Table of all translations of the fox's secret here.
The Fox's Secret:
L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
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. EXCEPTIONAL PATTERN |
| C. VOCABULARY CHOICES |
| ▶ Fr ▶ En ▶ Ja |
| L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux | What is essential is invisible to the eye |
How do Chinese translators tackle L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux ('What is essential is invisible to the eye'), from 'The Little Prince'?
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.
Here I look at 52 of the Chinese translations of Le Petit Prince that I have that include that sentence -- excluding the plagiarised version of Liǔ 2004. Of these, 25 appear to be translated from the French, 26 from the English of Catherine Woods, and one is unclear.
I'll break variation into two types: Grammatical structure and expressive content, along with an exceptional pattern. In this sentence variation is dominated by grammar -- in particular the use of the enigmatic 是 ... 的 shì ... de construction.
A. STRUCTUREInvisible ('invisible') is an adjective meaning 'which cannot be seen'. In its most basic form, the sentence thus means: Les yeux ne voient pas l'essentiel 'The eyes do not see what is essential'.
'the eyes' |
'do not see' |
'what is essential' |
les yeux |
ne voient pas |
l'essentiel |
With invisible, l'essentiel is swung forward into subject position, like this:
les yeux |
ne voient pas |
l'essentiel |
 |
||
l'essentiel |
est invisible |
(pour les yeux) |
In a sense, invisible functions like the passive voice, with l'essentiel as the topic of the sentence.
However, Chinese lacks an adjective equivalent to invisible. True, there are a couple of words that appear to fit, but they are not really suitable.
- 不可视 bùkěshì means 'unobservable' or 'invisible' but is a specialised term confined to scientific or academic contexts.
- 無形 / 无形 wúxíng 'formless' is mainly used for palpable things that can't be seen because they lack a perceivable shape.
To express the actual meaning of the sentence in Chinese, we must go back to basics and say 'The eyes cannot see what is essential'.
The obvious choice here is 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn 'unable to see'. This is the 'negative potential form' of the resultative verb 看见 kàn-jiàn 'to see'. (See It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.) So logically speaking, our sentence would look something like this:
BASIC SENTENCE, WITH 'EYES' AS SUBJECT |
||
Subject |
Verb |
Object |
眼睛 yǎnjing l'oeil 'eye' |
看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'cannot see' |
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
Note: 本质 běnzhì is Mainland Chinese standard. Taiwan standard is 本質, pronounced běnzhí.
"The eyes cannot see essential things"
But there is NOT A SINGLE TRANSLATOR who uses a sentence following this pattern.
There are three main ways in which translations vary from this hypothetical norm. These variations may occur in various combinations, which complicates the analysis.
Firstly, more than half of the 52 translators don't treat 'eyes' as the subject, they treat them as an instrument. That is, the basic sentence for these translators looks more like this:
BASIC SENTENCE, WITH 'EYES' AS INSTRUMENT |
|||
Subject |
Instrumental clause |
Verb |
Object |
(人 rén on 'person') |
用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing avec les yeux 'use the eye' |
看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'cannot see' |
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
"A person cannot see essential things with the eyes"
The instrumental interpretation may find favour with translators because it allows parallelism with the previous sentence (On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur), which uses the instrumental 'using the heart'. Or it may be favoured as it reflects pour les yeux 'to the eye' in the original.
In Chinese, the clause 用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing 'use the eye' comes before 'cannot see' instead of after it. Moreover, 用 yòng itself is usually regarded as a verb, so that the sentence becomes a double-verb sentence (See It is only with the heart that one can see rightly).
Although the subject is theoretically something like 人 rén 'people', no translation uses an explicit subject.
Only one translator uses this basic instrumental sentence pattern, although with more elaborate vocabulary:
SINGLE TRANSLATION BASED ON THE BASIC SENTENCE |
|||
Subject |
Prep. phrase |
Verb |
Object |
Omitted |
單是透過雙眼 dān shì tòuguò shuāngyǎn seulement à travers les deux yeux 'just through the two eyes' |
看不見 kàn-bu-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'cannot see' |
事情的真像 shìqíng de zhēnxiàng la véritable image des choses 'true image of things' |
b. The 是 ... 的 shì ... de construction
All other translators (with one exception see below) use what I'll call the 'shi ... de construction'. This involves using the words 是 shì and ... 的 de as a 'frame' around a particular part of the sentence.
The shi ... de construction is rather poorly explained in Chinese grammar. Its broad range of uses, one shading into another, defies simple categorisation. We won't try and describe them here. What we can say is that:
- 是 shì stresses or emphasises what follows it;
- 的 de concludes the sentence with a sense of affirmation, explanation, or assertion.
