# 心中灯塔的守候



## xiaolijie

Hi,

This is a sentence in a song lyrics:
愿是你心中灯塔的守候
在迷雾中让你看透

I can more or less understand what it's supposed to mean but have troubles analysing the Chinese. Can someone explain "愿是你心中灯塔的守候" for me, especially 灯塔的守候 (or perhaps 心中灯塔的守候?) ? Is "心中灯塔" the object of "守候" ?

Thanks!


----------



## 维尼爱蜂蜜

Sometimes song lyrics could be grammartically incorrect in order to rhyme or sound nice.
This sentence is ambiguous. 
I think it means 愿是你心中守候的灯塔 or 愿是你心中灯塔的守候者。


----------



## xiaolijie

Thanks for replying, 维尼爱蜂蜜!

Your "愿是你心中守候的灯塔" does seem to make better sense than the original.


----------



## Lucia_zwl

You're right by trying to rewrite the sentence and by treating 守候 as a verb, but 灯塔 is the subject rather than the object of 守候. You can compare *灯塔的守候* to 感谢*您的参与*.

(感谢)您的参与--(感谢)您参与我们的节目/活动/讨论/...
灯塔的守候--灯塔守候XX

XX可以是轮船或其它什么东西，但我们平时不会这么说，只是在类似的诗歌里才会这么用，显得比较文雅。这里的“灯塔”是一个比喻，可以说“灯塔守候你的梦想，为你（轮船）在迷雾中指明方向”，或者也可以说“灯塔”就是梦想，它在守候你的到来。


----------



## xiaolijie

Lucia, 谢谢你的解释！I think I've got it 

"你心中灯塔的守候在迷雾中让你看透" here is basically the same as "你心中灯塔的守候在迷雾中让你看透", am I correct?


----------



## Wesley To

願是守候在你心中的燈塔
願是在你心中守候的燈塔
 願是守候你心的燈塔(最簡單)
或者
他希望能成為你心中燈塔的守護者(硬來的)
燈塔會守候？
"燈塔守候你的夢想"，很好
燈塔的守候，很"英文"
人心裡有燈塔嗎？

 "願是你心中燈塔的守候(名詞)
  在迷霧中讓你看透"

願是你心中的燈塔(名詞)
守候在迷霧中讓你看透

願是守候你心的燈塔(名詞)
在迷霧中讓你看透


----------



## xiaolijie

Thank you Westley To.
The sentence both you and 维尼爱蜂蜜 wrote "願是(在)你心中守候的燈塔" is the reverse of the original 愿是你心中灯塔的守候, and this has made it difficult to think how the two could have the same meaning.

Let's try a different approach: 
Can some native speakers please translate the quote below into English ??
愿是你心中灯塔的守候
在迷雾中让你看透


----------



## Lucia_zwl

xiaolijie said:


> "你心中灯塔守候在迷雾中让你看透"


我觉得没什么问题~其实说“守候（着）的灯塔”也挺好的，就像维尼爱蜂蜜说的，歌词可以不遵循语法规则的，为的是那种意境和韵律。

翻译的话，我试一下哈~
1. May the lighthouse waiting in your heart
guide you through the misty dark.

2. May you find through the misty dark
the lighthouse waiting in your heart.

用"wait" 表达 "守候"肯定不够全面，不知道"abide"合适么？"dark"显然也是为了押韵硬加上去的。。。
按英语的习惯是不是第二个的语序更好一点儿？我觉得一般说 may someone do something，没见过 may something 的。


----------



## xiaolijie

Thanks, Lucia! 

Yes, I know in poetry or music lyrics, one is less restricted by the grammar. I just wanted to see if I was actually missing something 

Abide: Do you mean "to wait expectantly" ? I've personally never seen this word used in this sense, so it must be relatively rare. 
May someone/something... : Both exist, but you are right, the pattern "may someone" is much more common.


----------



## colum4

xiaolijie said:


> Hi,
> 
> This is a sentence in a song lyrics:
> 愿是你心中灯塔的守候
> 在迷雾中让你看透
> 
> I can more or less understand what it's supposed to mean but have troubles analysing the Chinese. Can someone explain "愿是你心中灯塔的守候" for me, especially 灯塔的守候 (or perhaps 心中灯塔的守候?) ? Is "心中灯塔" the object of "守候" ?
> 
> Thanks!


你好，
以下是我的见解，瞎说的，见笑：

说这句话的人把自己拟物化了，他把自己拟成了“守候”，是什么样的守候呢？

是时刻准备着成为你心中灯塔的守候，守候这个词本身有点“坚守”的意思（当然这两个词不一样，我只是从感性上来比较的）

也就是说 这个人要表达的是：*我愿意成为一种守候，这种守候是---时刻准备成为你心中的灯塔，我之所以想成为这种守候，是为了在你迷惘或失落的时候为你指引正确的方向。
*
这里“你心中灯塔的” 是形容词。

谢谢​


----------



## Ghabi

xiaolijie said:


> Can some native speakers please translate the quote below into English ??
> 愿是你心中灯塔的守候
> 在迷雾中让你看透


Hello XLJ! What a lovely old song! But all old songs sound lovely. Nostalgia! For a translation, perhaps something like "May I be the lighthouse that stands in your heart, guiding you through the misty sea"? Seems to me that 灯塔的守候 is simply an inverted version of 守候的灯塔, as a lyricist would do anything for the sake of rhyme, and the inversion in our case is really nothing compared with what the classical poets did.


----------



## xiaolijie

Thank you to you both for replying, colum4 and Ghabi! Great replies they are.
One of the things I've learned from Chinese is my knowledge of it is never certain . 

Speaking of which, can I ask an additional question: I know 守候 here is a noun meaning "waiting"/ "watching", can it also be used as a noun meaning "守候者"/ "the person who waits/watches" ? If 守候 can mean 守候者, then 灯塔的守候者 would be much easier to understand.


----------



## colum4

xiaolijie said:


> Thank you to you both for replying, colum4 and Ghabi! Great replies they are.
> One of the things I've learned from Chinese is my knowledge of it is never certain .
> 
> Speaking of which, can I ask an additional question: I know 守候 here is a noun meaning "waiting"/ "watching", can it also be used as a noun meaning "守候者"/ "the person who waits/watches" ? If 守候 can mean 守候者, then 灯塔的守候者 would be much easier to understand.



你好，
我觉得不行吧，因为原文并没有＂者＂字，我觉得还是忠实原文比较好。

（其实我的中文也不好，仅供参考。）


----------



## stellari

I'm with colum4. 灯塔的守候 (the waiting of the lighthouse) is different from 守候的灯塔 (the waiting lighthouse). I think here what it really means is 'I'll be watching/waiting as if I'm the lighthouse in your heart'. Besides, 'I'm the waiting' sounds much cooler than 'I'm the lighthouse' because the former is the objectification of a person to an abstract concept, rather than a physical object. Many songs are like this; the lyrics are intentionally written in a vague, implicit and even ungrammatical way to convey certain types of emotion. So do not try to interpret it word-by-word. Rather, try to understand the whole meaning by grabbing the keywords and fusing them into a mental image.

If you use 守护者, then the meaning would be completely different: 灯塔的守候者 means "guardian/watcher of the lighthouse", while what the lyrics actually try to say is "to watch 'you' as a lighthouse".


----------



## xiaolijie

Great post, stellari! Thank you and a big welcome to the forum!


----------

