The Dark Forest
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Translation mistakes I've found
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If you don't mind, this is the only mistake I've found in TBP:Page 52:
Original text:
“史队！你说你——”年轻警官生气地将史强拉到一边...
A closer translation could be a blaming tone of "look at what you've done...".
Here starts the list.Page 34.
（老苗）“还通过与物业公司交涉为他们两家摆平两件麻烦事”
Possible translation:
After Miao settled several disputes with the building management for the two families...
Page 50
张叔，您不用忙着做决定，该问的都问到，这笔钱毕竟不是一个小数。
Possible translation:
Take time to ask whatever you need to ask...
(forgot to take the page number)
It should be "covered his ears", not "years".
This is the funniest mistake to me.Page 123
生气 in Chinese has different meanings in different word classes.
As a verb it means "anger" - that's right;
But as a noun, it's no longer "anger", but "liveness".
The underlined phrase should be "a trace of liveness".
edit to add the original text: 当“唐”号那尖利的舰首冲开海水时，章北海和吴岳感觉它那庞大的舰体又有了一丝生气。它很快进入海中，激起的大浪使港口中的其他船只部上下起伏起来，仿佛在向它致意。
Page 156.
This is a question instead of a statement. I don't know how the question mark could be missed during translation.
It should be:
"would you become an opportunistic hedonist like him?"
As we knew, Tyler's plot was changed in the English version, because the original plot was around the ball lightning weapon, which was elaborated in another novel by Liu Cixin but not translated yet.Almost everywhere in the book concerning ball lightning was removed, except one place:
Page 172.
By the way, this first four chapters of novel was trial-translated by Joel before.
The sample is here:
http://media.paper-republic.org/files...
Page 234
把手中的那三张印着黑点的纸扔到桌面上
Possible translation:
... tossing the three sheets with printed black dots onto the table.
Page 249
Tense error. It should be "would go" instead of "went".
Page 254
The original word was like "feel" instead of "know":
但此时，在章北海的感觉中，周围的太空是十分空旷的
Possible translation:
But right now, the surrounding space looked so empty to Zhang Beihai.
Page 283
况且也没有意义，在水星不用考虑核爆炸对环境的影响
Possible translation:
Besides, it makes no sense to do so - we don't need to consider the environmental effects of a nuclear bomb on Mercury.
Page 364
“你是哪年刑满出来的？”
“19 年。”
Please be noted that when Chinese talk about age they use 岁 instead of 年.
Possible translation:
- In which year did your sentence end?
- Year 19 (of Crisis Era).
Grammar time: For a tag question with a negative statement as its first part, Chinese and English have different ways to answer it.For example:
Question: That won't solve the problem, will it? / 问题还没解决，是吗？
Answers:
English: No, it won't. / Chinese: 是的 (Yes)
or
English: Yes, it will. / Chinese: 不是 (No)
There are multiple instances of this kind of mistakes in the book. I forgot to take down earlier occurrences but only took this:
Page 454
This "Yes" should be "No".
Two small groups of paragraphs were omitted in this section. I don't know why - a mean speculation of mine is that the translator didn't understand the subtle meaning of them so he decided to simply skip them - my apologies in advance if it is wrong.Page 412
The phrase "turning back to him" seems a little out of place without the context covered in the omitted part.
Let me try to translate the omitted paragraphs (new translations are underlined):
First part
“丁老，外部通讯频道还开着呢。”西子心不在焉地提醒道，双眼仍盯着前方的太空。
“没什么，舰队和地球的神经已经够紧张了，我们可以让他们转移和放松一下。”丁仪向后指指说。
“丁博士，这很好。”坐在前排的北美舰队的中校转过头来笑着说。
“那，在古代，您一定被许多女孩子爱上过。”西子收回目光看着丁仪说，一直处于高度紧张的她感到自己也确实需要转移一下了。
"... Like you, she was a major, and although she wasn't as tall as you, she was just as beautiful..."
"We are still connected to the external communication channel, Dr. Ding." Xizi reminded him absentminded, with her eyes still fixed into the space ahead.
"Never mind. The fleet and Earth are nervous enough, let's relax them a little bit by such off-topics." Ding Yi pointed behind as he said.
