Our Institute

Royal Academic Institute comprises two major academic components: The professional school and

Read More

President's Welcome

Welcome to Royal Academic Institute. We invite you to visit our website at any time to explore our academic programs and courses. Read More

History

Founded in 1990 by Issac C. Chung, Royal Academic Institute was operated under the name of I-Ching Study Society previously. Read More

Mission

Our mission is carryon the true knowledge to our students. Read More

Face Reading

Face Reading, or physiognomy, is one of the most powerful tools that ancient Chinese have developed. Read More

Health Face Reading

Health is our main asset. How to protect it is the big question. Many people will get regular checkups and exercise to protect their health. Read More

Potential Income

Do you want to improve your financial status? Do you think it is better for you or your family to have more money? Read More

Feng Shui

As Feng Shui gain its popularity in recent years, many people know Feng means wind and Shui means water. Read More

Chinese Astrology

Ancient Chinese has long developed the Traditional Astrology of Life based on I-Ching and Chinese Astronomy. Using the birth year, Read More

Straws Augury

I-Ching is one of the most classical Chinese literatures which explain the law of human behaviour, the nature, and the rotation of the universe. Read More

Mind Power Augury

Since the development of I-Ching by Fu Xi 6000 years ago, I-Ching has been through different phrases. Read More

Qi Kung

Ancient Chinese Qi Kung is a special exercise that is good for your health and enables you to increase your life-expectancy. Read More

Meditation

Meditation has been practiced by many different cultures for more than 5,000 years. It encompasses a wide range of spiritual Read More

Enrollment

Please click on the following button to pay US$100 for your course deposit and then continue to finish your registration..

Para inscribirse pinche primero en el botón "pay now" que se encuentra más abajo y así poder hacer el pago de 100 USD, luego puede continuar rellenando el formulario con sus datos de inscripción.

報讀課程:

請按 "pay now" 鍵支付訂金 100 美元, 然後跟隨指示填妥報名表格便可.

Read Articles In Different Language


English

Chinese 中文

Espanol

Francais

Deutsch

Russian

Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 9 – The Importance of Translation

an Idioms story
Posted by admin_issac on 2012/9/22 21:50:00 (1679 reads) News by the same author
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 9 – The Importance of Translation

Translation is the method to decode the message that the author wants to convey. From pictogram to our current language, the symbols we use to express ourselves went through many phases of amendments. Even though we still employ the same expression method (communicating through speaking, writing, sign languages, and etc.), the way we use our words changes from time to time – new terms are invented with the advancement of technology, the various wars and conquests, and the changes of emperor. As a result, to fully decode a writer’s writing, reading the text is merely enough. One should put him- or herself into the author’s shoes.

To illustrate a problem with Chinese translation, I will share a story with you. My son study Chinese as an elective course in high school; and one day, he came home puzzled and started to discuss what he learned in his Chinese class. That day, his Chinese teacher taught the class some Chinese idioms – as some of you may know, Chinese have a lot of idioms, all of which have story and meaning behind it – and two of which caught his attention (洛陽紙貴 and 塞翁失馬,焉知非福).

洛陽紙貴 literally translated into “the paper in Luo Yang is expensive”. Without doing much research, the teacher explains to the class that Luo Yang was the capital of China, thus the paper there is expensive. Since my son knew the meaning behind each Chinese idiom was never that simple and her explanation doesn’t seem to make too much of sense (some people may think it does make since the living cost in capital is usually higher, but if this the case, why would the idiom only specified paper? So when reading Chinese literature, think deeper), he decided to discuss with me. As a father and an experienced teacher, I asked him to do some research before giving the answer to him directly. Obviously, he was able to find the actual story and the meaning behind this idiom. If you want to know, you should search it online yourself.

塞翁失馬,焉知非福 literally translated “When the old man from the frontier lost his horse, how could one have known that it would not be fortuitous” (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A1% ... 7%9F%A5%E9%9D%9E%E7%A6%8F). Since 塞 (Choi) sounds like 蔡 (Choi – a Chinese last name) in Cantonese, the teacher explained that an old man with a last name蔡 lost his horse… Again, this is a fatal error in Chinese; but this time, the teacher did not even read the word when she translated it into English.

