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I see you have your name listed as one as one who is willing to translate Chinese to English. I am wondering if you are willing to help me with the translation of this: "鬼神明明，自思自量" which I put here in the page for Zhang Xianzhong. The English translation I see in a book is: "The gods are not without intelligence, examine yourselves and repent!" which I feel is not accurate enough. I tried my own translation but I don't think it sounds good either. If you can help, or give suggestions as to how to approach it, it would be much appreciated. Hzh (talk) 22:32, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I think the translation you quote is more or less accurate. If my interpretation is correct, the gist is that spirits and gods "know" (they're watching? they're omniscient?), and people should examine their thoughts / deeds / conscience (repenting doesn't seem to be explicitly stated). I'm not sure how I can word it better, but in my opinion, any reasonable translation accompanied by the original text in parentheses should be fine. wctaiwan (talk) 03:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I thought "repent" wasn't stated and wasn't sure if 自量 can mean repent, also hard to think of a way of translating 鬼神明明 that sounds good (明明 seems to mean "knowing" rather than the "all-knowing" as meant by omniscient). Thanks for your input, it's always helpful to have an alternate opinion and it's much appreciated. Hzh (talk) 08:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Killiondude (talk) 18:39, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Important request to translate article from eng-chin
Hello there, There is a very important article that is in English but not in Chinese. It's called Barefoot lawyers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_lawyer. They are self-taught people who help protect the rights of citizens in China. This would be a very important article for chinese people to read in their native language not in one there not familiar with. Would you consider helping out to translate the article. I am also asking 8 other translators with near native english and native chinese to help out. So if you all agree you would have 8 helpers. What do you think? Pretty Please..Dounai99 (talk) 00:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)Dounai99 (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2013 (UTC) (talk) 23:49, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I left a little funny message at the deletion log, considering you were the one who created the article, use common sense next time {{trout}}. Secretaccount04:31, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Heh, it didn't occur to me at the time, and the article's been around long enough that a PROD was probably more appropriate anyway. Thanks for taking care of it. wctaiwan (talk) 04:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
If you'd think so---That's the only reason I made the request on your talk page instead of inviting you to the article. But thanks for making your position clear.--B3430715 (talk) 07:41, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Re: Fundraising
Hello. About your comment in #wikimedia-fundraising, it will just get lost on IRC, so I'd ask you to post it on m:Talk:Fundraising 2013; I know it sometimes takes a few months for the WMF to answer, but in the end someone will read it. The WMF is not short of funds, it just switched to a model of continuous (ever-growing) fundraising; see also m:Fundraising, which they recently update. --Nemo06:55, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Thank you for the note, but I think I'm just going to leave it be. I don't particularly want to monitor a conversation on a wiki I don't visit frequently. In truth, it affects me very little since I'm logged in almost all the time. Maybe other readers who find it disruptive would raise the issue. wctaiwan (talk) 22:49, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Belated thanks
For your note on my Talk page about watchlisting all templates used. I've had to temporarily abandon my grand plan. Maybe I'll get back at it after this crunch. --Lexein (talk) 08:16, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Some sources say that Sai Jinhua's last husband was "Wei Sijiong" but when I did MDBG for the Chinese characters 魏斯炅 that were associated with his image I got "Wei Sigui". What is going on? Did he have multiple names?
WhisperToMe (talk) 02:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
The character 炅 has two possible pronunciations. Judging from an interview (uploaded to YouTube) with a biographer, the correct pronunciation seems to be jiong3 (i.e. your first one). wctaiwan (talk) 03:51, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
The Lingfei may be a reference to Zhao Lingfei (趙靈飛) which was one of Sai Jinhua's names
Tong, Xun. "Sai Jinhua". (the name of the work seems to be self-evident but I would like the Chinese characters of the author Tong Xun) -- This work appeared within: Qingdai renwu zhuangao (S: 清代人物传稿, P: Qīngdài Rénwù Zhuàngǎo), Ser 2. Liaoning People's Publishing House (S: 辽宁人民出版社, P: Liáoníng Rénmín Chūbǎnshè) (Shenyang), 1992. Volume 7, p. 339-342.
Also, what kind of work is SJHYS, S.75-77: "Sai Jinhua zhi zuihou zhangfu Wei Fuou" 赛金花之最后丈夫魏阜欧 (!) - Is it a nonfiction book, a novel, or a play? Does it have an ISBN number?
