Table of all translations of the fox's secret here.
The Fox's Secret:
On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur.
Translating into Chinese (1)
| (Chinese translations) | ▶ Here is my secret. It is very simple | ▼ One sees clearly only with the heart | ▶ What is essential is invisible to the eyes |
| French-based Chinese versions (popup) |
| English-based Chinese versions (popup) |
| Versions of unclear origin (popup) |
| A. STRUCTURE |
| B. VOCABULARY CHOICES |
| C. OTHER |
| ▶ Fr ▶ En ▶ Ja ▶ Vn |
| On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur | It's only with the heart that one sees clearly |
With upwards of 50 translations of Le petit prince into Chinese, treating them like English, where there are only five, is out of the question. I adopt here a statistical approach, which is visually quite messy. To help readers navigate through the detail, variations and statistics are placed in grey boxes and can be skipped. Note: This page is undergoing an update and not all stats have been updated yet.
I've got 51 Chinese translations of this simple but profound sentence. (Excludes adaptations and the shameless plagiarism of Liú 2004. There are also older translations I haven't been able to get hold of.)
Only 25 of the Chinese versions appear to be translated from the original French. 25 take a 'shortcut' by translating from the English version of Katherine Woods ('It is only with the heart that one can see rightly'), and one is a bit uncertain.
This is an ideal sentence for building up brick by brick -- and in Chinese it shows up interesting ways in which Chinese is different from English or French. Both avec le cœur 'with the heart' and ne ... que 'only' come out as quite different structures.
On the surface, the very basic Chinese sentence pattern is not so different from the French or English original:
BASIC SENTENCE |
||
on 'one' |
voit 'sees' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
人 rén 'person' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
The order is the same as French and English: Subject - Verb - Object.
But unlike English or French, Chinese can omit the subject, and in this sentence, a majority of Chinese translators (at least two thirds) do just that. (See translating on or 'one').
On the other hand, unlike English and French, about a quarter of translators prefer to spell out the object, generally with an expression meaning 'things' or 'essential things' (See translating the object of seeing).
To express 'with the heart', Chinese uses 用心 yòng xīn 'use the heart':
ADDING 'WITH THE HEART' |
|||
on 'one' |
avec le cœur 'with the heart' |
voit 'sees' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
人 rén 'person' |
用心 yòng xīn 'with heart' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
There is already an interesting difference from French and English: 'with the heart' comes before the verb 'to see' in Chinese.
In fact, unlike 'with' in English and avec in French, 用 yòng isn't a 'preposition' at all; it's a verb -- the verb 'to use'. 'With the heart' in Chinese literally means 'use the heart'. (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.)
So unlike French and English, the Chinese sentence has two verbs. The first is 用 yòng 'to use', the second is 看 kàn 'to see':
DOUBLE-VERB SENTENCE |
||||
on 'one' |
emploie 'uses' |
le cœur 'the heart' |
voit 'sees' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
人 rén 'person' |
用 yòng 'use' |
心 xīn 'heart' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
Although Chinese grammarians treat 用 yòng as a verb, it is in some ways a kind of half-way house between verbs and prepositions...
|
Chinese has a class of words very similar to 'prepositions', known as 介词 jiècí, which are evolved from verbs. It includes words like:
Many of these can still function as full verbs. And just like 'with the heart', such prepositional phrases precede the main verb or adjective.
As we can see, some of these words have lost the ability to function as full verbs, which means that their nature as 介词 jiècí is quite clear cut. There are other words which, like 用 yòng, still have a strongly verbal nature but are moving in the direction of becoming 介词 jiècí. For example, the word 拿 ná 'to hold', in colloquial Chinese is used just like a 介词 jiècí.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
用 yòng's verbal nature brings about an extra twist in the Chinese.
For instance, it's common in speech to insert the verb 去 qù 'to go' or a similar verb between the two sentences:
BASIC PATTERN WITH 去 qù |
||||
on 'one' |
emploie le cœur 'uses the heart' |
aller 'go' |
voir 'see' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
人 rén 'person' |
用心 yòng xīn 'use heart' |
去 qù 'go' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
去 qù adds a dimension of purpose. The sentence means: "A person uses the heart in order to go and see [things]." About a third of translators insert 去 qù or a similar word. The patterns of inserting 去 qù or a similar word are as follows...
(These don't include the three sentence patterns that make 'the heart' into the subject, nor the translation that uses a nominalisation.) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Next we add the word for 'well'. Note: A few translators don't express bien or don't express it as a separate word. These include a few who don't use the verb 看 kàn 'to see', and a few who use a somewhat different sentence pattern.
