On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, Chinese versions: The "Flesh" |
只有用心才能看得清楚
Zhǐ yǒu yòng xīn cái néng kàn-de-qīngchu
'Only with the heart can [one] see clearly'
Here at the "Flesh" page we're going to look at differences in vocabulary and expression that translators come up with in translating this simple sentence. Of particular interest is the way subtle words like 'see', 'heart', and 'clearly' have been translated. To see how translators have structured the sentence, just pop over to the "Bones" page.
Translating French on (English 'one') into Chinese
In French, the pronoun on ('one') is a very common word used to refer to 'people in general'. Katherine Woods translates this into English as 'one'. Even between closely related languages like English and French there's a difference in meaning and usage. Although 'one' has the same rough meaning as on does in French, it's much stiffer in tone and feeling, and much less commonly used.
Chinese hasn't even got a pronoun equivalent to on or 'one', so it has to find other ways of expressing this.
- The commonest solution is also the simplest -- leave it out! This is the approach taken by 26 translators. Thus: "Can only see clearly with the heart". Chinese is much more comfortable with 'subjectless sentences' than English or French.
- The second commonest is to use words meaning 'person' or 'people', adopted by roughly a quarter of translators (14 occurrences). Such words include 一個人 / 一个人 yīge rén 'one person' and 人 rén 'person'.
Subject |
'can use heart to see clearly' |
|
| --- | 26 |
只有用心才能看得清楚 zhǐ yǒu yòng xīn cái néng kàn-de-qīngchu |
| 一個人 , 一个人 / 人 / 人们 yīge rén / rén / rénmen 'a person / person / people' |
14 |
|
| 我們 wǒmen 'we' |
3 |
|
| Total | 43 |
(This doesn't include the three sentence patterns that make 'the heart' into the subject, nor the translation that uses a nominalisation.)
There is, however, a rather surprising difference between translators working from the French original, and those working from Katherine Woods' English.
Fully half of translators from English use words meaning 'a person' or 'people' to translate 'one'. Only two translators from the French translate on as 'a person' or 'people'. French translators much prefer to just leave out the pronoun. Take a look at this table:
Translation |
Meaning |
French |
English |
? |
Total |
| -- (Zero) | Subject omitted | 15 |
10 |
1 |
26 |
| 一個人 / 一个人 yīge rén |
'a person' | 1 |
7 |
- |
8 |
| 人 rén |
'person, people' | 1 |
4 |
- |
5 |
| 我們 wǒmen |
'we' | 3 |
- |
- |
3 |
| 人们 rénmen |
'people' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| Total | 20 |
22 |
1 |
43 |
(Table omits the three translations that make 'heart' the subject, and the translation using a nominalised verb)
I can suggest a few possible reasons for the difference. For instance:
1. On is very common in French and doesn't stand out; therefore it's quite natural to translate it as 'zero'. In English, 'one' is much less common; translators therefore feel the need to spell it out.
2. For similar reasons, 'zero' may have become the automatic or kneejerk equivalent of on in Chinese. 一个人 yīge rén 'a person' may have become the kneejerk equivalent of 'one'.
3. Dictionaries may play a role. That is, French-Chinese dictionaries and English-Chinese dictionaries may have different entries for on and 'one'. (This needs to be confirmed).
4. Translators from English may (for whatever reason) be more inclined to use freer translations. That is, rather than being tied down by conventional or literal translations (such as 'zero' for on), they may be readier to use colloquial or everyday expressions, thus swinging the scales towards words like 一个人 yīge rén 'a person'.
But these are mere guesses. Whatever the reason, we can be sure of one thing: translation is far from being a neutral process. The language that is being translated exerts a clear but often unexplained influence on the final translation.
This has rather interesting implications for the study of translationese. Some scholars have tried to use statistical methods to show that translationese doesn't exist; that is, there's no real difference between translated works and works directly written in the language in question. This example demonstrates that the source language does have a measurable impact on word-use in translation.