"Excellent point, Dr. Ding." The NAF Lieutenant Colonel seated in the front row said, turning back to him smiling.
"In the old days, lots of girls must have been in love with you." Xizi said to Ding Yi,
Second part
中校对话题的转移失望地摇摇头，“丁老，还是回到美女如水上来吧。”
丁仪再没有兴趣，西子也不再说话，他们都陷入沉默中。...
(The Lieutenant Colonel grew bored when Ding switched the topic to the metaphor of women on physics.)
The Lieutenant Colonel shook his head disappointingly at the shift of the topic, "Let's go back to the beautiful-women-and-water things, Dr. Ding."
But Ding Yi lost his interest; Xizi said nothing either, and they fell into a heavy silence.
Page 467
What? There were still three warships left in the Solaris?
Keep your despair ;)
It should be "bases of the three Solaris fleets" instead of "three warships".
Page 474
There's only one village mentioned in the book, that is New Life Village #5. There's no "#2".
By the way, IMO the "existed" should be "remained", or at least "still existed".
Page 481
Original text: 最后联合成一个更大的善意文明
IMO the underlined text "a benevolent civilization" should be
"a bigger benevolent civilization"
or at least
"one benevolent civilization",
otherwise the emphasis of this sentence is ambiguous. How do you think of it?
LZ你书里泰勒自杀之前找逻辑那段对话是“I am Wallfacer Frederick Tyler! My Wallbreaker exposed my strategy! He was right! I'm going to destroy the earth fleet! I'm going to use these quantum ghosts to wage war! I want to kill people! I’m anti-human! I’m a devil! Punish me and kill me!’
还是
'I am Wallfacer Frederick Tyler! My Wallbreaker exposed my strategy! He was right! I’m going to attack the Earth fleet with the mosquito swarm! I’m anti-human! I’m a devil! Punish me and kill me!’
我发现好像有两个不同的版本
Yajing wrote: "LZ你书里泰勒自杀之前找逻辑那段对话是“I am Wallfacer Frederick Tyler! My Wallbreaker exposed my strategy! He was right! I'm going to destroy the earth fleet! I'm going to use these quantum ghosts to wage war! I wa..."
Two different versions?! Interesting!
Would it be a customized version for the China market?
I have the correct version of the text (the mosquito swarm one) in my book. I bought it from Amazon China very soon after it hit the market.
你能告诉我上半部分的那个版本是从哪里来的吗？最好有书的照片，包括带封皮的、去掉封皮的硬皮、版权页、这个段落相关的页面。百度贴吧上近日有些相关的讨论话题，我特别好奇你列举的错版是否来自那个所谓的白皮“星之所在”版。
edit: link to the discussion on“星之所在”版
http://tieba.baidu.com/p/4057924331
Ryan wrote: "Yajing wrote: "LZ你书里泰勒自杀之前找逻辑那段对话是“I am Wallfacer Frederick Tyler! My Wallbreaker exposed my strategy! He was right! I'm going to destroy the earth fleet! I'm going to use these quantum ghosts to..."
上面是audible上P. J. Ochlan读的有声书的版本，下面是实体书的版本
星之所在版？我没有看过这个讨论，是不同出版商的版本吗？
There has been a dispute among Chinese readers recently, regarding the translation of the following quote from Zhang Beihai:Natural Selection, ahead four!
Some think it should be "full ahead" instead of "ahead four".
Navigation terminologies can be hardly found in any dictionaries handy to me so I can hardly judge it.
Could some English speaker clarify this for us? Thanks.
Is "ahead four" the correct translation?
really impressive job you've done!
In nautical terms "Full Ahead" corresponds to 前进三 (Ahead Three)， (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_... )前进四 (Ahead Four) is a term invented by Da Liu and I remember in the Chinese version he explained the term when Zhang Beihai boarded Natural Selection for the first time. Did the translator put in a footnote there?
Ryan wrote: "Yajing wrote: "LZ你书里泰勒自杀之前找逻辑那段对话是“I am Wallfacer Frederick Tyler! My Wallbreaker exposed my strategy! He was right! I'm going to destroy the earth fleet! I'm going to use these quantum ghosts to..."