WhisperToMe (talk) 18:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Hu Baoyu: 胡寶玉 / 胡宝玉
Fantianlou Conglu: 梵天廬叢錄 / 梵天庐丛录
Lingfei Ji: 靈飛集 / 灵飞集
Zhang, Cixi: 張次溪 / 张次溪
Tong, Xun: 佟洵 / 佟洵
賽金花之最後丈夫魏阜歐 appears to be a chapter of one of two books: [1] or [2], but the information is extremely fragmented and all over the place, and I really can't tell if it's from one of these or something else entirely. Both books appear to be non-fiction. The first one might have stemmed from interviews with Sai Jinhua, judging from [3].
As an aside, I notice you seem to be putting in Chinese translations using the format (T: [trad.], S: [simp.], P: [pinyin])--wouldn't it be better to use {{zh}}? wctaiwan (talk) 20:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
The Place of Eternal Youth (Ch'ang-sheng tian/ Changsheng Tian) by Hung Shen (Hong Shen) (published in English by Foreign Languages Press (Beijing) in 1955)
Lute Song (P'i-p'a chi / Pipa ji) - Translated by A. P. L. Bazin into French in 1841, as of 1976 no complete English translation exists
The piece is 合汗衫, a Zaju by 張國賓. Confrontée here doesn't really mean "confronted", more "brought together" or "compared" (looking at http://www.wordreference.com/fren/confront%C3%A9), as the 合 in the original title refers to to the family in the play being reunited by piecing together two halves of a cut undershirt. Someone I was talking to online suggested "The Reunited Undershirt", which I think is a fair translation. wctaiwan (talk) 19:47, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for finding the essay! The translation "The Confronted Undershirt" came from p. 40 of a book by Min Tian ("[...]He hanshan (The Confronted Undershirt),[...]") but I'll be happy to use a translation that's clearly based off of that of the Chinese. It seems like the author found a false friend cognate and thought it was a real cognate WhisperToMe (talk) 04:49, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
The Chinese title is "論元人劇本中特出的平民性", though it should be noted that the Chinese text is not a direct translation of the English (it might be an abstract for the English essay, but I'm not sure about that either). Mengxi Bitan is 夢溪筆談 / The Dream Pool Essays. wctaiwan (talk) 17:39, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I did a bit of Googling just now, but I'm afraid I couldn't much, if anything, in reliable sources (even in Chinese). People report on what he's said, but I don't see biographies or the like (and he's very much alive, so no cheating with obituaries like I did with Wu-chi Liu :P). I'm not sure if Wu-chi Liu ever used the first-last order himself, but it's what the sources I cited used, so I just went with it. wctaiwan (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why 秦婦吟 is inserted at the bottom of the article, so it's possible that it's indeed the name she chose for herself--but I wouldn't assume, since it's best known as the title of a poem. (I don't think Chinese names should be mentioned unless they would be useful for reader research because using the Chinese name might yield more information, which isn't the case here.) The characters are 葵曄集. wctaiwan (talk) 17:08, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
I was thinking of putting the Chinese name in the article talk page as an additional note, so that if someone wants to start a Chinese language article on the book, they could refer to the authors by their Chinese names. It is interesting that it's a poem, but I'm not sure why the Chinese name of the poem would be printed at the end of the review if it wasn't the Chinese name that Beth Upton had chosen for herself or that her Chinese associate had chosen for her. Anyway, thanks for the characters! WhisperToMe (talk) 22:35, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I went over the review more carefully and I'm now certain it's not her name: The characters were provided as a reference for this portion of the review: "...does Ch'in fu yina really mean "The Lament of the Lady of Ch'in," or was the familiar English title kept for identification purposes?" (second page, toward the bottom of the first column) This also explains the "a." next to the characters. wctaiwan (talk) 00:22, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I see. It seems strange for it to be handwritten instead of typed but maybe that was more common in papers in the 1970s. Thanks for the insight! WhisperToMe (talk) 00:53, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm guessing it was a technical limitation. While typeset Chinese books have existed for a while, it certainly wasn't as easy in the 70's as it is today, when you can type Chinese characters on just about any computer. wctaiwan (talk) 01:31, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
I can't find any pronunciation, but Zheng4 is much more likely than Zheng1, which I've never seen outside of "正月" for the first month in the lunar calendar. wctaiwan (talk) 01:31, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
