translating "For"

[libertango]

Since 为 as "for" is used as "for the benefit of"...how do we tranlsate "for" in the example:

This soup is too spicy for me.

I guess it is important that the translation should preserve the meaning that, it isn't neccesarily too spicy for other people.

[MarkKang]

这汤对我来说太辣.

"对我来说" means "to me" or "for me"

[binbin]

这汤对我来说太辣了

I'm pretty sure this would indicate that it's too spicy for you, as opposed to someone else, but I'm sure there's a better way to say it

edit: Dammit!

[nipponman]

Mark beat me to it. Anyway, wei4 is for like "in order to" dui4 (insert pronoun here) lai2 shuo1 is like "as far as (pronoun) is concerned". Try to be careful taking the definition of a chinese word and giving it the english homonomous uses, that is a common mistake:)

[necroflux]

Good advice from Nipponman - you may be able to make direct translations for a lot of words like "for", "as", etc. in other romance languages such as Spanish but Chinese is a completely different ball game.. in some cases it can be useful to remember a similarity between two words such as wei4 and "for" but most of the time when you get further into the language you really have to abandon any thoughts of learning the language by comparison to English.. if that's possible.. if only we could all learn like children - empty slates with no previous language corruption to slow us down.

[Desmond]

Unfortunately, to learn as Children do, we're gonna have to quit our jobs and move in with a chinese family, sit in a baby seat for a few years and listen to our new-found parents talk to us in baby speak and correct us as we experiement with Mandarn.

(just an odd example to illustrate why it's pretty much impossible to learn like children at our age )

[semantic nuance]

For--為 wei4--means 'for the benifit of'; it is used on the occasion in the sense that

something is done/made for one.

---對....來說--means 'to the opinion of someone's';it is used to indicate how something affects someone.

Put these two in one sentence as follows:

The spicy soup exclsively for me is too spicy for me, (although I am into spicy food.)

這特別為我做的辣湯對我來說還是太辣了( 雖然我很喜歡吃辣)

Hope it helps.

[necroflux]

Lol Desmond, that's tempting.. sometimes with all of the kids material I use to learn the basics (including disgustingly cute songs and stories) I feel like I may as well have a stockpile of Gerber baby food in the cupboard. And yesterday I had a session of trying to get the pronunciation of "lue" down.. you can imagine how that sounded (think of a repeated, muffled puking sound).

[Desmond]

Don't get me started.... eeek

I've been watching chinese TV and trying to learn from that. I've started to watch a lot of cartoon-style shows, as they are a little simpler and easier to understand, and they don't seem to have chinese subtitles, which inversely challenges my listening...

However I inadvertently watched Teletubbies in chinese yesterday, and I think I wanted to puke.... however it was a very easy method to learn.... what to do..? Haha

I think avoidance is in my future. Some methods of learning are just too much!

[blindcinderella]

the for do have the similar meaning with 为, however, in terms of translation, i dont think there are some words of different languages which is absolutely equal to each other. take for instance 'for'

this dress is specially designed for u. 这件衣服是专门为你设计的。 (here for=为)

Beijing is famous for the Great Wall. 北京以长城著称。(for=以/因为)