# Some people prefer watching movies to TV series, since they (TV series) take so long to watch.



## yuechu

大家好！

I was recently thinking of how to translate the following sentence into Chinese: "Some people prefer watching movies to TV series, since they (TV series) take so long to watch." Would this be: 相对于电视剧，很多人更喜欢看电影因为他们得花很长时间看" (I think I said it wrong... feel free to propose something completely different!)
Thanks!


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## twenty6

It does work, however, "相对于电视剧“ sounds a bit clunky, so I would be more direct and say "有些人更喜欢看电影因为电视剧（or连续剧）要花很长时间才能看完。”


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## SimonTsai

有些人喜歡看電影甚過看連續劇。連續劇要看完，花太久，現代人沒那麼多時間。


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## yuechu

Thanks, Twenty6!


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## Skatinginbc

yuechu said:


> Would this be: 相对于电视剧，很多人更喜欢看电影因为他们得花很长时间看"


My biggest problem with that sentence concerns the pronoun 他们.  I thought it referred back to 电影 (i.e., 电影得花很长时间看) when I first read it and got confused.  Then I thought it referred back to 很多人, but it seemed rather odd: 很多人得花很长时间看 (电影, 还是电视剧??), 言下之义是有些人不花很长时间就能看完一部戏. 为什么说话者要在这里暗示个人速度差异?  莫明其妙. Finally, I guessed it referred back to 电视剧 (i.e., 电视剧得花很长时间看), an interpretation that went against Chinese syntactic rules.


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## yuechu

Skatinginbc said:


> My problem with that sentence concerns the pronoun 他们. I thought it referred back to 电影 when I first read it and got confused (电影得花很长时间看). Then I thought it referred back to 很多人, but it still confused me (很多人得花很长时间看电影).


I was confused too... (I was thinking of both and wasn't sure which one would be better for this sentence!)


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## T.D

相对于 → 比起
要花很长时间（才能看完） → 太费时间


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## yuechu

Those make it sound better, right? (are the 前者 rather 别扭?)
Thanks, T.D!


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## SuperXW

有些人喜欢看电影胜过/多过看电视剧，因为电视剧太费时。
By the way, you may consider 追剧/刷剧.
追剧/刷剧 are colloquial expressions...I think we've mentioned those in another thread.
"Catch a series": You finish watching all the latest episodes and looking forward to the next one.
"Brush a series": "brush" means the action of scrolling and refreshing the contents to browse. When you brush a series, you probably keep watching the series one episode after another continuously.


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## T.D

yuechu said:


> Those make it sound better, right? (are the 其前者 rather 别扭?)


The main problem with your "相对于电视剧，很多人更喜欢看电影因为他们得花很长时间看" is that it didn't tell us which one was"得花很长时间看" referring to(Movie or Telly?). So you will have to clear that up in translation.


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## hx1997

The reason for all that confusion may be word order. In the English version, "TV series" is closer to the pronoun "they" than "movies" is, but in your Chinese one it is the other way around. Putting 电影, rather than 电视剧, closer to 他们 may make people think you are referring to movies.

Besides, you may have noticed the absence of 他们 (do you mean 它们 since TV series are not people?) in all translations provided by others. I have no idea why but I don't feel comfortable referring to either TV series or movies as 它们. It seems to me that the use of 它们 (pronoun for animals or things) is more limited than that of English "they" (when in reference to animals or things, of course), and it (它们) tends to sound foreign in certain contexts.

Edit: I see now that 他们 does not refer to TV series, so the comments are moot.


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## T.D

hx1997 said:


> I have no idea why but I don't feel comfortable referring to either TV series or movies as 它们.


I think "他们" here is referring to "很多人"。 很多人更喜欢看电影而不是电视剧，因为看电视剧会花费他们更多的时间。


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## hx1997

T.D said:


> I think "他们" here is referring to "很多人"。 很多人更喜欢看电影而不是电视剧，因为看电视剧会花费他们更多的时间。


原来如此，那我就和Skating在6楼一样，一开始把“他们”当成是指“电影”，然后我又把“他们”当成了“电视剧”


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## T.D

hx1997 said:


> 原来如此，那我就和Skating在6楼一样，一开始把“他们”当成是指“电影”


The OP did state that in the original English sentence, "they" is referring to TV series, but when translating, directly saying "他们" is most likely to cause confusion because there are three possible antecedents (movies, TV series, and some people), especially when it was "他", a pronoun for all humankind or human males.

And as a side note, I don't think translating “some people” to "很多人" is accurate, "有些人" might be better.

This is how I would say it
1. 比起电视剧，有些人更喜欢看电影。因为(看)电视剧太费时间了。
or
2. (因为)看电视剧太费时间，(所以)有些人更喜欢看电影。

This might be irrelevant to you right now but, depending on which part of the sentence you wish to emphasise. (the Chinese language tends to postposition important information) If you wish to emphasise *the reason why* movies are preferred by some people, then go with 1. If you are emphasising the fact that *some people prefer movies*, then go with 2.


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## yuechu

Sorry again for the confusion! It probably would have been less confusing without my (inaccurate and confusing) attempt at translating it.

Thank you for all your translations! I was looking at your post above, T.D (the one right above this one) and your translations are much clearer (than mine)!
@SuperXW Thanks for your translation, too, and the related vocabulary words (追剧 and 刷剧)!


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## Skatinginbc

有的人比較喜歡看電影，因為電視劇一部這麼長，要看完太花時間了。
電視劇一部這麼長，有的人因此比較喜歡看電影。


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