulu, Melvin Lee, Fangyi Cheng, and Randy Alexander]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judging from these recent Language Log posts and the comments thereto, it is not always easy for native speakers of English to understand what Donald Trump says, especially when he is making lewd remarks: \"A non-apology for the ages\" (10\/7\/16) \"'Like a bitch'?\" (10\/8\/16) \"Trump translated\" (9\/31\/16) \"Trump's aphasia\" (9\/5\/15) There have been many other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slang","category-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28718"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28773,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28718\/revisions\/28773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}