# 海内存知己，天涯若比邻



## Robby Zhu

请问这句话应该怎么翻译？
A bosom friend is who  you will feel  lives nearby even if they were overseas.
这样翻译可以吗？


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## 2PieRad

Robby Zhu said:


> A bosom friend is who you will feel lives nearby even if they were overseas.
> 这样翻译可以吗？


不行


Full context, please and thank you.


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## Robby Zhu

Erebos12345 said:


> 不行
> 
> 
> Full context, please and thank you.


 Actually it's a line from the following poem.
城阙辅三秦，风烟望五津。
与君离别意，同是宦游人。
*海内存知己，天涯若比邻*。
无为在歧路，儿女共沾巾。

 So it might be tricky to translate.  But thanks for your reply.


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## Skatinginbc

Real friends, however far away, are as close as next-door neighbors.


Robby Zhu said:


> a line from the following poem.
> 城阙辅三秦，风烟望五津。
> 与君离别意，同是宦游人。
> *海内存知己，天涯若比邻*。
> 无为在歧路，儿女共沾巾。


In this context, it means:
In this country there are always kindred spirits (of yours) that will (spiritually and emotionally) stay as close (to you) as next-door neighbors even when you are in a far-flung corner of "the world" (i.e., the Chinese empire).
海内: within the Four Seas, within the territory of the Great Tang Empire, within the nation, inside the country
知己: kindred spirit
天涯: the far reaches of the sky, the far-flung corners of the world
比邻: next-door neighbors


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## 2PieRad

Robby Zhu said:


> So it might be tricky to translate.


Yeah. I would think that stuff like poetry, songs, and jokes are usually best enjoyed in their original languages. Too much gets lost in translation. 😿


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## Oswinw011

Nope


Erebos12345 said:


> Too much gets lost in translation. 😿


As a translation dabbler, I can confirm that. You have to take on board many factors such as these: rhythms, cultural difference and people's ways of thinking in two countries . For example, 海内 literally means the land encompassed by sea. It has to do with the cultural reference that ancient Chinese use this word to mean "inside the country they live in". And just like the word "flappers", some translators would translate it into "轻佻女子/飛來波女郎". Nevertheless the truth is that Chinese take them to mean either flippant women(轻佻女子), or a transliterated word otherwise meaningless, which should have conveyed "a generation of young Western women in the 1920s". Unfortunately, the exact meaning failed to find its way to people's mind in that the connotation of "Western women in the 1920s" is lost in translation, with only the meaning of "some kind of woman" left.

Here's how I tried: Since you are my bosom friend in this world, no matter how far we are from each other-- even at an infinite distance, it feels as if we still lived next door(I don't see the logic between *海内存知己 and 天涯若比邻 *though*).*


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## Skatinginbc

四海之内 (大唐天下) 存有體會你的遭遇 (i.e.,「同是宦游人」)、了解你的心志、欣賞你的才華 的人。即使你 (到了蜀州) 遠在天邊， (我，你的知己) 也 (會) 覺得你像是住在隔壁的鄰居。


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## Oswinw011

1. There are people who know you well.
2. You are far away in Shu Zhou.
3.I felt as if you were a n_eighbor._

This is what it reads like to me: Because there are asteroids, dinosaurs, however strong, will die out. 
It sounds like ravings.

I don't get it.

If it means I know you well(we are close at heart) and even if you are far away, I feel as if you were living nearby. That may make sense.


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## Skatinginbc

海内存有你的知己 (譬如我，就是你的知己)。即使你遠放外任,  到風烟迷茫的蜀地, 我們也會在心靈上與你櫛比相鄰，道義上像鄰居般守望相助，在京城罩著你，在各地支持你。所以, 你不用為前途茫茫而擔憂, 不要為離鄉背井而傷心, 別在分手的岐路上, 哭得一把眼淚一把鼻涕。


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## 2PieRad

_Bosom friend _is the part that sounds the weirdest to me, though you both seem keen on using it. 🤔


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## Skatinginbc

感覺王勃和杜少府之間的情誼像君子之交, 沒親密到「密友」或「閨蜜」那種甜如蜜的密度。


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## SuperXW

有没有更简洁更抽象的译法，而不是复杂化具体化局限化？我觉得简洁抽象是汉语古代文学的特有魅力，赋予了其美感和主观想象空间。
虽然可以像你们所说的去理解，但我觉得也可以这样理解：“因为海内有知己，所以天涯也不觉得远了”。
大家倾向于把后半句理解成：“（即使你在）天涯（你也）若比邻”，强调你我关系。
但我个人喜欢理解成：“天涯（这么远的地方）若比邻”，强调我对距离的感受。
全句没有直接提到“我/你”，这样感情就不再局限于此二人之间，而是升华到了一个与读者和世人共通的境界，而且还打破了空间的界限，我想这也是这句成为名句的原因之一。
我英语不好，可能我个人会更喜欢这样的翻译："知己会把距离拉近，让天涯不再遥远"之类的。


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## Robby Zhu

SuperXW said:


> 我英语不好，可能我个人会更喜欢这样的翻译："知己会把距离拉近，让天涯不再遥远"之类的。


 I found a so called standard translation, 
 A bosom friend afar brings distant land near.


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