I recently read a message left by my reader and decided to come up with a translation of this Chinese poem. However, this is not a good translation and I struggled with words. Anyway, for now, this is what I have. By the way, the translation from my reader was pretty good, so I will share it here with you.
Two days ago I found an email sitting in my inbox from a friend. The email was to inform me of the 2nd NTU Literary Translation Contest. For the 1st NTU Literary Translation Contest of which a reader of my blog informed me, I did try to translate three Chinese poems but I didn’t enter the contest. As one I translated before knowing that there was a contest going on, and the other two I didn’t take the trouble of mailing the application. In this technologically advanced era, making a trip to the post office and physically mailing out an application sounds so outdated and burdensome. I know. I am just too lazy. I need to get up more and do more things. It is just so easy to send anything electronically these days. So many things could be done online. You don't even have to leave your desk. Even for the once a year obligation of tax returns filing, you can e-file for that. By the way, I did post my poem translations after the contest was over just to make sure that I didn’t get in the way of others coming up with their own translation, except for the one posted earlier before I became aware of the contest. Just in case you didn’t get a chance to read them, this is the link.
Nobody interprets a poem exactly the same even in its original language, let alone translating it into another language. There will always be a certain degree of meaning lost in translation due to the difference in culture, linguistic and metaphysics.
What I attempted to do is to capture the essence of the original verse as much as possible, while trying to maintain a correct, coherent and understandable version of target language.
Nobody interprets a poem exactly the same even in its original language, let alone translating it into another language. There will always be a certain degree of meaning lost in translation due to the difference in culture, linguistic and metaphysics.
What I attempted to do is to capture the essence of the original verse as much as possible, while trying to maintain a correct, coherent and understandable version of target language.
Someone has asked me how I would translate some of the verses in Bai Juyi's poem 《因望月有感，聊書所懷》. I decided to give it a try and translated the entire poem. This is my translation.
白居易《因望月有感，聊書所懷》
This is my attempt to translate another poem from 李煜. To read more of my poems and translations, please go to http://elisaenglish.pixnet.net/blog/post/4653506. Aided by the reference below, I tried to portray the essence of the poem based on their interpretation. This is not a word-for-word translation, but rather an attempt to capture the essence of the original verse as much as I can. My translation of this verse is based on my limited understanding of the Chinese language and my limited ability to write poems in English.
http://ct4.ck.tp.edu.tw/3/3-5/nan-4.htm
http://staff.whsh.tc.edu.tw/~huanyin/anfa/l/anfa_liyu.htm#賞析
I like Kevin’s translation of the lyric: 夢醒時分 <作詞:李宗盛 作曲:李宗盛>, so I asked his permission to repost his translation here to share with my readers. Thanks for his graciousness to allow me to post his translation on my blog.
This is the link to his translation originally posted on yahoo knowledge. http://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1010020407851
This is such a hard poem to translate. It is so long. I hate translating long poems as it makes my brain work. Aided by the reference below, I tried to portray the essence of the poem based on their interpretation. I still struggle to completely convey the beauty of this poem with my translation and at the same time make it rhyme. Anyway, this is all you get for now, as my brain needs some pampering.
Again, like my past translation, this is not a word-for-word translation, but rather an attempt to capture the essence of the original verse as much as possible. Since my understanding of the Chinese literature is very limited, I often look up interpretation from others. My translation of this poem is based on interpretation from the following sites. http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/3/10/9/c15028.htm
http://blog.cnyes.com/My/ivy912ivy912/article198881
http://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1009042502298
This is not a word-for-word translation, but rather an attempt to capture the essence of the original verse as much as possible in minimal wording. My translation of this verse is based on my limited understanding of the Chinese language. As I translate this song, I struggle to convey the essence of the verse: 道是無晴還有晴
唐朝劉禹錫《竹枝詞》
楊柳青青江水平，聞郎江上唱歌聲。
This is not a word-for-word translation, but rather an attempt to capture the essence of the original verse as much as possible in minimal wording. My translation of this verse is based on my limited understanding of the Chinese language and the interpretation from the following sites. http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/culture/chinese/culturechinese/vod12html/vod12_12.htm
I would like to share a translation from someone I acquainted lately. He has graciously allowed me to post it on my blog but would like to stay anonymous. I like his version of the translation and his choice of words. By the way, if you haven't read my version of the translation. This is the link. http://elisaenglish.pixnet.net/blog/post/903079
Cicadas of Autumn
運用Watson關懷照護理論於再婚母親面對產下唐氏兒之護理過程
Utilizing Watson’s Theory of Human Caring on the nursing of Down Syndrome babies by remarried mothers.
鋼釘打在我腳踝骨頭上 (以固定我碎裂的腳踝骨)
A nail was inserted into my ankle bone (for fixation of fractured ankle).
I have attempted to translate chapter 48 of Laozi's Daoism. My translation is based on the article provided by 王繼如 - 蘇州大學文學院博士生導師.
His article has explicit interpretation on Chapter 48 of Daoism from several writers.
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