Sunny Xia (asker) Jul 10, 2008:

事实上一开始，我就用了“走神儿”这个词，但是我的客户（一个美国人）提出了疑问，所以我想是否有更好的译法，才拿到PROZ上来探讨的。

Sunny Xia (asker) Jul 10, 2008:

Dear Jyuan, maybe you use this sentence every day, because you are in an English environment. But for me, I'm really not familiar with the meaning. Maybe my English is not as good as you, because I live in China and have not been to any English country. But I think as a Proz. member, I have the right to ask any question which I’m not quite sure the meaning.

jyuan_us Jul 10, 2008:

Counting the # of "agrees" is more of a play than a valid method. A substantial sample size is needed to draw a valid and reliable conclusion.

Wenjer Leuschel (X) Jul 10, 2008:

Believe me, Xiaoyuan, the reason why I don't agree with one of the suggestions is because it goes over the border of the actual denotation and the reason why most ppl agree w/ the first one is because it is most colloquial and most commonly understood.

jyuan_us Jul 10, 2008:

@ WENJER﹕ These answers are all equally commonly understood. Everybody knows that. These is no such a thing as "the most commonly undertood". They are all plain, everyday used terms anyway.

Wenjer Leuschel (X) Jul 10, 2008:

For instance, "My thoughts easily wander." --> "我容易走神。" or "我容易心神恍惚。" or "我的心神容易恍惚。"--- which one would be most commonly understood? They are almost the same, but I'd pick the one most people agree upon --- in plain Chinese, 如果不嫌弃的话，请采纳这个意见。

Wenjer Leuschel (X) Jul 10, 2008:

@Xiaoyuan: The question is about which term is most commonly understood. We do have many expressions for the same denotation very often, but such questions like this one is about finding the most proper expressions for a common understanding.

jyuan_us Jul 10, 2008:

@ Wenjer: you agreed to 4 out of the 5 answers. Does this contradict with your statement above? If you think all these answers are good, why did this term need to be asked in the first place? You can simply pick any Chinese equivalent from the dictionary.

jyuan_us Jul 10, 2008:

@ WENJER: Did you see any difference between these answers and the dictionary entries? How different are they? If these terms need to be asked, every word needs.

Wenjer Leuschel (X) Jul 10, 2008:

根据我审阅问卷翻译的经验，问卷翻译者最常犯的错误是缺乏与别人互动沟通，因此容易以字典上查到的简单译词为准，没有注意到在问卷使用时的真正语境下可能会产生另外的理解。For this reason, I believe that such questions are better asked and discussed before the translator chooses a commonly understood term for an accurate translation.

Sunny Xia (asker) Jul 10, 2008:

谢谢您的理解。不过，如果我能回答得很好，我就不会在这里提交了。我已经尽力描述了问题的背景，请看最上面“Medical - 问卷调查 / 关于疲劳”，另外我前面的两个问题都有“CONCEPT", 但是这个问题我也没有得到更多解释。如果您的建议是希望我以后的问题能提供更多的信息，那我感谢并接受，也希望您能提更具体的意见，比如象这类问题还需要那些方面更多的信息，如：上面和下面的题目？对于'the best person to answer these questions is yourself because only you see the entire passage", 我不太同意，我们每个上PROZ提问的同仁，都是只有自己才看过整个文件，是不是不能再提问了。对一句话的翻译有很多种，有时候自己思维阻塞了，或不太确定意义，自己想破头，也没有想出满意的答案时，就希望能得到同仁的帮助，集思广益。不知我的想法对不对，欢迎探讨。谢谢！

jyuan_us Jul 10, 2008:

haha. I understand. However, I think the best person to answer these questions is yourself because only you see the entire passage and I don't thnk the answerers can be that precise by looking at the limited context. I think they guess more than analyze.

Sunny Xia (asker) Jul 10, 2008:

Dear Jyuan, because this is a questionnaire for clinical study, each question should be translated precisely and use the best Chinese to render it. Each question seems simple and clear in English, but when we translate into Chinese, there is often some misunderstanding to some terms, so we should discuss it carefully.

jyuan_us Jul 9, 2008:

Just curious, why these kind of questions need to be asked? They are all in the dictionary. Also, can these be valued at the PRO level?