Another Afanti Story

Here is another story about the Smart Afanti, translated by my daughter:

Ā Fán Tí Borrows a Pot

Once upon a time there was a person who was an official. He was very rich. He had lots of money, but very selfish. He only wanted other people’s stuff, but wouldn’t help other people. He was never willing to lend his own stuff to other people. One day, Ā Fán Tí begged him for a long time and finally borrowed a pot from him. He promised to return it in 3 days.

The next day, Ā Fán Tí held a small pot. He happily visited the official’s house. He entered through the door and yelled, “Congratulations! Congratulations! Last night your big pot had a child!” That person unexpectedly got a free pot. He was very happy, so he told Ā Fán Tí, “Tomorrow, you do not need to return the big pot, let the pot stay at your house for a longer time. Let it have more children for me.”

Several days later, Ā Fán Tí came again. He told the person, “Not good! Yesterday, the big pot died! I am very sad for you.”

“Nonsense! How can pots die? You are a liar!”

“Oh, dear master, if there is birth, there is death. If the pot can give birth, why can’t the pot die?” Hearing what Ā Fán Tí said, the person was speechless.

The original Chinese:

阿凡提借锅

从前有一个做官的人，家里很富有。他虽然很有钱，但是非常小气。他只想要人家的东西，却不肯帮助别人。他家的东西，从来不愿意借给别人。有一天，阿凡提求了他很久，终于从他那里借到了一只锅子，说好第三天就还回来。

第二天，阿凡提拿着一只小锅子，喜气洋洋地来到了那家人家。他一进门就高声喊：“恭喜！恭喜！昨天晚上，您家的大锅生了孩子！”那人白白地得到一只锅子，很高兴，就对阿凡提说：“你明天不用还我那只大锅子了，就让它在你家里多留些日子，为我多生几只小锅子吧！”

过了几天，阿凡提又来了。他对那人说：“不好了！您家的大锅子昨天死了！我真替你难过。”

“胡说！锅子怎么可能会死？你骗人！”

“啊，亲爱的老爷，有生就有死。既然锅子会生孩子，那它为什么不会死呢？”听了阿凡提的话，那人什么话也说不上来了。

Another Firefox Addon for Reading Chinese

Another day, another Firefox addon. I learned from Google Operation System of the gTranslate extension that translates any text on a web page into another language just by selecting the text and right clicking the mouse. It's pretty cool. I installed and tested with English-Chinese and Chinese-English translations. It seems to work really well.

However, it does not seem to be able to detect the language of the original text, so one has to switch the translation setting every time when the direction of translation changes between the same two languages.

How did Human Come About in China

The reading materials in this third-grade book cover a lot of Chinese legends. Here is one about Nv Wa, who was the creator of human being. It tied in nicely with the a previous one about Pang Gu, who had created the world.

My daughter's translation:

Nü Wā Makes People

It is said that the sky and ground were separated by Pán Gǔ. The big mountains and rivers, forests and flowers, wind, clouds, rain, and snow on the world were also made by Pán Gǔ. But, there were no people at that time. Then, how did people appear?

Well, the people were made by the goddess Nü Wā who mended the sky. Nü Wā heard that Pán Gǔ separated the sky from the ground, and she wanted to look at the world herself. She came to the world, saw the world was very good, and liked it a lot. But, she looked and looked, and it seemed to her that it was missing something. She thought, let me help the world, and let the world become even better.

Nü Wā picked up a piece of yellow dirt from the ground, kneaded it with her hands, and made a little person. She carefully made a nose, eyes, and a mouth for the little person. After that, she placed the little person on the ground, and patted his shoulder. The little person hopped, jumped, and started to play. Just like that, Nü Wā made more of the people non-stop. One by one, the little people ran and yelled by Nü Wā’s feet. The world quickly became very noisy. Suddenly, Nü Wā thought, “If I make people one by one, it will be too slow. What method will make it faster?” She found a rope, dipped it into the yellow dirt, and swung it powerfully. As soon as the dirt dropped on the ground, the dirt became people. Nü Wā swung and swung, and made tons of little people. The little people slowly became big people, and the big people had a lot of kids. So, the world had more and more people.