The great majority of translators use a very common and versatile Chinese construction known as the resultative construction or complement of result (結果補語 / 结果补语 jiéguǒ bǔyǔ) in order to express the meaning of bien /'rightly'. At its simplest, a resultative has the following structure:
(adjective or verb)
'to look, to see'
'clear'
Together the two parts represent an action (looking) and its result (clarity) -- 'to see clearly'.
Our basic sentence with resultative looks like this:
WITH A RESULTATIVE FOR BIEN ('RIGHTLY') |
|||||
on 'one' |
avec le cœur 'with the heart' |
voit 'sees' |
bien 'clearly' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
|
人 rén 'person' |
用心 yòng xīn 'use heart' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
清楚 qīngchu 'clearly' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
|
But there is a lot of variation in the resultative used, which is dealt with in Vocabulary Choices. Chinese has three choices of form for the potential form of resultatives. This is not a major issue because the three are virtually interchangeable, but as a matter of curiosity, it's interesting to see which forms are most used in these translations...
Besides resultatives, a few translators use adverbs (副詞 / 副词 fùcí) to translate bien / 'rightly'. Unlike resultatives, adverbs are placed before the verb and often end in 地 de or 的 de (equivalent to '-ly' in English). An example is 真正地 zhēnzhèng-de 'really'.
ADDING AN ADVERB FOR BIEN ('RIGHTLY') |
|
Adverb |
Verb |
真正的 zhēnzhèng de 'truly' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
It is the ne ... que 'only' construction that causes the biggest departure from the English and French originals.
In the French original, ne ... que places the grammatical focus on the phrase avec le cœur:
ne ... qu'avec le cœur
Similarly for the English, where 'only' places the focus on the phrase 'with the heart':
'only with the heart'
Some English versions use a particular structure (known as 'clefting') to further emphasise that the focus should go on 'with the heart':
'it is only with the heart that...'
By this means, the English and French versions restrict the means of achieving clear vision to 'the heart'.
Chinese does this quite differently. As we saw above, the sentence already has two verbs. To express the concept of having only one choice ('use the heart') in order to attain an objective ('see things well'), Chinese recasts the sentence like this:
RENDERING 'ONLY' |
|||||
A |
B |
||||
on 'one' |
employer le cœur (va voir) 'use the heart (to go and look)' |
peut voir bien 'can see clearly' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
||
人 rén 'person' |
只有 zhǐ yǒu 'only (if)' |
用心 (去看) yòng xīn qù kàn 'use heart (go look)' |
才能 cái néng 'only then can' |
看得清楚 kàn-de-qīngchu 'see clearly' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
What is notable is how ne ... que ('only') comes out as a double-barrelled construction:
只有 ... 才能
zhǐ yǒu ... cái néng
('only (if) ... only then can')
The two parts of the sentence are:
Clause A (the focus) presents the necessary condition: "只有用心 zhǐ yǒu yòng xīn 'only (if) use the heart'".
Clause B then presents the result: "才能看得清楚 cái néng kàn-de-qīngchu 'only then can see clearly'".
Notice that even if Clause A contains 去看 qù kàn 'go see' (see above), Clause B repeats the verb, i.e., 看清楚 kàn-qīngchu 'see clearly'. That is: 'Only if you use the heart to go and see can you see clearly'.
The word 才 cái 'only then' is essential here. Even if 只有 zhǐ yǒu ('only (if)') is left out, the 才 cái in Clause B is enough to show that it's conditional on Clause A. 才 cái cannot be left out.
Most translators stick to using 只有 zhǐ yǒu in Clause A, although there is a certain amount of variation. Curiously, one translator incorrectly uses 就 jiù 'and then' in Clause B. There is considerable variation in the details of use...
Ne ... que ('only')
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:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The basic Chinese sentence, like the French, uses an ordinary sentence with a subject, verb, and object. In the French, the subject is on, and the object is not expressed at all. In the Chinese, both the subject and the object tend to be omitted. Where they are expressed, there is some difference in terms used (see choice of subject and expressing the object).
Where translators do express the subject or object, since the Chinese sentence is more complex there is some leeway in deciding where to place the subject (before the first clause or before the second) and the object (after the first verb, after the second, or as a topic of the whole sentence). While most translators omit the subject, some do not. The subject (on or 'one') can be placed before the A clause or before the B clause...
While most prefer to put the subject at the beginning, there are several who start without a clear subject and only mention it at the second clause. The object may be placed at at least three positions in the sentence. Most translations with an explicit object place it in its normal position after the main verb. A minority make it into the topic. One makes it the object of the A clause.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The various patterns (verbs, resultatives, adverbs, and objects) used in translating voit bien can be summarised thus:
Patterns used to translate voit bien
This table sums up the main patterns used to express 'see clearly' (keeping in mind that these are patterns and there is variation in the actual words used).
