Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Translator's life can be very intersting. People who translates shall carefully handle the delicate differences lie in both grammar and meaning.

Oringial Latin Verse Quoted:Cogito, ergo sum.
Oringial German Verse Quoted:Ich denke, also bin ich.
中译: 我思故我在。


Obviously, there is no overt evidence indicating a strong causal relationship between the two clauses "Ich denke" and "also bin ich"; yet "also" (set in the beginning of the sentence)seems more like a simple juxtaposition of two coexisted facts, or just a light "and hence" to me.

However, in the targeted chinese translation, without a emphasized reasoning indication "故", the inherent logic in Chinese language is lost, which shall not be allowed, thus I once also heard about another version of this famous saying from German: "我思且我在"。

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