Spring Waltz: that is bunnies

[lesbiassparrow]

The subtitles continue to entertain. It's a bit bad when I work out that someone is saying that you should be careful and sensitive in dealing with people in love but the subtitles insist otherwise. How I suffer for Daniel Henney. And the astonishingly cute heroine who he won't end up with. But the hero is sort of growing on me too and he does have to deal with mad mum and bonkers fake first love who clearly does not know the meaning of no, so I guess that he deserves someone.

I still can't work out what the subtitles are translating when they have the characters say 'suffer a lot.' They're clearly translating some sort of greeting but I have no idea what. Surely Koreans don't go around telling each other to suffer as a form of hello?

Also if this was on the American telly the slashers would go mad with hero and Philip. There's some very suggestive piano playing scenes... And now a mountain climbing and bandaging hand one.

And since this phrase was used on a subtitle I now really want to use 'that is bunnies' in conversation.

Comments

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

That is helpful, very helpful because it also answers another question I had about why people always say 'I'll go first.' I'd figured out that it was the equivalent of excuse me, but wasn't quite sure. And in this one I just don't trust the subs at all as I can tell some of the words are way off from what they are saying.

I was reading your post on Chinese proverbs the other day and was thinking about how Irish proverbs (the ones actually in Irish, at least) often revolve around cats. Which is strange as dogs and cattle are far more culturally and historically important to Irish culture.

[koalathebear.livejournal.com]

it also answers another question I had about why people always say 'I'll go first.'

Yes, it's as you say it's kind of a pleasantry/apology for leaving first when someone else is still working hard. I say it myself in Chinese all the time. I just dug this out of a post. I'd normally just link to it but after the censorship crackdown, I locked a lot of posts and some of them I put too high a security lock on them and from work I can't access my HB filter (I'm not sure if that makes any sense), but anyway I wrote this:

I left work just after midnight tonight and a whole bunch of my colleagues were still there working. I pulled on my coat and walked out to where they were working and said: "我先走" (wo xian zou) which is what you say when you leave first. It means: "I'm leaving first" but it literally translates as: "I first go". In Cantonese, they say: "我走先" (ngo jau sin). Same characters but they say: "I go first".

I was a bit bemused at how I've gotten into the habit of saying the Chinese pleasantries that I used to giggle were 'stating the obvious'.

I joke about it all the time with Chinese.

When you come back, Chinese people always say: "回来了" (You have returned) and in response, you say: "我回来" (I have returned). If they see you with a shopping bag, they will say: "买东西" (you've been shopping) and you say back: "买东西" (I've been shopping).

It's just courtesy-speaking/pleasantries and I used to find it kind of odd, but now I'm used to it.

The thing is, as I was walking along tonight I suddenly realised that I've been in a big glass house throwing stones because English is also full of stating the obvious redundancies.

When someone comes back to work from holidays or something, you'll say: "Oh you're back" or "you're back from your holiday". When someone's clearly going home, you'll say: "Oh you're off" or "you're going home". When someone walks into your office, you'll say: "Oh you're here". When they leave, you'll say: "Oh you're going now".

I realise I seem to say 'oh' a lot. I'm not sure what purpose the 'oh' really serves except to make a statement seem less abrupt.

In any case, the above observations add absolutely nothing to the conversation and you're not saying anything that no one doesn't already know but I suppose it's a way to fill in those silences that we seem to dislike so much.

In The Painted Veil, Kitty is frustrated that Walter is uncommunicative when she makes an observation abou the weather:

Walter: I've got used to not speaking unless I have something to say
Kitty: If nobody spoke unless they had something to say the human race would soon lose the power of speech.

*laugh*

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Thanks; I love reading posts about languages. It's funny but I think Korean and Japanese are so much easier to understand than Chinese: just by watching all of these soaps I can understand fairly simple conversations in Korean and also get some of the bits of others. But I've watched a lot of Chinese too and I have no idea of how to even break the individual words out.

As for redundancies in language, well Irish is probably of of the most inefficient languages there is in this regard - it's really hard to say anything directly or very quickly, which is why everyone speaks it so fast and you don't pronounce half the word! There isn't even a way to say 'yes' or 'no'; you have to repeat the verb back to someone.

So if I asked do you understand (An dtuigeann tu'?) someone would have to say I understand (tuigim) or I don't understand (Ni thuigim).

Cats and dogs, turnips and eggs

[koalathebear.livejournal.com]

About the cats/dogs issue, I once wrote here about my bemusement about how eggs were reviled by the Chinese and turnips in Western sayings ;)

Re: Cats and dogs, turnips and eggs

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

That's great!

Now I only have to sort out why the secondary female said something was bunnies and I will be happy!

Re: Cats and dogs, turnips and eggs

[koalathebear.livejournal.com]

Now I'm curious! Does the version you have Korean or Chinese subtitles? If you screencapped that moment I could get it translated/translated it myself :D It really is mysterious :D

My favourite one of all time would have to be Shan Cai on the Taiwanese dvds of Meteor Garden saying: "His eyesight is not normal" when she meant 'Dao Ming Si is looking at me strangely' :D

Re: Cats and dogs, turnips and eggs

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

It does have Chinese subtitles. I am not really certain quite where this scene took place as I have watched a quite disturbing amount of the series over the past day and a half, but I ever find it again and can work out how to screen cap it I will.

This DVD has terrible, terrible subtitles. Quite a bit of the time I ignore them and try and sort out what is going on from people's expressions and the odd word of Korean I understand.