Variations on 只有 ... 才 zhǐ yǒu ... cái ('only')
只有 ... 才 zhǐ yǒu ... cái in this sentence embodies the notion of 'only', in the specific context that only if a precondition is fulfilled can a specific result be obtained.
For the first part of this double-barrelled expression, most translators stick to plain vanilla 只有 zhǐ yǒu. However, a few use alternative expressions:
只有
zhǐ yǒu
'only (if)'才
cái
'only then'Standard version. --
--
'...'才
cái
'only then'才 cái on its own is sufficient to convey the meaning. 唯有
wéi yǒu
'solely (if)'才
cái
'only then'More formal or literary. 唯
wéi
'solely'才
cái
'only then'More formal or literary. 只能
zhǐ néng
'only can'才
cái
'only then'A mixed structure. See below. 只要
zhǐ yào
'only need'才
cái
'only then'Strictly speaking incorrect. Expresses a sufficient condition ('all you need to do is...'), not a necessary condition ('you must ...'). However, 才 cái makes the sense clear. 只要
zhǐ yào
'only need'就
jiù
'then'Incorrect. Expresses a sufficient condition ('all you need to do is...'), not a necessary condition ('you must ...'). Total A couple of these renditions are inaccurate or nonstandard.
1) The translator who uses 就 jiù instead of 才 cái changes the meaning to 'You only need to look with the heart in order to see clearly'. This is definitely off the track!
2) More puzzling is the translation that uses 只能 zhǐ néng:
只能用心才看得准确。
Zhǐ néng yòng xīn cái kàn de zhǔnquè.
'Can only with the heart (only) see accurately '.This actually appears to be a blend of two constructions, 只有 zhǐ yǒu 'only (if)' and 只能 zhǐ néng 'can only', as shown in the following table:
BLEND OF TWO STRUCTURES
a b 只有用心才看得准确。
Zhǐ yǒu yòng xīn cái néng kàn de zhǔnquè.
'Can only see clearly with the heart'只能用心看。
Zhǐ néng yòng xīn kàn.
'Can only look with the heart'a + b 只能用心才看得准确。
Zhǐ néng yòng xīn cái kàn de zhǔnquè.This isn't exactly a standard collocation in terms of formal grammar, but's probably not as uncommon as the grammar books might have you believe.
Translating avec le coeur ('with the heart')
In French and English, the content of this clause is very simple: avec le coeur 'with the heart'. In Chinese, this can be equally simple: 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart'. But there are a couple of interesting surprises in the way this is translated into Chinese.
'With':
While 用 yòng functions like the English preposition 'with', it actually has a somewhat grander pedigree. 用 yòng is, in fact, the verb 'to use'. In other words, 'with the heart' in Chinese also means 'use the heart'. In this, 用 yòng is no different from many other Chinese prepositions such as:
| As a verb | As a preposition | ||
| 在 zài | 'to exist' | 在 zài | 'at' |
| 離 / 离 lí | 'to move away' | 離 / 离 lí | '(distance) from' |
| 到 dào | 'to arrive' | 到 dào | 'to' |
| 跟 gēn | 'to accompany' | 跟 gēn | 'with (accompanying)' |
| 拿 ná | 'to hold' | 拿 ná | 'with (colloquial)' |
While virtually all the translators use 用 yòng to mean 'with', there's one translator who uses 依靠 yīkào 'to rely on' instead. This creates a more formal effect.
One translator renders the sentence by using 观察 guānchá 'to observe, observation' as a noun rather than as a verb: 'Only observation with the heart is reliable'. The word used to translate 'with' is 凭借 píngjiè 'rely on': 凭借心灵的观察 píngjiè xīnlíng de guānchá ('observation relying on the heart').