Here, 是 ... 的 shì ... de is used in a contrastive and emphatic sense. Applying it in a straightforward way to our two basic sentences (i.e., 1. with 'eyes' as subject and 2. with 'eyes' as an instrument), we get this:
ADDING 是 ... 的 shì ... de |
|||||
Subject |
shi |
Verb + Object |
de |
||
眼睛 yǎnjing l'oeil 'the eye' |
是 shì |
看不见本质的东西 kàn-bu-jiàn běnzhì de dōngxi ne peut pas voir l'essentiel 'cannot see essential things' |
的 de |
||
Subject |
'With the eyes' |
shi |
Verb + Object |
de |
|
(instrumental) |
Omitted
|
用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing avec l'oeil 'with the eye' |
是 shì |
看不见本质的东西 kàn-bu-jiàn běnzhì de dōngxi ne peut pas voir l'essentiel 'cannot see essential things' |
的 de |
Shi ... de places contrastive emphasis on 'cannot see essential things'. The contrast is with the previous sentence, namely:
CONTRASTIVE COMPARISON OF CONTENT IN THE TWO SENTENCES |
||||
Sentence |
Means |
Result |
Yes/No |
|
1. |
with the heart |
can see (essential things) |
YES |
|
2. |
with the eyes |
can see essential things |
NO |
|
Therefore, the key contrast is that the heart CAN SEE CLEARLY while the eyes CANNOT SEE ESSENTIAL THINGS.
Nine translators (almost one-fifth of the total) use shi ... de in this pattern.
But while perfectly adequate for expressing the meaning, this pattern suffers from one drawback: it doesn't match the order of the original English and French. To achieve this, 'essential things' must be brought to the start of the sentence. The obvious choice is to make it the topic or theme.
In the French original, the sentence opens with l'essentiel as the topic or theme, and then makes a statement about that theme.
ORDER OF ELEMENTS IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH |
|||
Subject |
Copula |
Adjective plus Prep Phrase |
|
| French | L'essentiel |
est |
invisible pour les yeux |
| English | What is essential |
is |
invisible to the eye |
All in all, 38 Chinese translators (three-quarters of the total) transform l'essentiel / 'what is essential' into the topic of the sentence.
This is how our sentence above looks after topicalisation:
TOPICALISATION
|
|||||||
TOPIC |
Subject |
shi |
Verb |
de |
|||
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
眼睛 yǎnjing l'oeil 'the eye' |
是 shì |
看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'cannot see' |
的 de |
|||
TOPIC |
Subject |
Prep. phrase |
shi |
Verb |
de |
||
(with instrumental) |
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
Omitted |
用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing avec l'oeil 'with the eye' |
是 shì |
看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'cannot see' |
的 de |
|
The topicalised versions mean:
"Essential things, the eyes cannot see" and
"Essential things, cannot see with the eyes"
These two sentence patterns are used by 26 translations (about half of the total). Sixteen use 用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing (instrumental 'with the eyes'); ten use 眼睛 yǎnjing ('eyes') as the subject of the sentence.
The reason for favouring this sentence pattern is obvious. Framing 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn with shi ... de places it in exactly the same position as invisible in French. The sentence thus follows both the order and elements of the original French. Indeed, predicative adjectives seem to habitually use the shi ... de construction in Chinese (e.g., see here) and it results in a very natural equivalent to predicative adjectives in Western languages.
(Note that translators using this pattern tend to follow the original French/English by treating the eyes as an instrument.)
In addition, one translator deletes the topic altogether as being understood from the previous sentence.
OMITTING THE TOPIC |
||||
TOPIC |
Prep. phrase |
shi |
Verb |
de |
X |
光凭眼睛 guāng píng yǎnjing seulement avec l'œil 'only with the eye' |
是 shì |
看不到 kàn-bu-dào ne peut voir 'cannot see' |
的 de |
Framing other elements with shi...de
A number of translators use shi...de to frame other segments of the sentence. For example:
1. Invisible to the eyes: Eight translators move 眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eyes' inside the frame, treating 'invisible to the eyes' as a single unit:
'INVISIBLE TO THE EYES' |
|||||
TOPIC |
shi |
Subject |
Verb |
de |
|
本质的东西
běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
是 shì |
眼睛 yǎnjing l'oeil 'eye' |
看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'can't see' |
的 de |
|
This pattern is found only with 'eyes' as subject. It isn't found with the instrumental.
