TV Tropes in Chinese

I posted the following in Yak Fest a long time ago coz I didn't know any better.

关于Trope, Tropers的翻译，本人在此献丑一下：

Trope: 文路，套路，故事套路，文学套路

Troper/Tropers: 套路粉丝，寻套人，找套的，寻文路者，找文路的，文路粉丝

(These are just off the top of my head. Please build upon them. We need a good Chinese name for this cool joint.)

BTW: 比喻 means metaphor.

PS: Mind if I join? I'm fully bilingual, and I consider myself a self-styled linguist (academia doesn't exactly look eye to eye with me).

First thing first, welcome to the thread!

With regards to "trope", no offense, I think we should stick to 哏 (gén) in the modern sense, as it brings the meaning of 桥段, which I think fits better than 套路 anyway. Plus, it's only one word and therefore by default, cooler then the rest.

No, actually, Chinese tends to favor 2-character phrases. Balance and all that.

I beg to differ on that. I don't think a lot of people share that thought. From what I can see, they actually like conciseness more. Usually a two-character phrase denotes a mixed characteristic of both characters, like 翅膀 (wings + upper arm/shoulder), 吉祥 (luck + auspice), etc.

Also, pray tell what you mean by balance.

反正是中文翻译讨论就用中文提意见吧。。。这都三年了，一个词条都没出来，还是应该先不追求达到最完美，翻译部分页面之后再慢慢改吧。T Vtropes这种层层嵌套的百科结构也决定了必须综合起来翻译才合适，有没有人愿意现在就开始的？

Proposed translation for King of Beasts: 伴君如伴虎 ("Attending one's leige is like having a tiger for company.")

Yes, technically, this is an aphorism about the human, rather than the creature, but I believe it still fits.

Also, a long overdue explanation of what I meant by "balance" above—the long version is that Chinese, as a language with a million and a half homophones, generally favors adding one or more "filler" characters to their single-character words so that you can disambiguate whether you're talking about a 狮子 (lion) or a 老师 (teacher).

edited 6th Jan '17 9:15:10 AM by dotchan

Is it even technically feasible to use Chinese titles on this wiki? Trying to Wiki Word a Chinese phrase?

Not with the current software, as far as I know.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Is anyone still thinking on how to put this into practice? Maybe I can help.

Chinese Translation Project

I decided to put a wikiword for a Chinese phrase, just as an experiment, on Sandbox.Custom Title In Chinese. I know this is old, but I was curious (since Polish characters worked).

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

Seems like it works, on my end.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Huh, what do you know, it works. So a Chinese translation may in fact be possible. I'm not doing it since I'm nowhere near proficient in it, but that's something. thx for the help.

(it's Google translated and shrunk down to 80%, which is why it looks like that)

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 24th 2021 at 6:48:58 PM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

我是中国人，乐意效劳！ Plus, I write fluent English (modestly so in speaking).

Edited by Bojan on Jan 14th 2022 at 3:42:25 AM

Ney, all who speak Mandarin as their mother tongue know 万兽之王.

Edited by Bojan on Jan 15th 2022 at 4:42:25 AM

Just my two cents.

I have a suggestion for "trope": 手法, although I wouldn't mind if 套路 was chosen over it instead. 套路 is a systematic way of doing things, while 手法 is a technique in literature or art; I think 手法 is more accurate than 套路 in this context.

If 套路/手法 is chosen as the translation for "trope" in the end, then TVTropes could be something like 套路/手法百科 (to mirror wikis like 萌娘百科).

Tangential to the discussion, but my ideal version of the Chinese TVTropes would be something similar to The Other Wiki: the text in an article gets turned into Traditional (Taiwan) or Simplified (Mainland) (or more) before being shown to the user, and they can freely switch between these two (or more) variants. Not shown to users is a conversion table that converts the names of works in one region (e.g. Mainland) to those in another (e.g. Taiwan). It solves the problem of having to synchronize contents between the Traditional and the Simplified Chinese wiki, although I'll admit it's a really ambitious task.

Chinese Translation Project

I have an idea about how to translate "TV Tropes". have seen someone called TV Tropes "剧情函数库" (Story Function Library). Although not too accurate, but I think it's a pretty good translation. Perhaps we can change it into "套路函数库", this would be more accurate.

Mr. kamano,my Mikado, my mission is completed!

I'm from Hong Kong and I speak Cantonese as a first language (and Mandarin as a third language), main Traditional Chinese but understand basic Simplified. I've had some ideas for Trope names; some of them are taken from Wikipedia because of their widespread use:

