#bc i've been told my whole life my mom is Very Highly Educated in chinese language arts and speaks appropriately | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hua-fei-hua · 2 years

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the main reason i don’t take “i’m a native speaker of the source language” as the be-all, end-all for translation arguments in fandom specifically (as in, between fans who are not professional or even hobbyist translators) is bc, well. sometimes.......... native speakers............ are bad at their own language, too.

#we're on tumblr. we've seen the reading comprehension on this site which is mostly americans whose native language is ostensibly english #alternatively i don't take 'i asked someone who is a native speaker of the source language' as the be-all end-all of t/l arguments #like yes ofc native speakers opinions should be considered. and if i didn't speak any of the source language then fuck man #i'm not qualified to argue with them LOL. but this post is mostly me thinking abt things w/cn origin #bc i've been told my whole life my mom is Very Highly Educated in chinese language arts and speaks appropriately #and it's still pretty frustrating when she tries to make me speak in the same kind of language bc i just don't hear it around that often #but i think it has at least taught me to *think* abt things in that kind of Highly Educated highly-referential/symbolic way #even if i lack the knowledge base of references/symbols to utilize it myself i can go digging for them when t/l from cn --> en #which i think is pretty interesting bc it places me in this kind of 'historically this is what the word has meant' pov #which is just not smth we really do/consider in english esp when looking at modern texts but i think is rlly necessary in chinese #even when looking at texts written in the modern day! and thinking abt it that's probably the source kernel for some gnshn discourse #bc cn is such a context-heavy language; context which goes beyond the meaning of the bare words on the page #bc en doesn't consider historical context of words we're not used to reading into words w/different historical nuances #and since deciding whether the historical or the modern connotations should apply in a certain context is a Skill #the arguments end up sounding like 'historically it has meant x' 'so what? it means y in the modern day'#'yes but the historical meaning adds depth and nuance that changes the interpretation in this context' 'why should it tho?'#and the answer to that is just bc that's how it goes in the language!! Sometimes Other Languages And Cultures Do Things Differently!#anyway this kind of thinking definitely also affects how i write; with all the highly deliberate word choices #and occasional referential nature of my phrasing and whatnot. i like to imagine i have a somewhat chinese writing style in english #like not entirely. i don't craft my native english sentences the way i would craft an english translation of a chinese sentence #the latter of which i typically try to keep similar to the way cn sentences flow which is Different from good en sentence flow #but the extremely specific wording at times and trying to pack a lot of meaning into a few choice words using external context/references #that feels like something i can bring into my english writing and have it read as an english work w/echoes of another language hidden under #花話

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