Use the heart to go and see
About a third of translators use 去 qù 'go'. This transforms 用心 yòng xīn 'with/use the heart' into a short sentence, with either 去看 qù kàn 'to go and see', or the similar 去观察 qù guānchá 'go and observe'. Thus:
USE THE HEART (TO GO AND SEE) |
||
| 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart' |
-- | 28 |
| 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart' |
去看 qù kàn 'to go and see' |
11 |
| 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart' |
去观察 qù guānchá 'to go and observe' |
2 |
| 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart' |
來看 qù kàn 'to come and see' |
1 |
| 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart' |
去观察，去感受 qù guānchá, qù gǎnshòu 'to go and observe, go and experience' |
1 |
| Total | 43 |
|
This again reflects the strongly verbal nature of 用 yòng 'to use'. In particular, the verb 去 qù 'to go' is used to express a sense of purpose in Chinese. The meaning is: 'use the heart in order to go and see'. This is very common in spoken Chinese; it's not surprising that so many translations use it.
Again, it's only possible to put an entire mini-sentence in the A Clause because of the very flexibility of the Chinese 只有 ... 才 zhǐ yǒu ... cái ('only if .... only then') construction. The A Clause here can hold anything from a single word to a sentence.
'Heart'
One of the most unexpected features of the Chinese translations is the split over le coeur 'heart'. Some translators use 心 xīn 'the heart'; others use 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng, meaning 'the spirit'. The split is roughly 3:2. The following table shows how le coeur 'the heart' is translated in all 45 translations.
TRANSLATION OF COEUR / 'HEART' |
|
| Coeur / 'Heart' | Occurrences |
| 心 xīn 'heart' |
30 |
| 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng 'spirit' |
17 |
| Total | 47 |
(Note: One translator uses 自己的心灵 zìjǐ de xīnlíng 'one's own spirit', which takes the emphasis off seeing with the heart as opposed to the eyes, and places it on self-reliance in perception.)
心 xīn 'the heart' and 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng are defined as follows in Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries:
| Source | Chinese dictionary | Chinese-English dictionary |
心 xīn |
'Commonly ... refers to the organ of thought and to thoughts, feelings, etc.' | 'Heart; mind; feeling; moral nature or character; intention' |
心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng |
'Refers to the innermost heart, spirit, thoughts, etc.' | 'Heart, soul, mind' |
There's not a lot to choose between them. If anything, 心灵 xīnlíng tends towards the meaning 'soul'. (Just as an aside, the 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' books are translated into Chinese using 心灵 xīnlíng.) But this is hardly a decisive reason for using it in preference to 心 xīn. So what might have induced some translators to choose 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng over 心 xīn? After all, 心 xīn is much simpler! Some possibilities:
- 心 xīn has a broad spectrum of meanings ranging from 'heart', to 'centre', 'key point', etc. By contrast, 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng is focussed narrowly on the relevant sense of coeur.
- The phrase 用心 yòng xīn 'with heart' has two quite specific dictionary meanings that could be misleading:
- 用心 yòng xīn means 'diligently, attentively, with concentration'. The fox's secret could conceivably mean 'Only by looking attentively can one see clearly'.
- 用心 yòngxīn means 'motive, purpose, intention' (grammatically one word -- a noun -- but Chinese script doesn't indicate words). It's just possible to interpret this as meaning 'Only with an intention can one see clearly'.
While these are not serious problems -- the intended meaning is fairly clear from the context -- the unambiguous 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng could be considered superior to the vaguer word 心 xīn.
Indeed, these problems may be the reason that one adaptation renders 'heart' as 『心』 "xin", setting the word off with quotation marks.
Whatever the cause, a goodly portion of Chinese translators feel that 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng is the right word to translate coeur / heart, a phenomenon that isn't found in either the Japanese or Vietnamese translations.
