完整意义上

[Pedroski]

I have 王志东 talking about his 四通利方 company

 

王：是的，之前只是参与。我离开“新天地”之后接受了四通集团的投资，以这笔投资为基础创办了四通利方公司，我担任总经理。对我来说这是比较完整意义上的创业。

 

对我来说这是比较完整意义上的创业。 I don't know what the 比较 is doing there.

 

I think he is saying 'As far as I am concerned, this is the proper meaning of entrepreneurship. (ie doing it alone)

 

Did I catch his meaning right?

[yifeng]

Yes, you are right. In the previous business Wang played as CTO. In 四通利方 he was CEO and could make decisions on the direction of the company. 

[Pedroski]

Thanks. What is the 比较 doing there??

[yifeng]

I think 这是比较完整意义上的创业 can be translated as :   It is an entrepreneurship  in more complete sense / (strictly speaking). 

 

The previous business can be called  entrepreneurship in some sense. 

 

Here, 比较 is used as an adverb, which means "more", not as a verb "compare".

[Pedroski]

Thanks again. You could maybe add an 'a' and subtract 'an'.

 

It is entrepreneurship  in a more complete sense.

 

'complete' is not word open to comparison. Something is either 'complete' or 'incomplete'. I know however that you will find that kind of language. Confusing!

[陳德聰]

I think you'll find in reality things are generally not black and white no matter how hard you wish them to be. Completeness can be thought of as a scale, if a task is 90% complete, it is definitely more complete than if it were only 50% complete.

 

比较 means comparatively/relatively, and often operates as English "-er".

[yifeng]

To Pedroski: Thank you for correcting my English.

[Pedroski]

'The task is 90% complete.' is shorthand for '90% of the complete task is done.' 90% of the task is done, not 90% of complete is done. The task can be done in stages, but complete cannot be done. It is an adjective with the  meaning 'all the bits have been added', or a verb with the meaning 'add bits'.

 

90% complete is a contradiction in terms if you use complete to mean 'all the bits have been added'.

[realmayo]

Half-true, Pedroski. 

[陳德聰]

You only reach that conclusion because you're trying to force a narrow definition onto the word "complete", eliminating any sense of the word you choose to. As you can see, in actual, natural, fluent use of language, we see phrases like "half finished" and "half eaten" and "90% complete" and "比较完整" which are 100% acceptable and 100% coherent, except if you try to force your narrow understanding onto it. That's when it becomes confusing, because you are limiting your own understanding, based on your refusal to understand, as it were.

[Vildhjerp]

Listen to 陳德聰. Cutting yourself short to narrow definitions is not only going to limit your thought process, but it's also going to hinder how effectively you can interpret, not only Chinese, but any other language. Always imagine that there is a pathway between polar opposites, such as full/empty, open/closed, dead/alive (figuratively, of course), and that an object can hold the characteristic of being anywhere on that pathway. Sure, by saying that a glass of water is only 70% full or 30% empty, that glass holds neither the exact meaning of being "full" or being "empty", but in a lot of cases, there is no other way of expressing such a condition. Therefore the 70% is simply comparing the current state of the glass to what its state would be if it was full, and the 30% is comparing the current state to what it would be if it was empty. And this comparison is where the 比较 is coming into play.

 

When talking about completion, there is a whole spectrum of possibilities you need to keep in mind.