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> You answer a question with the verb that was asked. ‘Do you like coffee?’ ‘Like!’ or ‘不like‘. Surely this explains that Chinese bootleg Star Wars translation

> You answer a question with the verb that was asked. ‘Do you like coffee?’ ‘Like!’ or ‘不like‘. Surely this explains that Chinese bootleg Star Wars translation meme where Darth Vader's "Nooo" is subtitled as "Do not want"? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-want-do-not-want https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-want-do-not-want

xobs 4y ago
That's it exactly. "要" means "want", and "不要" means "not want".
adastra22 4y ago
Yes, because that's what a Mandarin-speaking Darth Vader would have said in that context. 不要 literally means "don't want" but is probably the most common negated verb combination used as "no." It's what a 2 year old would yell if you made them do something they didn't want to do. Here it's more an emotion expression "no, this is not what I wanted!"
- raffraffraff 4y ago
  So does this mean that there isn't a simple, single word exclamation in Mandarin to denote "Nooooooo!"? How about "ffffuuuuuuuck!" etc?
  - adastra22 4y ago
    不要 is a single word/lexeme in the linguistic sense, even if it is two syllables.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > How about "ffffuuuuuuuck!" 肏, often euphemistically spelled as 操. But also commonly seen in the expression 我操, which would be two words. You can analyze 不要 in the use under discussion as one word, or as two. There's no rule that says a word can't be more than one syllable long, but then again 不要 is not exactly etymologically opaque.
    - eloisius 4y ago
      Might be a Taiwan thing but the equivalent exclamation to ‘fuck!’ here is ‘幹！’, like ‘fuck, I lost my keys’. I’ve only seen/heard 肏 used in the sense of literal copulation, like ‘fuck your mom!’ as an insult, but not as an interjection. Side note just to illustrate how filthy and vulgar 肏 is: it’s constructed of 入 and 肉. 入 means enter, go into, like 入口 is entrance. 肉 means meat or flesh, like beef 牛肉 or muscle 肌肉.
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        我肏 is very common on the mainland. I don't know about bare 肏. But I can assure you that 我肏 is used as an interjection; I have even seen it used by girls. (Which I was actually less surprised by than when I heard someone make fun of herself by saying 傻屄的我...) > just to illustrate how filthy and vulgar 肏 is: it’s constructed of 入 and 肉. 入 means enter, go into, like 入口 is entrance. Occasionally I wonder, if 入口 is entrance, what is the character 如 supposed to represent? Nobody objects to that one.
raffraffraff 4y ago
I read this response to my wife and she's in stitches.
eloisius 4y ago
I didn’t know this was the root of the ‘do not want’ meme. TIL. If I was to translate bootleg copy of Star Wars I think Darth Vader was probably trying to express ‘幹！’ Jokes aside, yes that make sense, you could express your regret or refusal by saying 我不要！ or you could say something like ‘how awful!’ Chinese translated literally sometimes feels so corny.
- AlanYx 4y ago
  These days a lot of Mandarin video translations do just use "bù!" or "oh bù!", even though it's not grammatically correct and technically meaningless, just because it tends not to ruin the lipsyncing.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    The Taiwanese dub of "We don't talk about Bruno" uses Oh不 (actually, more like Woh不) as a lyric sung by the backup chorus. (In English, the chorus is singing "no, no", which is a callback to the heavily focused lyric "we don't talk about Bruno-no-no-no". This is not true in the dub, where that lyric is translated as if the "no"s were pure repetition: the dub says "women bu ti bulunuo-nuo-nuo-nuo".) Lip syncing can't be a concern, because the chorus is not visible. The background characters on screen are not singing.

xobs 4y ago

That's it exactly. "要" means "want", and "不要" means "not want".

adastra22 4y ago

Yes, because that's what a Mandarin-speaking Darth Vader would have said in that context. 不要 literally means "don't want" but is probably the most common negated verb combination used as "no." It's what a 2 year old would yell if you made them do something they didn't want to do. Here it's more an emotion expression "no, this is not what I wanted!"

raffraffraff 4y ago
So does this mean that there isn't a simple, single word exclamation in Mandarin to denote "Nooooooo!"? How about "ffffuuuuuuuck!" etc?
- adastra22 4y ago
  不要 is a single word/lexeme in the linguistic sense, even if it is two syllables.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > How about "ffffuuuuuuuck!" 肏, often euphemistically spelled as 操. But also commonly seen in the expression 我操, which would be two words. You can analyze 不要 in the use under discussion as one word, or as two. There's no rule that says a word can't be more than one syllable long, but then again 不要 is not exactly etymologically opaque.
  - eloisius 4y ago
    Might be a Taiwan thing but the equivalent exclamation to ‘fuck!’ here is ‘幹！’, like ‘fuck, I lost my keys’. I’ve only seen/heard 肏 used in the sense of literal copulation, like ‘fuck your mom!’ as an insult, but not as an interjection. Side note just to illustrate how filthy and vulgar 肏 is: it’s constructed of 入 and 肉. 入 means enter, go into, like 入口 is entrance. 肉 means meat or flesh, like beef 牛肉 or muscle 肌肉.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      我肏 is very common on the mainland. I don't know about bare 肏. But I can assure you that 我肏 is used as an interjection; I have even seen it used by girls. (Which I was actually less surprised by than when I heard someone make fun of herself by saying 傻屄的我...) > just to illustrate how filthy and vulgar 肏 is: it’s constructed of 入 and 肉. 入 means enter, go into, like 入口 is entrance. Occasionally I wonder, if 入口 is entrance, what is the character 如 supposed to represent? Nobody objects to that one.

raffraffraff 4y ago

I read this response to my wife and she's in stitches.

eloisius 4y ago

I didn’t know this was the root of the ‘do not want’ meme. TIL. If I was to translate bootleg copy of Star Wars I think Darth Vader was probably trying to express ‘幹！’ Jokes aside, yes that make sense, you could express your regret or refusal by saying 我不要！ or you could say something like ‘how awful!’ Chinese translated literally sometimes feels so corny.

AlanYx 4y ago
These days a lot of Mandarin video translations do just use "bù!" or "oh bù!", even though it's not grammatically correct and technically meaningless, just because it tends not to ruin the lipsyncing.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  The Taiwanese dub of "We don't talk about Bruno" uses Oh不 (actually, more like Woh不) as a lyric sung by the backup chorus. (In English, the chorus is singing "no, no", which is a callback to the heavily focused lyric "we don't talk about Bruno-no-no-no". This is not true in the dub, where that lyric is translated as if the "no"s were pure repetition: the dub says "women bu ti bulunuo-nuo-nuo-nuo".) Lip syncing can't be a concern, because the chorus is not visible. The background characters on screen are not singing.