MTL Mistranslations

Glossary

Format:
[ Category ]
[ Mistranslation ] —> [ Meaning ]
> [ Explanation ]
( Link to source of explanation )

People:

Daughter-in-law — Wife
> The use of "daughter-in-law" to translate the word for "wife" (妻子) in Chinese novels and other texts is a common phenomenon in machine translation and some manual translations. This is because the context and culture of the Chinese language often imply the role of the wife as a new family member, and "daughter-in-law" can convey that meaning effectively in English.
(By @Rahulwagh on the NovelUpdates forum https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/why-does-wife-in-chinese-translate-to-daughter-in-law.163473/)

Gay Men — Men
Lesbians — Women
> The word "tongzhi" traditionally means "comrade" and has been widely used by the Communist Party. But in recent decades the word has evolved to refer to homosexuals. Just like how "gay" in English went from meaning "happy" to "homosexual"
(https://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/world/asia/china-gay-dictionary/index.html)

He / She — She / He
   > There is no differentiation in the spoken language between "he", "she" and "it" (though a written difference was introduced after contact with the West), and pronouns are not inflected to indicate whether they are the subject or object of a sentence. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pronouns)

Husband — Teacher
> 先生 in Mandarin use to be the word for "teacher" long ago. Now, it either means "sir" or "husband". Referring to someone as your "先生" means he's your husband, while placing "先生" behind a last name equals to "Mr. ____"
(https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/6gvp8r/)

Milk — Paternal Grandmother
> The two words have the same characters but different meanings like "carpet" in English. It's not a pet of a car. (https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/e4z553/why_is_grandma_spelled_milk_milk/)

Bamboo Horse — The meaning of 青梅竹马 is literally "green plums and a bamboo horse," but it's used to mean a close, innocent childhood friendship between a boy and girl. (https://wufeimusic.substack.com/p/green-plums-and-a-bamboo-horse-)

Bai Yueguang / White Moonlight — First love
> "White Moonlight" usually refers to a person or thing that is elusive in the heart, has always been loved, but cannot be touched. (https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/53987/how-to-translate-白月光white-moonlight-into-english)

Terms:

Grass — Fuck, Motherfucker
> Online it can mean something is funny, like lol, borrowed from the Japanese. Also, 草 is pronounced cǎo and is often used as a euphemism for 肏 (cào) which means fuck.

The phrase 草泥马 (cǎo ní mǎ, grass mud horse) is an internet meme and funny euphemism for the vulgar phrase 肏你妈 (cào nǐ mā, fuck your mother) because they use the same pronunciation but different tones and characters.
(https://www.reddit.com/r/Chinese/comments/i5b0vt/what_exactly_does_草_mean/)

Shopping mall — Business world

Salted Fish — Lazy
> 咸鱼 (xián yú), or "salted fish". In Cantonese, a salted fish is a metaphor for a corpse, but can now mean people who have no intention of doing anything. (http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2018-01/19/content_35537699.htm)

Wearing a green hat — Cuckhold
> In China "wearing a green hat" (戴绿帽子 or dài lǜ mào zǐ) is an expression that Chinese use when a woman cheats on her husband or boyfriend because the phrase sounds similar to the word for cuckold. This apparently dates back to the Yuan dynasty when the relatives of prostitutes were forced to wear green hats. (https://randomwire.com/green-hat-a-no-no/)