Översättning - Kinesiska (förenklad)-Engelska - 照相吗

Hi Michel,
Is the subject of this sentence implied in Chinese (and so it's okay to cut), or is 徐文博's Chinese ungrammatical?

中国的語法上、如果在這些文的話、主語不用ma?

hai是用口語説話的時候、也可以ma?

CC: Michel Lao

In Chinese Order:
(subject) Take Photo?

obviously, the sentence has no subject, but it is right in oral Chinese, and also in written Chinese. Because modern Chinese is based on spoken Chinese.

这个汉语句子是正确的，虽然没有主语，但如果没有必要指明，或者总体很有局限，很容易分辨出所指者是谁，就不需要特别指明主语是谁了。

如果总体有两个人，那么主语就限定在询问者与被问者之间，从语气上看，多是后者。但也有前者的情况，也有包括所有人的情况。比如：

甲：我先干到这里。
乙：吃饭去吗？
甲：对啊，你去不去？

甲：吃饭去吗？
乙：你先去，我手头还有活。

甲：大家先停一停！
乙（丙、丁...）：吃饭去吗？


CC: IanMegill2

Thanks, pluiepoco!

I edited the original: would you say the meaning is right now?

PS: in English, as a question, we can't say
Take a photo?
nor is it natural to say
Will you take a photo?
so this was the closest I could get to the feeling of the original Chinese...

Can you think of anything better?

CC: pluiepoco

I think you are right.

It is like a street vendor soliciting his business from a passer-by, usually at scenic spot.

But this is a full sentence, and I don't believe in English community there is no such shortened soliciting sentence as in Chinese.

So, can we just say "photo" or "photography" or grammatically "photo-taking"?

CC: IanMegill2

Hmmm..It's as I thought: the meaning of this Chinese is a full sentence, meaning "Would you like to take a photo?" i.e. it cannot be just a noun (i.e. "photo-taking" ), beause of the 吗 at the end...

So we need to translate it as a full sentence, I should think.

The communicative act is the same: in exactly the same case as people would say in China

照相吗？

in an English-speaking country, they would say

Do you want to take a picture?

So I guess we have to leave it as a sentence...

Hmmm... I guess I'll validate it now.
Thanks for your help!

Sorry, I forgot to CC you in my last message!

CC: pluiepoco

Hi jp, I thought you might be interested in our translation from the Chinese here: you can see how different the two languages are!

If you have any comments, please let me know!

CC: cucumis

Well, when I said "full sentence", I referred to your English translation in full structure of SVO.

And when I said "shortened", I referred to the shortened structure the same as the origial Chinese text.

And I wanted to claim that, You were correct to translate the Chinese shortened sentence into an English full sentence, but a full sentence is obviously lengthy for a solicitor who is the asker of the question "照相吗?".

CC: IanMegill2for clarifications

I see! Thanks again, pluiepoco!

I suppose the only way to shorten this sentence at the colloquial level in English would be

"Photo?"

But I think this is just too de-contextualized for anybody to understand...

It's funny, you know, I was thinking about it and I discovered that in Japanese, there is the exact same expression as in Chinese

写真撮りますか？

which also has the same balance of context vs. word meaning, i.e. literally "Take photo?"

In English, if we just say

Photo?

without a context, it could be "would you like to buy a photo?" or so many other possibilities, it's too unclear...

The Chinese and Japanese expressions have a balance of context <--> words that is "between" the two English phrases

Do you want (me) to take a photo?

and just

Photo?

so I guess we have to choose the first full sentence for the sake of clarity...

Thanks again for all your help!

我很感謝ni了!

CC: pluiepoco