I don't understand the translation of this.

[heixing]

I was on the China-8 website reading the phrases and I can't make sense of how this one was translated. The chinese is "是 我们 太 着急， 因为 想 早 点 见 到 你." The translation reads "We came a bit early because we were so eager to see you". But when I read it I seem to get this "We were so eager (anxious), because we wanted to see you a little earlier."

Can anyone help explain how this sentence translates the way the website says it does. I don't understand it at all.

Thanks in advance, 大卫。

[kdavid]

The best answer is: don't translate Chinese literally into English. Otherwise you'll end up disappointed and confused most of the time.

[againstwind]

kdavid's word made sense.

But for the single sentence "是我们太着急,因为想早点见到你", your comprehension, "We were so eager (anxious), because we wanted to see you a little earlier.", was indeed right.

I have no idea why its original translation is "We came a bit early because we were so eager to see you". Could it because there should have been some kind of context? Or the translator misunderstood the sentence? Maybe.

Anyway, I think your doubt is appreciative.

[achiese]

As a native chinese speaker, I think its original translation is ok for me.

Only under the circumstence that people see someone earlier than they expected,

they will say so. "是我們太著急,因為想早點見到你" In the sentence, you can get

the information that they may have met earlier.

"是我們太著急" It implys the situation which is not as expected, then

follows the explantion "因為想早點見到你".

I think the language confines of this sentence is chinese style, I don't

know how to explain it precisely.

[heixing]

I still don't get it. And it's gonna eat at me until I do. Just to clarify, the correct pronoun for the second part (were it included) would be 我们， right?

In other words it goes like this 因為我们想早點見到你。

The problem for me is the placement of 因为. If it were like this "我们想早点看到你，因为太著急。 or maybe "我们太著急了就早点看到你." or something like that then it would make sense to me.

[achiese]

Yes, you are right, the pronoun is "我們".

If I add few words into the sentence, maybe it whould be more comprehensible.

是我們太著急了，所以就先來了，因為想早點見到你。

I think the key word of the sentence is "是" in the begining.

They use "是" to begin the sentence, thus the sentence is a response for

a question.

"是我們太著急" explains why they came earlier, but not their anxious emotion .

And why they came earlier, that's because they wanted to see that guy earlier.

Sorry, my english ability is poor to express it very well.

Anyway, because the "是" in the begining, there must be full conversation and

we don't see it.

I think it sould be like :

Q: 你們怎麼早來了？　or 你們太早來了！

A: 是我們太著急，所以就先來了，因為想早點見到你。

[heixing]

Ah, I think I get it now. In other words the 是 indicates that they are responding to a previous question. So in a sense 是 acts like "because".

So the truest translation would be "because we were anxious because we wanted to see you earlier." which is a little wordy in english but works in chinese.

Is that it?

[achiese]

Yes, I think that's it.

[bomaci]

I am not chinese so I may be totally wrong about this but doesn't 早点 used in this context convey the meaning of "as soon as possible". Meaning that they couldn't wait to meet the person. To me, saying "we wanted to meet you a bit earlier" conveys the meaning that you have already agreed on a time to meet and now you want to come a bit earlier than previously agreed. I don't think that this is what the sentence is supposed to mean. I have seen this usage before in this sentence: 我倒是觉得，你呀，应该早点振作起来. 人固有一死，更何况他也算是死得其所。你总生活在怀念中，也不好. This is said by a father to his daughter, whose soon to be husband has just been killed. In this context it makes no sense to translate 早点 as "earlier". You couldn't say "I think you should pull yourself together a bit earlier", in my view it should be translated as "I think you should pull yourself together as soon as possible".