Many people may find her mistake wasn’t a big deal, but if our education continues like this, how many people will be misled? Since the Chinese class has many Canadian-born Chinese and non-Chinese students, I sent my son’s teacher a letter to inform her about her mistake and request her to re-teach those terms. Many people would worry about their child receiving a lower grade when confronting the teacher’s mistake, but this is a very selfish thought. Misleading and twisting the actual knowledge is way more harmful than receiving a lower grade (and on a side note, my son graduated from the Chinese course with an A+ average).

While you may laugh at this story and think it is ridiculous for a Chinese teacher to not only misunderstand the fundamental content of those idioms but also taught the wrong theory to the students, many so called “masters” in the metaphysics field are destroying the field by misleading their audiences.

Like my son’s teacher, Mr. Joseph Yu has shown his misunderstanding of I-Ching in his explanation. He maybe a good converter in terms of converting Chinese text to English, but his review and “analysis” clearly indicate his ignorance in translation. His behaviour is totally unethical. To understand the problem with his interpretation, you can view my other article at:

http://www.royalacademicinstitute.com ... s/article.php?storyid=267

http://www.royalacademicinstitute.com ... s/article.php?storyid=268

If you like to continue read my articles, please subscribe

If you like my article, please don’t hesitate to share with your friend by sending them a link or put my link in your website.

http://www.royalacademicinstitute.com/fengshui/modules/news/index.php?storytopic=21


If you like to help me to translate my articles into other language, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Rating: 0.00 (0 votes) - Rate this News -
Printer Friendly Page Send this Story to a Friend Create a PDF from the article
Bookmark this article at these sites
Bookmark to Blinklist Bookmark to del.icio.us Bookmark to Digg Bookmark to Fark Bookmark to Furl Bookmark to Newsvine Bookmark to Reddit Bookmark to Simpy Bookmark to Spurl Bookmark to Yahoo Bookmark to Balatarin Bookmark to Faceboom Bookmark to Twitter Bookmark to Scripstyle Bookmark to Stumble Bookmark to Technorati Bookmark to Mixx Bookmark to Myspace Bookmark to Designfloat Bookmark to Google Plus Bookmark to Google Reader Bookmark to Google Bookmarks
The comments are owned by the author. We aren't responsible for their content.

Author Thread
admin_issac
Published: 2012/11/16 14:44  Updated: 2014/3/21 3:19
Webmaster
Joined: 06/26/2007
From:
Comments: 156
 Re: Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 9 – The Importan...
Related Articles
Chung's “I–Ching 易經” 1 – Introduction
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 2 – My little background in I-Ching
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 3 – What is I-Ching易經
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 4 – How many types of I-Ching易經
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 5 – The core idea of I-Ching易經
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 6 – The Interpretation and Translation of I-Ching
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 7 – How to study I-Ching
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 8 – Chapter 3 of SyutGuaJun說卦傳
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 9 – The Importance of Translation
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 10 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P1)
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 11 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P2)
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 12 – Message from the heaven
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 13 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P3)
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 14 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P4)
Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 15 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P5)
Feng Shui Research Center's fear
Things you can learn from Mr. Joseph Yu!
Joseph needs free advertisement
Joseph exposed his shortage in I-Ching knowledge 1
Joseph exposed his shortage in I-Ching knowledge 2
Greatest Feng Shui master
Only Joseph can discredit the others but his lineage do not accept anyone discredit Joseph.
Beware
Joseph Yu’s secrets 1 - Mistake in Trigram name - Xiao Chu 小畜
Joseph Yu’s secrets 2 - Mistake in Trigram name - Xiao Chu 小畜
Joseph Yu’s secrets 3 - Joseph Yu's Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
How to Utilize Mr. Joseph Yu’s Calabash Methodology – Part 1
How to Utilize Mr. Joseph Yu’s Calabash Methodology – Part 2
How to Utilize Mr. Joseph Yu’s Calabash Methodology – Part 3

Master Chung's Articles