Translation - Sjinees vereenvoudig-Engels - 如果生活是一种欺骗，

Hi pluiepoco,

Doesn't your
that frightens me
mean
that shocks me awake
? (i.e. surprises me and wakes me up)?

---(Ian's version)---

If life is a kind of fraud,
please don't tell me the truth.
If life is a dream,
please let me never wake up.
But I'm afraid,
I'm afraid
I'm afraid that life is a nightmare,
and that shocks me awake
my whole body covered in cold sweat.

---(End)---

Hmm... Isn't that a more accurate translation of your poem? Of course, it's your poem, so you can translate it any way you want, but usually we try to be as accurate as possible when translating things?

Yes, thanks Ianmegill, I agree with you, your translation is more accurate.

There are two points I diverted from the original text:

1. Don't wake up--- sleep forever
2. wake up with fear-- frighten.

But I was very curious and surprised that Damelo had made the perfect translations in Spanish and portuguese versus my Chinese original text. So I asked, if he knew Chinese. He did not reply.

If he did not know Chinese, then this phenomenon indicates that my English translation can have more affulent space for imagination, and this kind of supplumental imagination helps one understand the surface meaning of the poem, as well as the indepth meaning of it, what is more, one can translate it into another foreign language that is so agreeable to the original one. That is unbelievable, but that is true.

I don't know German, so Maybe german expert translated word by word from my poor english version, and might be a little different from the Chinese text. But it is only a guess, maybe he did the same work as Damelo.

I'm sure there are many non-Chinese in the world who can read Chinese, not just me!

So, do I correct your English version and then give you your own points back, with no rating? Is that a good idea?

中国人天不怕地不怕,就怕老外说中国话.

Ok, good idea.

真的ma?

Original version before last edit, for reference:

If life is a lie,
please don't explode it.
If life is a dream,
I wish I sleep for ever.
But I am afraid,
afraid
afraid that life is a nightmare,
that frightens me,
into cold sweat.