Translations from the French vs translations from the English
There's one other puzzle about 心 xīn vs 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng: there's a significant difference between translators working from Saint Exupéry's French original and those working from Katherine Woods' English translation. Translations from the French are considerably more likely to use 心 xīn. See the table below:
TRANSLATION OF COEUR VS TRANSLATION OF 'HEART' |
||||
| Word | French coeur |
English 'heart' |
Unknown |
Total |
| 心 xīn 'heart' | 18 |
11 |
0 |
29 |
| 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng 'heart, spirit' | 5 |
12 |
1 |
18 |
| Total | 23 |
23 |
1 |
47 |
Roughly three-quarters of translators working from the French use 心 xīn, compared with only about half from English. This is a truly puzzling phenomenon and I would be loath to hazard any firm guesses for the cause. One possibility that suggests itself is dictionaries. If French-Chinese dictionaries gave 心 xīn as the first equivalent for coeur and English-Chinese dictionaries gave 心靈 / 心灵 xīnlíng, then this would be a prima facie case for asserting translator reliance on dictionaries as a cause. But since I don't have a broad range of French-Chinese and English-Chinese dictionaries, I'll leave this as an exercise for someone else to pursue.
Translating voit bien / 'see rightly' into Chinese
Choice of verb
Voir 'to see' here refers not merely to an act of visual perception, but to a deeper intellectual or emotional perception. Most translators use the verb 看 kàn 'to see' to translate voir 'to see'.
A few translators use other verbs, throwing an interesting light on the way 'seeing' is interpreted.
1. 看待 kàndài, 'to look upon, regard, consider, treat'. This is obviously related to 看 kàn, and is here used in conjunction with the word 世界 shìjiè 'world'. The total expression means 'look upon the world', which has a philosophical flavour.
2. 體會 / 体会 tǐhuì meaning 'to know, realise from experience, understand'. This highlights the intuitive nature of the secret, and the fact that it needs to be arrived at through experience. ('The Little Prince' is indeed a journey, the object of which is to arrive at this intuitive understanding.)
While they may be appropriate in the context, these verbs are just a little too explicit and philosophical for this story. Saint Exupéry deliberately uses the everyday verb voir to express perception, which is why the fox's secret is at once so simple and so profound. Other verbs lose that simplicity.
We should also mention the translator who uses a double-barrelled expression:
去观察，去感受
qù guānchá, qù gǎnshòu
'go and observe, go and experience'
This is in the context, however, of a somewhat freer translation which doesn't explicitly translate the word bien 'well'.
Resultative used
Although 清楚 qīngchu 'clearly' is very much the favourite for translating bien / 'rightly', quite an amazing range of resultatives can be found.
A few translations use the neutral resultatives 见 jiàn or 到 dào, which merely indicate perception without specifying clarity. But the greatest cause of variety in the Chinese translations is Katherine Woods' translation of bien. Instead of using the unidiomatic 'well', or the fairly straightforward 'clearly', Woods chose to interpret the matter as one of viewing things 'rightly'. The semantic difference is significant but certainly not crucial. It's perfectly appropriate within the context of the story.