The Chinese original:

女娲造人

传说天地是盘古打开的，世界上的高山大河、树木花草、风云雨雪也都是盘古变出来的。可是，那时候没有人。那么，人是怎么变出来的呢？

原来，人是补天的女神女娲造出来的。女娲听说盘古打开了天和地，就想亲眼看看这个世界。她来到世界上，看见世界是这么美好，心里非常喜欢。可是，她看来看去，好像总是觉得这世界上少了些什么。她想，让我来帮助这个世界，让它变得更加美好吧。

女娲从地上拿起一块黄土，用手一捏，就捏成了一个小人。她小心地捏出了小人的鼻子、眼睛、和嘴巴，然后再把小人放到地上，拍拍他的肩膀，小人就蹦蹦跳跳地玩起来了。就这样，女娲不停地捏泥人，一个又一个的小人在女娲脚边又跑又叫，世界一下子热闹起来了。忽然，女娲心想：“我这样一个一个地捏，实在太慢了，用什么办法，能让我做得快一些呢？”她找来一条绳子，沾上黄土，用力一甩，甩出去的泥点子一落地，一个一个都变成了小人。女娲甩呀甩呀，她造出了很多很多小人。小人慢慢长成了大人，大人又生了很多孩子。从此，世界上的人就越来越多了。

A Firefox Add-on for Reading Chinese

I learned from Virtual China that there is a add-on for Firefox called Chinesepera-kun which works as a mouse-over Chinese pop-up dictionary for reading online Chinese text. It is pretty cool and does a real good job in recognizing multi-character phrases and provide English translations for multiple options in characters and phrases.

Pinyin is 50 Years Old

Happy Anniversary!

My daughter was really surprised when she heard this. Something this fundamental to a language must have existed forever, or in her own words, "a hundred years"!

The Mountain Sun

We are having an unintentional two-week break. We didn't have class last Sunday as we went out skiing. It was also intended to be a one-week break so my daughter could catch up on her homework. But she has been under the weather this whole week and the Chinese New Year also got in the way in finishing the homework. So, we decided to skip another week in honor of the Chinese New Year!

Meanwhile, she finished translating another of her reading material piece from English to Chinese. She genuinely likes to do this, even though it's not part of her homework assignments. This is a rather long fairy tale and she did a great job:

Her translation:

Mountain Sun

Once upon a time, there were two brothers. The older brother was very rich. The younger brother was very poor. One afternoon, the younger brother was at work in the field. Suddenly, a big bird flew by him, and told him, “Young fellow, do you want to see Mountain Sun?” The younger brother said, “Of course!” “Good, you ride on my back, and I’ll take you there.”

The big bird carried the younger brother to Mountain Sun. The younger brother took a glance, and wow, there was gold everywhere! The big bird said, “Young fellow, you can get a few pieces of the gold, but not too much. The Sun will be back soon, so you can’t stay too long.” The younger brother got two small pieces of gold, and went back home on the big bird. Because of the pieces of gold, his life slowly became better.

The older brother found out about this, and came to his younger brother’s field. The big bird flew by again and asked him, “Young fellow, do you want to see Mountain Sun?” The older brother said, “Of course!” “Good, you ride on my back, and I’ll take you there.”

The big bird carried the older brother to Mountain Sun. The big bird said, “Young fellow, you can take a few pieces of gold, but not too much. The Sun will be back soon, so you can’t stay too long.” The older brother took out the bag he had prepared, and started filling the bag with gold. He kept filling, and filling. The big bird said, “We must go now! The sun will be here very soon!” The older brother pretended not to hear the big bird’s words, so he kept filling the bag. The big bird said again, “Hurry up and go! If you don’t go, then I will be going!” The older brother said, “Wait! I still don’t have enough yet!”

At that moment, the sun came back. The big bird flew away in a SWOOSH! Because the older brother couldn’t catch up with the big bird, he was burned to death by the Sun.

The Original:

太阳山

从前有兄弟俩，哥哥很富，弟弟却很穷。

有一天下午，弟弟正在地里忙着。忽然，一只大鸟飞到他身旁，对他说：“小伙子，你想不想到太阳山去看看？”弟弟说：“当然想啊！”“那好，你就骑在我身上，我来带你去。”

大鸟带着弟弟来到太阳山。弟弟一看，呀，满地都是金子！大鸟说：“小伙子，你可以拿几块金字回去，但是不要拿太多。太阳很快就要回来了，你不能在这里留太久。”弟弟拿了两小块金子，就骑着大鸟回家了。有了金子，他的日子慢慢好起来。

这件事被哥哥知道了，他来到弟弟的地里。大鸟又飞来了。它问哥哥：“小伙子，你想不想到太阳山去看看？”哥哥说：“当然想！”“那好，你就骑在我的身上，我来带你去。”

大鸟带着哥哥来到了太阳山。大鸟说：“小伙子，你可以拿几块金字回去，但是不要拿太多。太阳很快就要回来了，你不能在这里留太久。”哥哥拿出早已准备好的袋子，开始往里面装金子。装啊装啊，大鸟说：“我们得走了！太阳马上就要回来了！”哥哥好像没有听见大鸟的话，还在那里装。大鸟又催他说：“快走吧，你不走，我可要走啦！”哥哥说：“等等！我还没装够！”

这时候，太阳回来了。大鸟呼的一下就飞走了，哥哥因为赶不上大鸟，就被火热的太阳烧死了。