oh, the suckage

[kaigou]

Someone more fluent refresh my memory as to whether 诫 沒 踩 would be used for "danger don't stand on" -- I seem to recall that 沒 is the written form when negating a verb... but then again, maybe not. Anyone?

Comments

[fromastudio]

...wait for a native speaker to reply, as I'm far from fluent, and my knowledge of written (and esp. signpost) Chinese is awfully scratchy - but the words I remember seeing for negation on signs in China were mainly

勿 (wu) - e.g. 请勿打扰 - Please do not disturb.
禁止 - meaning forbidden/prohibited. as in '禁止吸烟 / Do not smoke.


in spoken langauge the imperative 'Do not' would be 不要。(which you probably know) afaik the most common uses of of 没 are to negate the verb 有 and to imply a 'perfect tense' - e.g. 我还没吃饭！ Also the phrase 'Not bad!' is translated as both 不错 and 没错。 (man, i type even worse in Chinese than I do in English, which takes some doing.)

were you looking for a literal translation or dynamic equivalence?

Also: an array of typical Chinese signs, may serve as useful guides as to how to formulate something of the sort.

[kaigou]

Ahah thank you! I must've had 没 confused with 禁止. I could only remember there was a special "don't!" for when it's not allowed (as opposed to just simply not). Although right now I feel like an idiot because after all the times we had 没 有 pounded into our heads... that was a stupid mistake on my part. sheesh.

Doesn't have to be literal, just a general phrase that'd basically mean "do not stand on this step!" -- in which "don't" implies danger (forbidden?). Or similarly of "it's dangerous to stand here! don't do it!" kind of thing.

man, my brain is just not participating today. I should know this stuff. sigh.

[fromastudio]

I think something like 危险！ 请无踩。 would get the message across. (alternately, 小心， 请勿踩 if you prefer to just say 'be careful' instead of 'danger'!)

now whether this is what people who ACTUALLY SPEAK NON-RETARDED CHINESE would write, I can't say. we'll have to wait for the people who are fluent to show up. XD

I think Chinese is one of the hardest languages to pick up nuance in - the grammar seems easy, and then the more you study the more you realise there are a stupid number of synonyms for everything, each with its own specific connotation. I'm actually rather curious about whether Japanese or Chinese ultimately ends up being the harder language for Indo-European speakers to pick up.

edit: just talked to <lj user="love"> who is fluent.

[fromastudio]

who advised: Zhu yi! Qing bie cai shang ci jie! (literally, pay attention! do not stand on this step!) 请别踩上此阶

Re: edit: just talked to <lj user="love"> who is fluent.

[kaigou]

oh excellent, thank you both!

Re: edit: just talked to <lj user="love"> who is fluent.

[fromastudio]

whoops, for got to include the characters for zhuyi.

in full: 注意！ 请别踩上此阶