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tavina-writes · 1 year

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Nie Mingjue's Age

Briefly popping back into Da-ge posting hours (this will not be long so no cut lolsob) to scream about this line from chapter 49:

当年，在聂明玦只有十几岁，清河聂氏的家主还是他父亲的时候，有人上贡给温若寒一把宝刀。温若寒高兴了几天，问身边客卿，你们觉得我这把刀怎么样？

Which I would translate as:

"Back in the day, when Nie Mingjue was still a young teenager, and the family head of the Qinghe Nie sect had still been his father, someone had given Wen Ruohan a treasured saber as a gift. Wen Ruohan was happy for a few days, and asked the guest beside him "what do you all think of this saber of mine?"

Here’s that line from the ExR translation:

“Back then, when Nie MingJue was only a teenager and the leader of the QingheNie Sect was his father, someone gifted Wen RuoHan a rare saber. Wen RuoHan was pleased for quite a couple of days. He had asked the guest cultivators—what do you think of this saber of mine?”

That same line from the official translation (which happens to be on two different pages, forgive me lmao):

The thing I want to scream about here is the phrasing of Nie Mingjue’s age in the Chinese, which says “只有十几岁” “only shijisui.” 十几岁 does refer to a very specific and kind of narrow age range, however it’s not a phrase that actually has a good English equivalent because it refers to the ages of 10-15, which in English is both pre-teen and teen wooo. BUT, the most common usage and definition of 十几岁 in Chinese is older than ten and younger than fifteen which. Means that at best, according to this line, Nie Mingjue was no older than a high school freshman when his dad died and could’ve been anywhere from finishing elementary school to a whole middle schooler!

(The best English equivalent of this sort of phrasing I can think of would be like, “early 20s” which in Chinese is the parallel 二十几岁 “ershijisui.”)

Okay time to lie down and cry.

#nie mingjue #my meta #my translation #thinking about da ge every day #just #jesus christ on that age #especially given the #and not only did he see this injury happen right before his very eyes AND see his dad die after six months #everyone also sat around pretending his dad died of totally natural causes #wdym new sect leader nie who is still going through puberty #no don't be silly ofc your dad wasn't murdered #like maybe this had an effect on his personality idk idk idk I really don't know #now going to sit here and lose my mind cheerfully!

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