{"id":1456,"date":"2010-08-06T10:34:56","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T02:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/akikolingoland.com\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2015-05-21T21:24:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T13:24:00","slug":"%e5%af%b9%e7%8c%ab%e6%8b%89%e7%90%b4-playing-the-cello-to-the-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akikolingoland.com\/en\/%e5%af%b9%e7%8c%ab%e6%8b%89%e7%90%b4-playing-the-cello-to-the-cat\/","title":{"rendered":"\u5bf9\u732b\u62c9\u7434 – Playing the Cello to the Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DSCF6106<\/a>

\u4eba\u7c7b\u8bf4\u201c\u5bf9\u725b\u5f39\u7434\u201d\uff0c\u8fd8\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053\u725b\u5927\u54e5\u6bcf\u5929\u7ed9\u6211\u4eec\u62c9\u7434\u5462\uff01\u2014\u2014\u732b\u54aa\u5144\u5f1f
Humans make fun of cows with the idiom \u2018\u5bf9\u725b\u5f39\u7434\u2019 (‘playing the lute to a cow’), but they don’t even realize that Lady Moo plays the cello for us every day! – Little Meowies<\/p><\/div>\n

I got the little musical cow on a trip to Japan when I was still in university. The beautiful pair of cats was a gift from a student when he was on holiday somewhere. I thought these little friends were absolutely adorable and took a shot of them.<\/p>\n

The caption \u2018\u5bf9\u732b\u62c9\u7434\u2019 (du\u00ec m\u0101o l\u0101 q\u00edn) (playing the cello to the cat[s]) is a variation by myself from the idiom \u2018\u5bf9\u725b\u5f39\u7434\u2019(du\u00ec ni\u00fa t\u00e1n q\u00edn), which literally means ‘playing the lute to a cow’, that is, ‘casting pearls before swine’, ‘addressing the wrong audience’.<\/p>\n

dui niu tan qin<\/a><\/p>\n

While translating the words of the cats, some differences between the two languages became quite apparent.<\/p>\n

    \n\t<\/p>\n
  1. Generic Terms<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/li>\n
    <\/div>\nIn Chinese, we tend to have a general term for nouns. In this case, this is reflected in two words, \u2018\u725b\u2019(ni\u00fa) and \u2018\u7434\u2019(q\u00edn).<\/p>\n

    \u2018\u725b\u2019 is a general term for cow, it doesn’t specify whether it is male or female. To differentiate the sex, we add \u2018\u516c\u2019(g\u014dng) or \u2018\u6bcd\u2019(m\u01d4) in front of \u2018\u725b\u2019, i.e., \u2018\u516c\u725b\u2019 is a bull, while \u2018\u6bcd\u725b\u2019 is a cow.<\/p>\n

    As for \u2018\u7434\u2019, it is again a general term for many musical instruments, usually stringed. In both the original idiom \u2018\u5bf9\u725b\u5f39\u7434\u2019 and my twisted version \u2018\u5bf9\u732b\u62c9\u7434\u2019, the same \u2018\u7434\u2019 can be used, though the \u2018\u7434\u2019 in the original idiom probably referred to the zither, while my cow’s \u2018\u7434\u2019 refers to the cello.<\/p>\n

    \t<\/p>\n

  2. Brotherhood<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/li>\n
    <\/div>\nBrotherhood is rather important in Chinese culture, as can be reflected by our lavish use of sibling terms in many instances.<\/p>\n

    In this case, I applied it to both the cow and the cats. Because \u2018\u725b\u2019 is a strong and huge animal, when referring to cows in a more endearing manner, we often say \u2018\u725b\u5927\u54e5\u2019, where \u2018\u5927\u54e5\u2019(d\u00e0g\u0113) means elder brother. This became quite tricky to translate because in English, although often the word ‘cow’ is used casually as a gender-neutral term, a ‘cow’ is after all, strictly speaking, female!<\/p>\n

    Then for the term \u2018\u732b\u54aa\u5144\u5f1f\u2019(m\u0101om\u012b xi\u014dngd\u00ec), again it is quite natural to depict the cats as siblings in Chinese, but it would probably be weird in English. (\u2018\u732b\u54aa\u2019, meaning cat, is more endearing than just \u2018\u732b\u2019,while \u2018\u5144\u5f1f\u2019means brother.)<\/p>\n<\/ol>\n

    [Update 2014\/02\/27]<\/mark> As I hinted in the caption, we’ve been pretty rude to the cows (and other animals in fact) with our idioms. We can see from the video below that cows, and many other animals, do<\/em> appreciate music! <\/p>\n

    Enjoy the music with the cows!<\/p>\n