The problem arises when translating 'rightly' into Chinese. 'Rightness' or 'correctness' is a concept with many nuances. Thus, whereas 15 of 18 translators working from Saint Exupery's French use resultatives with the meaning 'clear' (清 qīng or 清楚 qīngchu), only seven of 20 working from Katherine Woods' English do so. Instead, translators from the English use nine different resultatives with meanings ranging from 'true' or 'real' to 'correct' or 'accurate':
| VERBS WITH RESULTATIVES | French |
English |
? |
Total |
| 1. Plain resultatives (見/见 jiàn, 到 dào) | 2 |
3 |
- |
5 |
| 見/见 jiàn | 2 |
1 |
- |
3 |
| 到 dào | - |
2 |
- |
2 |
| 2. Those using 清 qīng 'clear' | 17 |
7 |
1 |
25 |
| 清楚 qīngchu 'clear' | 11 |
4 |
1 |
16 |
| 清 qīng 'clear' | 6 |
2 |
- |
8 |
| 清晰 qīngxī 'clear' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 3. Those using 真 zhēn 'true' | - |
4 |
- |
4 |
| 真 zhēn 'true' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 真實 zhēnshí 'real' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 真確/真确 zhēnquè 'authentic' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 真切 zhēnqiè 'distinct' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 4. Others | 1 |
6 |
- |
7 |
| 正確 zhèngquè 'correct' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 准确 zhǔnquè 'accurate' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 准 zhǔn 'accurate' | - |
1 |
- |
1 |
| 透澈/透彻 tòuchè 'thorough' | - |
2 |
- |
2 |
| 明白 míngbái 'understand' | 1 |
1 |
- |
2 |
Total |
20 |
20 |
1 |
41 |
The translation of the simple word bien 'well' as 真實 zhēnshí 'real', 透澈/透彻 tòuchè 'thorough', 准确 zhǔnquè 'accurate', etc. actually represents an elaboration of what Saint-Exupéry wrote. As in the case of Katherine Woods' English, this by no means distorts the original meaning. However, it is a move away from the simplicity of the fox's statement.
Adverbs
The four adverbs used by the small minority of translators who choose to use them are: 真的 zhēn-de 'truly', 真正的 zhēnzhèng-de 'truly' and 正确的 zhèngquè-de 'accurately'. In three cases they occur in conjunction with a resultative, two of which are the neutral 看见 kàn-jìan 'to see, perceive'. Adverbs are decidedly not the favoured way of translating voit bien / 'see rightly'.
In addition, one translator uses the object 真实的东西, zhēnshí de dōngxi 'true things' to render the notion of 'rightly'.
Whether in the resultatives used, or in the use of adverbs, the greater variety in the English-based versions is clearly due to the occurrence of 'rightly' in the Woods translation.
Potential Resultative
A minor sideline here is the use of the potential resultative. The potential form is actually a fancy way of saying 'be able to see clearly'. The potential form of the resultative in Chinese can be formed in three ways:
(1) Use the auxiliary verb 能 néng 'can',
(2) Implant the infix 得 de,
(3) Both of the above.
| Auxiliary | Verb | Infix | Result | |
| (1) Auxiliary verb only | 能 néng | 看 kàn | -- | 清楚 qīngchu |
| (2) Infix only | -- | 看 kàn | 得 de | 清楚 qīngchu |
| (3) Auxiliary verb + infix | 能 néng | 看 kàn | 得 de | 清楚 qīngchu |
Note: The negative potential, 'can't see clearly', is formed by inserting an unstressed 不 bù 'not' between the verb and its complement of result: 看不清楚 kàn-bu-qīngchu.
The table below shows that the winner by a long shot is a combination of auxiliary verb and infix -- four times as common as the poor old infix by itself.
THOSE USING RESULTATIVE VERBS |
French |
English |
? |
Total |
| 1. Auxiliary verb only (能 néng) | 7 |
4 |
0 |
11 |
| 2. Potential of result only (得 de infix) | 4 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
| 3. Both (能 néng and 得 de) | 9 |
14 |
1 |
24 |
| 能 + 得 néng ＋ de | 7 |
14 |
1 |
22 |
| 能够 + 得 nénggòu + de | 1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Total | 20 |
20 |
1 |
41 |
However, this result is heavily skewed by translations from the English, which show a strong (and hard-to-explain) preference for the combined form. In translations from the French, there is a much more even distribution, even though the infix by itself is still in the minority. There are a couple of possible reasons for the difference:
Since the French uses voit 'sees' rather than peut voir, there may have been recitence about using the double form, which spells out the potential meaning very clearly. This doesn't apply to the English version, which uses 'can see'.
The kneejerk translation for 'can see' is 能看得见 néng kàn-de-jiàn. The ingrained habit of using 能 + 得 néng + de where only one form would be sufficient has perhaps been reinforced by English-teaching practices.
