Comments on: Stump the Laowai: wúnài 无奈

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:43:27 +0000

For the context in the 2nd story, I would say “wunai” should be translated to “frustrating”.

That guy meant to say: it doesn’t make sense to force innocent kids to sit here just to make the show “looking good”. But, that’s very popular practice in today’s China. Nobody would stand up and confront such practice. The kids? They can do nothing but obey.

So, frustructing, and, in a sense, it is “helpless”.

By: Geroi900

Geroi900 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:17:38 +0000

Really great comment, and very helpful, with the exception of the unexpected nasty turn at the end. I appreciate the explanation, but I wouldn’t question the dedication of anyone even studying Chinese, a very difficult language for English speakers, much less someone heping the rest of us learn it.

By: Blenderman

Blenderman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:15:00 +0000

American Han,　don’t be a pretentious prick. He didn’t complain, he stated. He’s running a great blog about learning Chinese, his commitment to the activity can hardly be questioned. It’s great that you had something to add to the discussion, but lose the attitude

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:00:48 +0000

American Han,

Thanks for the 无可奈何. I’ve added cross references to MDBG. Always good to know where those short forms came from.

By: American Han

American Han — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:08:47 +0000

Just as “享月” is an abbreviation of the 1st and 3rd characters of the four-character combination “享受月亮” (and you know how fond those Chinese are of four character combos), “无奈” is a compression of the of the 1st and 3rd characters of the four-character combo of “无可奈何”. You can find this in the Oxford concise under “奈何” (they don’t tell us this in the entry for “无奈”).

As I’ve heard and used it, “无可奈何” and “无奈” can be translated semantically, not literally, as “It can’t be helped,” or “There’s nothing to be done about it.” One context I heard it in was that of a mother complaining about her child who wouldn’t obey or listen to her anymore. She said, “我无可奈何!”

The journalism major at the tennis match probably meant, in his head, something like “It can’t be helped that we have to fill up the bleachers with junior high students who know nothing about tennis, because that’s the way it’s done here in China, just to make things look good, just to save face.”

By the way, “享月” occurs in classical literature, as does “无可奈何”. Yes, Chinese is a hard language to learn, but it helps not to complain. You need to save that energy to learn more, because life is short, my friend, and I question your commitment to and experience with this language.

By: 博文

博文 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:42:55 +0000

My wife says about the second story, that the speaker was saying something like: “the kids aren’t really interested … … but there is nothing we can do about it.”

By: Cole

Cole — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:37:16 +0000

“It is what it is”?

By: Chuner96

Chuner96 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:24:06 +0000

In the second story, by “hěn wúnài”很无奈, the speaker meant that although we know the truth we have to accept it and we can do nothing to change the situation. So “helpless” might be right. “But we have to accept it” means the same with “helpless” but maybe better. Or “But this is the truth.” Just a suggestion.

By: Joss

Joss — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:16:05 +0000

It seems to me that the phrase most similar to this in English is the rhetorical “What can you do?” to express a resigned acceptance to some situation.

It’s certainly not a direct translation, but it seems to capture the two cases that you mention here.