I'm listening to the audible book recently and just halfway through it. I noticed this paragraph quoted by you too.
So regarding quantum ghosts vs mosquito swarm, the physical book has only one typo while the audible has two.
I'm a little curious now what's the version read in the latter. So far there's no other differences that I've noticed. All other minor changes and typos (known to me) seem kept.
Concat wrote: "In nautical terms "Full Ahead" corresponds to 前进三 (Ahead Three)， (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_... )前进四 (Ahead Four) is a term invented by Da Liu and I remember in the Chi..."
Thanks for the link. However, it seems from the link you provided that there are exactly four:
Full Ahead = Ahead Four
Half Ahead = Ahead Three (although not exactly, because it's said that "half ahead ... would always be accompanied by an RPM order")
Slow Ahead = Ahead Two
Dead Slow Ahead =Ahead One
Right?
Dead Slow Ahead = 微速前进http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5d754c...
“这时候就会听到指令：前进一---前进二---全速前进！在主机逐渐增强的轰鸣声中军舰迅速离开码头或锚地”
here it implies 前进三=Full ahead
Also from
http://www.wenku1.com/view/A5BB0850B8...
Dead slow ahead. 微速前进。 Slow（speed）ahead. 前进一。 Half（speed）ahead. 前进二。 Dead slow astern. 微速后退。 Slow（speed）stern. 后退一。 Half（speed）astern. 后退二。
Ryan wrote: "As we knew, Tyler's plot was changed in the English version, because the original plot was around the ball lightning weapon, which was elaborated in another novel by Liu Cixin but not translated ye..."Also, Ding Yi's title of the discoverer of macro-atom remains in tDF, which would be confusing to those hadn't read the ball lightning.
Just want to say thanks to all of you for illuminating these differences. Were there any such discrepancies in The Three Body Problem? It is my understanding that Ken Liu did a great job.
Kenneth wrote: "Just want to say thanks to all of you for illuminating these differences. Were there any such discrepancies in The Three Body Problem? It is my understanding that Ken Liu did a great job."In "message 2" there's the only discrepancy I've found in TBP so far. Ken did much greater a job, definitely. We are glad that he's the translator of the third book again.
Rumor went recently that Ken Liu is translating The Three Body Problem X , a fan's sequel to the trilogy...
Ryan wrote: "Rumor went recently that Ken Liu is translating The Three Body Problem X , a fan's sequel to the trilogy... ."Well, I refuse to read any sequel wrote by a fan
One important mistake: the conversation between Zhang Beihai and his father.When Zhang Beihai asks what he should do after thinking, his father replies, "All I can tell you is to think long and hard." while the correct translation is:
"All I can tell you is to think hard before that."
All I can tell you is to think before that.
-What about after that?
-There is no after that.
All will be over when trisolarians arrive.
Thus Zhang confirms that his father believes in human's defeat, and that he should work on escapism.
I can understand why the translator missed this point. You need to really read between the lines, and most readers only get it when they look back at this dialogue after Zhang's escape.
One main point to add: Unlike The Three-Body Problem, the translation of The Dark Forest is just an abridged version of the Chinese original. About 16% of the contents were truncated. Some truncations were more poorly and ruthlessly done than others. Anyone who is interested can compare the conversation between Ding Yi and Xizi about his romantic relationships. Paragraphs were cut out from the English version, leading to senseless discrepancies.
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I bought the English version of the first two books recently and have just finished reading them. Hereby I'd like to present a list of translation mistakes I've just during my reading.
Please be warned that this thread will of course include spoilers.
First, three words/phrases are translated differently in TBP and tDF:
1. 飞星 - Flying Start - Shooting Star
"Shooting Star" is misleading because it is not the thing in the book.
2. 红岸 － Red Coast - Red Shore
There's one occurrence in tDF but I forgot to take it down. Now I can't recall the page number of the occurrence but it is definitely there.
3. “大史，你真是个魔鬼！” - demon - devil
TBP, page 339:
tDF, page number forgotten:
Note that this is "a phrase that others had used to evaluate Shi Qiang" so they should be identical...