# It's far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens on this problem



## Croas

It's far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens on this problem. 

谢谢～ ：D


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## xiaolijie

Croas, since the forum's function is to help and not to simply take over the work for you, please provide your own attempt and we will see how we can help you with it. Do help yourself before we can help you. 

Please see also:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2666253

xiaolijie,
Moderator


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## Croas

Ok, I think it's  在这个问题上机构之间的意见完全不统一。
ISN'T RIGHT OR WRONG?


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## xiaolijie

Thank you for coming back, Croas! 

Regarding your question: since you're a native speaker of Chinese and I am not, I wouldn't want to correct your Chinese but I think your version does need looking into. 
But let's sort out the English sentence first: the sentence doesn't look very well written, so it's not easy to be sure what should be a correct translation. Where did you get the English sentence? Give us the source or tell us whether it was written by a non-native speaker.


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## Croas

Oh, you needn't ask me so many questions here if don't plan to help me !!  
I think the another Chinese here would be most happy to help me with that except you. 
I wasn't born yesterday about your kindly and polite lies !!!  
Thank you~


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## xiaolijie

Croas said:


> Oh, you needn't ask me so many questions here if don't plan to help me !!
> I think the another Chinese here would be most happy to help me with that except you.
> I wasn't born yesterday about your kindly and polite lies !!!
> Thank you~



If you see my attempt to help this way, then I'm interested to see what kind of help you may get


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## Lucia_zwl

Croas，你实在是冤枉xiaolijie了。没有人会浪费自己宝贵的时间在这里故意刁难你；相反，XLJ问的这些问题是为了更好的帮你呀~


其实大家完全可以很不负责任地随便给你一个翻译，或者回复你3楼的帖子是对的或错的，再扯一些不着边际的原因，但你觉得这样会对你有帮助么？这不但帮不到你，反而很有可能会误导你。XLJ之所以问你这些问题，是为了获得关于这句话更多的信息，以便给你更准确的翻译。你应该知道，翻译是需要结合语境的，而语境不仅仅是一句话，有时需要上下文，有时也需要考虑作者写作特点甚至写作背景。比如你要是从鲁迅先生的文章里抽出一句半句的让别人翻译成英文，又什么都不告诉人家，不用说翻译得“信达雅”了，估计那人可能连原句都读不懂。所以要翻译得准确，一定要结合语境的。


你给的那句话，说实话我也没太看明白，也可能是我英语还不够好吧~ 如果你能提供更多的信息，特别是出处，你在哪里见到的这句话，书上或者网站上什么的，相信大家是愿意也会来帮忙的。


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## Croas

对不起，对不起～！！！ 
是我考虑不周，我错了...... 
Xiaolijie请你原谅我 

Lucia Zwl, 你说得很对。。。。
其实我这句话，我只是在DICT.CN辞典上偶然看见的
并没有上下文和其它什么段落。

所以应该怎么翻译才正确，我很烦恼～！！
请原谅我 ！


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## Daffodil100

Croas said:


> It's far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens on this problem.
> 
> 谢谢～ ：D



It's far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens on this problem. 
【中】在这个问题上莫衷一是的人算不得绝对权威。 

http://www.howzhi.com/course/2791/lesson/38054

上面这个网址有at sixes and sevens 这个英语成语 的详细解释。


版主要求提供问题的上下文，不但有助于别人帮助求助人的解答，而且这是论坛的基本要求之一。在ENGLISH ONLY 中执行得更严格。除了，要求提供出处，上下文。令我印象深刻的是要求引用的文字不得超过四行，以保护著作权，还有要求在帖子尽量用标准的语言，标点等，而非网络聊天俚语等，*充分体现了这个论坛的专业性、严肃性*。也许开头有人会觉得太烦，但在习惯后，我觉得受益很多。这是我的心得与你分享，希望你不要介意。


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## Ghabi

嗨！如果真要「強作解人」的話，句子前面應該提到某某機構，例如說The Hygiene Department was thrown into disarray, but they're far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens over this problem，就是說「他們不只是唯一一個在這個問題上方寸大亂的官方機構」，希望幫到你一點吧！


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## xiaolijie

Thank you for contributing, Lucia and Daffodil! 
What you both said are correct about the forum rules but Lucia has in particular hit the nail on the head regarding the English sentence: the sentence doesn't make sense, how can it then be translated in another language? So obviously the Chinese sentence "在这个问题上莫衷一是的人算不得绝对权威" that is circulated widely on the internet as the translation of the badly written English just can't be correct! I asked for the source because I suspected that the English sentence must be from a non-English native source, and once this is confirmed, half of the problem is solved.

So here is what I think the English sentence should be:
"They're far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens on this problem."
Again, the Chinese translation "在这个问题上莫衷一是的人算不得绝对权威" cannot be the translation of the English sentences, and I'll leave it to Chinese native speaker members to give a better translation for the corrected English sentence. By the way, "to be at sixes and sevens" means "to be in a mess, to be in a confused state, to be unable to decide."

Edit: cross-posted, Ghabi! I was sleeping while writing my reply


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## BODYholic

Croas said:


> It's far from the only authorities who are at sixes and sevens on this problem.



You may know that "far" means 离得远.
"Far from the only" means the number (quantity) is far away from just one. Another words, it is a huge number they are looking at. Or it implicates a lot more than one.

If we let y="the authorities", then "It's far from the only authorities...." can be translated as "不单单只是y....".

Hope this helps.


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## Croas

Xiaolijie, I am extremely grateful for what you've tried to help me with that problem. 
And daffodil100,Ghabi,BOdyholic, Thanks a million also for all that what you have done for me.
谢谢～！！！ ：）


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