2. Not visible to the eyes: Four translators take the negative element outside the frame and use 不是 bú shì ('is not') instead of 是 shì. As a result, the content inside 是 ... 的 shì...de becomes positive. The content inside the frame here is thus 眼睛看得见 yǎnjing kàn-de-jiàn 'the eyes can see'.
PUTTING THE NEGATIVE OUTSIDE THE FRAME
|
|||||||
TOPIC |
bu shi |
Subject |
Verb |
de |
|||
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
不是 bú shì |
眼睛 yǎnjing l'œil 'the eye' |
看得见 kàn-de-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'can see' |
的 de |
|||
TOPIC |
bu shi |
Subject |
Prep. phrase |
Verb |
de |
||
(with instrumental) |
本质的东西 běnzhì de dōngxi l'essentiel 'essential things' |
不是 bú shì |
Omitted |
用眼睛 yòng yǎnjing avec l'œil 'with the eye' |
看得见 kàn-de-jiàn ne peut pas voir 'can see' |
的 de |
|
This completes the main permutations using the shi...de construction. There are some sentences with a special twist:
所 suǒ is a particle indicating that the following verb takes an object. For example, in this phrase:
我所爱的人
Wǒ suǒ ài de rén
'The person that I love'
所 suǒ indicates that 爱 ài takes an object, and that object is 人 rén.
In this case, the structure is similar, except that the object has been omitted.
最主要的要点是眼睛所看不见的。
Zuì zhǔyào de yàodiǎn shì yǎnjing suǒ kàn-bu-jiàn de.
'The most important key point is (what) the eyes can't see.'
的 de can be understood as: 所看不见 ( 的东西 ) suǒ kàn-bu-jiàn (de dōngxi) '(thing) that can't see'.
| 所 suǒ
Five translations use the grammatical particle 所 suǒ, a feature of the Classical language and modern written literary style. This 所 suǒ is used to indicate that the verb takes an object. An example is the following sentence: 最主要的要点是眼睛所看不见的。 In this example, the particle 的 de can be regarded as the object of the verb 看不见 kàn-bu-jiàn. 的 de here stands in for a noun that is not expressed, e.g. 事情 shìqing 'thing, matter, affair'. The other translations using 所 suǒ are: 事物的本质，恰恰是眼睛所无法看到的。 这是我们的肉眼所看不到的。 本质的东西是肉眼所看不到的。 重要的东西，并非眼睛所见。 The final example is written in a literary or pseudo-classical style. |
Despite the existence of variation among sentence patterns, in a majority of cases the net result is to reproduce something very close to the sentence pattern of the original French and English, with l'essentiel as the topic, and the focus of shi ... de placed on either invisible, invisible pour les yeux, or non...visible pour les yeux.
The exception is that set of sentences that we saw above where l'essentiel has not been topicalised. However, in Chinese this sentence pattern is regarded as completely interchangeable with the topicalised version. While it does not faithfully reproduce the word order of the original French or English, it is regarded as quite normal and natural.
What is truly intriguing is the fact that the range and distribution of variations is very similar between translations from the English and the French! For a full list of sentences of each type as translated from the French and English...
Translation of est invisible pour les yeux The following table classifies the grammatical patterns in Chinese translations of est invisible pour les yeux, from Le Petit Prince (translating from the French). Table of all translations of the fox's secret here.
Translation of 'is invisible to the eye' The following table classifies the grammatical patterns in Chinese translations of 'is invisible to the eye', from The Little Prince (translating from the English).
The following table classifies the grammatical patterns in Chinese translations of 'is invisible to the eye', from The Little Prince (translation which it is not possible to identify as being made from either the French original or Katherine Woods' English).
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Translation not using 是 ... 的 shì ... de
One translator doesn't use 是 ... 的 shì ... de at all. This translator uses a more classical-sounding construction.
TOPIC |
Subject |
Verb |
|||||
重要的东西 zhòngyào de dōngxi, 'important things' |
并 bìng |
非 fēi 'is not' |
眼睛 yǎnjing 'the eye' |
所 suǒ |
见 jiàn 'see' |
The form 非眼睛所见 fēi yǎnjìng sǔo jiàn stands out from the rest for its use of Classical-style Chinese.
- Negation is by 非 fēi, not by 不 bù.
- 见 jiàn is a fully fledged verb in its own right, not a part of an expression such as 看见 kànjiàn or 见到 jiàndào.
- The formal or literary particle 所 suǒ is used (see below).
- And there is no use of 是 ... 的 shì ... de, which is a vernacular expression.
并 bìng is an emphatic form used before a negative. Using 并 bìng serves to emphasise that the eyes can NOT see essential things, forming a contrast with the previous sentence stating that only the heart can see clearly.