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
There are a few translations that depart from the "standard" sentence structure in ways large and small.
'Only the heart can see': Le cœur as subject
Three translators vary the basic sentence by making 'the heart', originally an instrument, into the subject. That is,
A person sees [things] with the heart
becomes
The heart sees [things].
This gives this rather exceptional basic pattern:
BASIC PATTERN ('HEART' AS SUBJECT) |
||
le cœur 'the heart' |
voit 'sees' |
[les choses] ['things'] |
心 xīn 'the heart' |
看 kàn 'look, see' |
[事情] [shìqing] ['things'] |
This is actually a rather larger difference in the Chinese than is suggested by the French or English. First, the subject 人 rén 'person' disappears completely. In addition, the double-verb construction (用 yòng ... 看 kàn) also disappears.
Despite this, the final result doesn't show such a big difference after all. The omission of the subject 人 rén is no big deal because most Chinese translators omit it anyway.
More importantly, the Chinese 只有 ... 才 zhǐ yǒu ... cái ('only if .... only then') construction is highly flexible. The A Clause can hold anything from a single word to a sentence. It quite easily takes a single noun in its stride:
ADDING 'ONLY' |
||
seulement 'only' |
le cœur 'the heart' |
peut voir bien 'can see clearly' |
只有 zhǐ yǒu 'only (if)' |
心 xīn 'heart' |
才能看清楚 cái néng kàn-qīngchu 'can see clearly' |
(Notice that 只有 zhǐ yǒu in this case must be rendered in French as seulement 'solely, only'.)
The three translations fitting this pattern are:
唯有心才能看得清楚。
Wéi yǒu xīn cái néng kàn de qīngchu.
'Only the heart can see clearly.'
只有心灵才看得清事物的本质。
Zhǐ yǒu xīnlíng cái kàn-de-qīng shìwù de běnzhì.
'Only the heart can see clearly the essence of matters'.
只有心灵才能洞察一切。
Zhǐ yǒu xīnlíng cái néng dòngchá yīqiè.
'Only the spirit can perceive everything.'
Effectively, the only superficial difference from "standard" translations is the lack of the word 用 yòng.
'Can but see with the heart': Putting the focus on the whole predicate
Two translators apply 'only' to the entire predicate.
ADDING 只能 zhǐ néng TO THE BASIC SENTENCE |
||
on 'one' |
ne peut ... que 'can only' |
employer le cœur va voir 'use the heart to go and look' |
人 rén 'person' |
只能 zhǐ néng 'can only' |
用心去看 yòng xīn qù kàn 'use heart go see' |
This leads to a rather large difference from the "standard" pattern. First, the word bien 'well' is not translated at all.
Secondly (and more importantly), 'only' is rendered quite differently. 'Only' is rendered as 只 zhǐ 'only', and there is no split into A and B clauses.
The focus of 'only' is the whole predicate, 用心去看 yòng xīn qù kàn (shown in red letters). In other words, 'only' covers the whole sentence, and doesn't focus solely on 'with the heart'. This is equivalent to saying in English 'One can but look with the heart'.
The two translations using this pattern are:
我們只能用心來看。
Wǒmen zhǐ néng yòng xīn lái kàn.
'We can only (come and) look with the heart'.
人只能用心灵去观察，去感受。
Rén zhǐ néng yòng xīnlíng qù guānchá, qù gǎnshòu.
'A person can only use the spirit to (go and) observe and (go and) experience.'
Notice how the second translator actually feels the need for an expanded interpretation using two verbs.
Finally, one translator departs completely from the above patterns by transforming the verb ('to observe') into a noun ('observation'):
'TO SEE' RENDERED AS A NOUN |
||||
Modifier |
Noun |
Only |
Adjective (是...的 construction) |
|
凭借 píngjiè 'rely on' |
心灵的 xīnlíng de 'the heart' + connector |
观察 guānchá 'observation' |
才 cái 'only' |
是可靠的 shì kěkào de 'is reliable' |
The sentence literally means: 'Only observation relying on the heart is reliable'. Not only is the verb transformed into a noun, but the adverb (bien or 'rightly') is transformed into an adjective (可靠 kěkào 'reliable').
Notice how the predicative adjective takes the 是...的 construction. This is something like saying 'it is a reliable one'. This is normal practice for predicative adjectives in Chinese, and is often used where English would just say 'it is reliable'.
There are also pages on the French original, the English translations, the Japanese translations, and the Vietnamese translations.
