# Two Americans have brought Mother photos of a former disciple



## patrickjeandaniel

Hi
can someone see if my translation is accurate

_Two Americans have brought Mother photos of a former disciple who left for the United States_


_母亲从两名美国人收到移居过美国了的一位前信徒的照片_

thank you 
patrick


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## Oswinw011

_母亲从两名美国人那里收到一些有关前信徒的照片，他此前曾动身去美国。_


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## Flaminius

Just a thought, but who is this "Mother"?  I suspect she is Mother Teresa.  Please, *patrickjeandaniel* can clarify?


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## patrickjeandaniel

No , she is an Indian master , a Veena master , anyway you can replace Mother by anything you like


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## SuperXW

patrickjeandaniel said:


> No , she is an Indian master , a Veena master , anyway you can replace Mother by anything you like


So the former translation was incorrect, mostly because it translated Mother as "mom".
For a religious master, we usually call him/her 师傅 or 大师. 

Nevertheless, the sentence is not easy to translate because:
1. Chinese sentence structure doesn't encourage long attributive clause such as "who left for the the United States".
2. Chinese sentence usually follows chronological order: if the disciple left for the United States first, then two Americans brought the photos, then it is preferred to be narrated in this order.

My version:
_Two Americans have brought Mother photos of a former disciple who left for the United States
两个美国人给师傅带去了一名已移居美国的前信徒的照片。_


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## SimonTsai

那位退教前往美國的信徒，他的照片兩個美國人已交給了聖母。 (In the absence of context, the Mother in the original, or '聖母' in the Chinese translation, sounds somewhat like a cult leader.)


SuperXW said:


> For a religious master, we usually call him/her 师傅 or 大师.


I would expect '師父' and not '師傅'.


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## SuperXW

SimonTsai said:


> 那位退教前往美國的信徒，他的照片兩個美國人已交給了聖母。 (In the absence of context, the Mother in the original, or '聖母' in the Chinese translation, sounds somewhat like a cult leader.)
> 
> I would expect '師父' and not '師傅'.


I agree that 师父 is better than 师傅.

However,
1. Are we sure “_left for the United States_” means 退教 (quite the religion)?
2. The structure of your sentence seems a bit too casual to me. 在實際主語“兩個美國人”之前，有兩段很長的補充短語，成分不是很明確。
建議修改：
那位退教前往美國的信徒，他的照片已由兩個美國人交給了聖母。


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## SimonTsai

*(1)* A former disciple is one who already quit the church, whatever the reason is, is it not?

*(2)* The sentence that I wrote is an instance of topicalisation, which is ubiquitous in Mandarin. For example, '藥我吃過了' equates to '我吃過藥了', and '傘我拿走了' equates to '我拿走傘了'. In my sentence, '他的照片' is the topic and object, where '他' is made clear by '那位退教前往美國的信徒'; '兩個美國人' is the subject, '交給了' is the verb phrase, and '聖母' is the object complement. It is in the active voice. I see nothing wrong.


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## SuperXW

SimonTsai said:


> *(1)* A former disciple is one who already quit the church, whatever the reason is, is it not?
> 
> *(2)* The sentence that I wrote is an instance of topicalisation, which is ubiquitous in Mandarin. For example, '藥我吃過了' equates to '我吃過藥了', and '傘我拿走了' equates to '我拿走傘了'. In my sentence, '他的照片' is the topic and object, where '他' is made clear by '那位退教前往美國的信徒'; '兩個美國人' is the subject, '交給了' is the verb phrase, and '聖母' is the object complement. It is in the active voice. I see nothing wrong.


(1) I my opinion, a master have disciples...but not necessarily a "church" or "religion"...
一些精神領袖未必有建立宗教，故未必有“退教”一說。
(2) 我能看懂，但這句複雜程度遠勝“藥我吃過了”，前面還多了“那位退教前往美國的信徒”這個補充語，三段名詞性短語疊在一起，中間沒有任何動詞介詞，是不容易理解其中關係的。我還是建議加個“由”。


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## Romildo

以下供参考：
两个美国人给Mother带来一些已经去了美国的（那名）前信徒的照片。
两个美国人给Mother带来一些前信徒的照片，他已去了美国。


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## Boyar

SuperXW said:


> 一些精神領袖 ...


请问，
“精神領袖”和“master(-musician)”这两个短语的意思完全一样吗？



patrickjeandaniel said:


> she is an Indian master , a Veena master





> 維納琴（英語：Vina/Veena）是一種在印度古典樂中使用的撥弦樂器。


 (維納琴 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书)

那么 “a Veena master”教学生拉維納琴。请问这种说法对吗？


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## SuperXW

Boyar said:


> 请问，
> “精神領袖”和“master(-musician)”这两个短语的意思完全一样吗？
> 
> 
> (維納琴 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书)
> 
> 那么 “a Veena master”教学生拉維納琴。请问这种说法对吗？


不一样。
"精神领袖"可以有不同解读，我在这里指某些人眼中的大师，他们会传授信徒一些精神方面的道理，如宗教信仰。
master则在大部分情况下，可以直接翻译为“师傅”或“大师”，可以是“乐器大师”“宗教大师”等各种大师。

我一开始并不知道Veena是一种乐器，还以为是一种宗教religion或灵修方法meditation practice之类的。
如果仅仅是乐器大师，那我有三个疑问：
1. 乐器大师，为什么会被称为Mother呢？
2. 乐器的学生，会用disciple吗？我以为只需用student。
3. 在patrick的另一个问题中，确实提到了guru（宗教领袖），以及Two Americans，这是不是同一件事情呢？


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## Boyar

这就像一个侦探故事一样, 其中证据不是一致的。
唯一把Mother说成是乐器大师的地方是Patrick的第4个帖子。
我看了你推荐的那论坛讨论 :


SuperXW said:


> 在patrick的另一个问题中


在讨论的第一个帖子中，提到了SOURCE。我也查了那个SOURCE。那里没有提到乐器。Mother只是作为一种精神领袖呈现。那里的GURU一词指的是曾经的弟子("C.")，他去了美国，成立了自己的特殊利益集团。所以我不知道这一切和乐器维纳琴有什么关系。


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