Përkthime - Kineze e thjeshtuar-Anglisht - 啤酒肚

Hi again pluiepoco,

Please, if you're going to translate your own poems, please do so more literally... If you want to say different things in English, then change the Chinese poem or let someone else do the translation, please...

And surely, you know the rule about only putting one translation in the "Translation" field, and putting any alternative versions in the "Remarks about the Translation" section below the translation itself...

You have been here at long enough to know these things!

Anyway, here is my version again:

---Ian's Version---

Beer Belly

In a moment, it is already over
I don't dare say I still love you
In both our memories
You are still you
I am still me
But when I stand up
I suddenly find I've got a beer belly

---End---

Please try to translate this way, more literally...

(Or change the Chinese poem, to make it say what you want to say in English...) It's your poem, you can change it if you want!

Well, at least now you've only put one version in the Translation field, but it's even less literal than the first two you had in there before!

Anyway, I can't validate it if you're going to keep changing it: please give me one version that you really believe is a good translation of your Chinese poem, and then I'll check it for you!

Let's then wait for pluiepoco. I'll turn the admin light of this page off.

I am tired. sleep.

Good night, pluiepoco! (It's 2:07 PM here ))

Okay, pluiepoco! Thank you! Only one version, and very close to the original text! I can work with that!

So, four questions:

Why did you prefer
pot belly
when the English
beer belly
also exists, and is a literal translation of the Chinese?

Your version says
Time changes all
I think the Chinese literally means
In an instant, (our relationship has) already passed
which is why I translated it as
In a moment, it is already over
(and the reader will guess that it is the relationship that is over, from the rest of the poem). Did I misunderstand this? Anyway, if you prefer your version, because it's a poem (and it means about the same thing), I can accept it of course.

You are not changed
I am not changed
is of course the figurative meaning of the Chinese, which literally means
You are still you
I am still me,
but you could have written the poem
你还没変化 Wo Hai Mei BianHua
我还没変化 Ni Hai Mei BianHua
in Chinese if you had wanted to say it your way...

Last, we can't say
finding I have changed to a pot belly
in English: I think you want to say
finding I now have a pot belly
or, less literally but perhaps more poetically,
and I see my pot belly

Anyway, thank you for having corrected your translation in response to my requests, and I look forward to hearing your answers to the above four points!

MAny people think that a pot belly is gained from drinking too much beer, but I know it is not true. So I choose the pot belly, in an appearance similarity. Beer is a thing introduced to China in late Qing Dynasty, by German? Since beer belly is more literal, I think I should use it.

The core of this poem is "change", so I used several changes to make it shorter than literal translation. It may not be proper.

I accept your corrections. Please edit.

Hi pluiepoco,

Is there a word in Chinese, for example, like the Japanese 太鼓腹 which means
pot belly
or does Chinese only have one word,
啤酒肚 PiJiuDu
which means both "pot belly" and 'beer belly"?
Is there any other, more exact, way to say
pot belly
in Chinese?

有没有在漢語里為
pot belly
的別的説法ma?

Yes, there is: 将军肚 a general's belly.

But I am a plain people, to say this is overflattering me.

Since you know Chinese, and many people want to learn how Chinese languages are like, I will give you a forum of Beijing Univeristy, Chinese faculty:

说说你们本地的人称

This topic is started by me, about the personal prenouns in all kinds of local speakings.

You will find the forum good.

And from this tiny point, I bet Kafetzou will be very surprised to exclaim: OHHH, they must be different languages, since they have different personal prenouns!!!!

But, they are all Chinese and written same.

Okay, so because there is no other equivalent in Chinese (i.e. an unflattering one) for
pot belly
I guess we can use that too!

I'll validate the translation, and give you your points back now!

Thanks for the information about that site! I'll check it out when I get a chance!