• 13 Is Unlucky: 不幸的十三
• Added Alliterative Appeal: 頭韻法 (official translation of 'alliteration') / 雙聲 (similar concept in Chinese)
• Alliterative Name: 名中雙聲 (?)
• Ancient Egypt: 古埃及
• Anti-Hero: 反英雄
• Asian Fox Spirit: 狐狸精
• The Bard: 吟遊詩人
• Bookends: 首尾呼應 (my Chinese teachers advocate this technique a LOT in writing fiction)
• Byronic Hero: 拜倫式英雄
• The Caligula: 夏桀商紂 ("[Kings] Jie of Xia and Zhou of Shang", refers to mytho-historical figures that Chinese speakers are more likely to be aware of)
• Chekhov's Gun: 契訶夫之槍
• Cliché: 陳腔濫調
• Crossover: 跨界作品
• Deus ex Machina: 機械降神
• Divine Right of Kings: 君權神授 (official translation) / 天命 ("Mandate of Heaven", similar Chinese concept)
• Dystopia: 反烏托邦
• Eunuchs Are Evil: 宦官專權 ("Eunuchs hold all the power") - either this or Evil Chancellor
• Foil: 映襯
• Foreshadowing: 伏筆
• The Fool: 愚者
• Four Is Death: 四字的禁忌 ("The Taboo on the Word 'Four'") - puns on Never Say "Die"
• Imperial China: 中國朝代 ("Chinese dynasties")
• The Ingenue: 純情少女
• Irony: 反諷
• Japan Takes Over the World: 大日帝國 ("Japanese Empire")
• Knight Errant: 流浪騎士 (translation on Cantonese Wikipedia) / 遊俠 (similar Chinese equivalent)
• Lady-In-Waiting: 女侍官 (for the Western concept) / 女官 (from Wikipedia, "female officials"), 婕妤 (for a specific title... technically for concubines?)
• MacGuffin: 麥高芬
• Mad Scientist: 瘋狂科學家
• Magical Girl: 魔法少女
• Motif: 母題
• Never Say "Die": 死字的禁忌 ("The Taboo on the Word 'Die'") - puns on Four Is Death
• Noble Savage: 高貴的野蠻人
• Prince Charming: 白馬王子
• Red Herring: 紅鯡魚
• Red String of Fate: 姻緣紅線
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: 自證預言
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: 長毛狗的故事
• Showing Up Chauvinists: 巾幗不讓鬚眉 (Chinese expression of similar meaning)
• Stock Characters: 定型角色
• Superhero: 超級英雄
• Unreliable Narrator: 不可靠的敘事者
• Utopia: 烏托邦
• Villain: 奸角
• Virtuous Bees: 嗡嗡小蜜蜂 ("Buzzing Little Bees")
• Wuxia: 武俠小說

Edited by AquaEclipse on Jun 23rd 2022 at 6:55:13 PM

they/she; editor of Minecraft SMPs

@ Bojan: I agree that 万兽之王 should be used as the translation for King of Beasts, it's simple, a widely-known term, and gets the point across

they/she; editor of Minecraft SMPs

Since last month, I have been preparing a list of translations of the most commonly used tropes (about 1600 1900 tropes are in here). Although it is not complete (10% of the tropes are question marks), I believe that this file can serve as an invaluable guide for translating TV Tropes into Chinese.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xcMl7HOEm-2nR-xGtVfwQYxEOw9d39pOLp204St58dA/edit?usp=sharing

Edit: I have moved the file to Google Docs where you can edit it.

Edited by ItMarki on Aug 29th 2022 at 6:19:07 PM

Chinese Translation Project

這是哪裡，我在哪？Sorry for stumbling in.

This project is mad ambitious just by the look of it. Though my main concern would be Chinese phrases can lose a lot of the quirkiness TV Tropes is known for due to the vast differences in phrase usage between regions.

Take “Beware The Nice Ones” for example, while the proposed “小心好人” looked “nice” in itself, I would prefer to use “當心濫好人” based on the universally recognizable “Beware of Dog (當心惡犬/家有惡犬)” phrase, and the slang term for (pushover-level) nice guys.

To sum up, I would say tropes should incorporate slangs that are recognizable , and widely used through all Chinese-speaking regions for TV Tropes to not lose their flavor.

Edited by shuniya on Nov 2nd 2022 at 12:12:40 AM

I'm aware that I'm (or we're?) taking a more literal approach to translating the tropes (maybe it's because I have a literal mind :P). I agree that sprinkling a bit of fun would make Chinese readers "relate" to the tropes more.

I'm open to any of your suggestions if it means we're trying into inject humor into the translations. You're free to make any comments in the Google Doc in my last post.

Chinese Translation Project

UsefulNotesChs.Chinese Language - If this is part of the project, why is CHS at the end of the namespace instead of the beginning?

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

I don't know, but I also found FilmChs.The Wandering Earth. I'll be moving the pages shortly.

Chinese Translation Project

Bumping to announce that I have added and translated a large set of tropes, raising the total number of tropes to about 2600 (along with 210 miscellaneous tropes). There are also a number of problems and some 170 untranslated tropes, so I encourage anyone with the ability to join in and discuss.

Chinese Translation Project

was directed here from Gratuitous Chinese, thanks ~AquaEclipse, just to summarise, i am a chinese speaker on the intermediate level, singaporean chinese is my second language, even though i don't use it much outside of family and where i need to; english is my most-native language and the one that i am most fluent in:

• i've added comments to the document under the anonym "Iva Jartem", any fellow tropers wishing to go forth, go ahead and respond
• carry over from the previous thread: should we use 亞式動畫 instead of 亞洲動畫, and so on and so forth? after all, the point on it is on the type of animation, not the origin
• just to modify a previous post, 不幸的十三 -> 十三不幸 to emphasise the statement that would be given to say along the lines of "hey! 13 is unlucky!"

hi! i'm zycone. how are you then? is everything alright?