Objects
Like French and English, Chinese can omit the object of the verb 'to see'. But for some reason, about a quarter of Chinese translators (12 out of the 45) choose to add one. The most common expression (6 occurrences) is 事物的本质 shìwù de běnzhì 'the essence of things'.
The impression is that these translators feel impelled to spell out the object of 'seeing'. And most of those adding an object are those who use resultatives meaning 'see clearly' (看得清 kàn-de-qīng etc.) That is, translators using simple expressions like 'see clearly' seem more likely to want to spell out exactly what is seen clearly with the heart.
However, a closer look at the objects involved reveals rather three different situations:
1. Five translators insert a token object, roughly equivalent to the word 'things' in the English translation by Cuffe. These are: 一切 yīqiè 'everything' (two cases), 世界 shìjiè 'the world' (one case), 事情 shìqing 'things' (one case), and 凡事 fánshì 'all things' (two cases). The ensuing sentence ('what is essential is invisible to the eye') then spells out l'essentiel more fully.
2. Three basically bring forward the subject of the following sentence, i.e., l'essentiel 'what is essential' is transferred into this sentence as the object of the verb. The second sentence either lacks a subject or uses a subject like 这 zhè 'this'.
人，只有用自己的心灵才能看清事物的本质 光凭眼睛是看不到的 Rén, zhǐ yǒu yòng zìjǐ de xīnlíng cái néng kàn-qīng shìwù de běnzhì, guāng píng yǎnjing shì kàn-bu-dào de People can only see the essence of things with their own hearts. only relying on the eyes [it] can't be seen. The object in these cases is 事物的本质 shìwù de běnzhì 'the essence of things'.
3. There are four translators who resort to overkill, hitting the reader over the head with a double whammy -- an object in this sentence and an explanatory subject in the following sentence:
一個人只有用心靈才能看得到真實的東西 真正重要的東西不是眼睛可以看得到的 Yīge rén zhǐ yǒu yòng xīnlíng cái néng kàn-de-dào zhēnshí de dōngxi zhēnzhèng zhòngyào de dōngxi búshì yǎnjing kěyǐ kàn-de-dào de A person only with the spirit can see true things truly important things the eye can't see The translation quoted uses the object 真實的東西 zhēnshí de dōngxi 'true things'. Two others have the object 事物的本质 shìwù de běnzhì 'essence of things'. Another uses the expanded interpretation 事物的真偽和重要性 shìwù de zhēnwěi hé zhòngyàoxìng 'the truth and falseness and importance of things'. Added to the additional explanation in the second sentence, this is a truly heavy-handed translation!
While the 'double-whammy' approach may be rather heavy handed, it does, however, have the advantage of giving the translator the opportunity to capture all aspects of the meaning of the word l'essentiel, by giving one aspect in the first sentence (e.g., 'the essence of things') and the second aspect in the second sentence (e.g., 'truly important things'). See the translation of l'essentiel in the second sentence.
In addition, there is one translator who reverses the order of the two sentences. The topic ('the essence of all things') is placed at the very start:
一切事物的本质，用肉眼是看不到的，只有用心去看，才能体会到。
Yīqiè shìwù de běnzhì, yòng ròuyǎn shì kàn-bu-dào de, zhǐ yǒu yòng xīn qù kàn, cái néng tǐhuì dào.
'The essence of all things can't see with the naked eyes, Only looking with the heart can know.'
Placing of the object
Most translations place the object in its normal position after the verb. A minority make the object seen into the topic. One places the object in the A clause.
Topicalised |
Clause A |
Object of Clause A |
Clause B |
Object of Clause B |
Occurences |
| 凡事 (2) | 只有用心去看 | 才能看得清楚 | 2 |
||
| 只有用心去看 | 事情 | 才能看得清楚 | 1 |
||
| 只有用心去看 | 才能看得清楚 | 事物的本质 (5) 事物的真偽和重要性 真實的東西 一切 (2) 世界 |
10 |
||
| Total | 13 |
||||
