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Mini-contest 2012: "Yogi Berra Quotes" » English to Chinese

Competition in this pair is now closed, and the winning entry has been announced.

Discussion and feedback about the competition in this language pair may now be provided by visiting the "Discussion & feedback" page for this pair. Entries may also be individually discussed by clicking the "Discuss" link next to any listed entry.

Source text in English

- "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."

- "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

- "You can observe a lot just by watchin'."

- "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

- "I can't concentrate when I'm thinking."

- "The future ain't what it used to be."

- "I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did."

- "We're lost, but we're making good time."

- "Half the lies they tell about me aren't true."

- "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."

- "It's like deja-vu, all over again."

- "It ain't over till it's over."

- Mrs. Lindsay: "You certainly look cool." Yogi Berra: "Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself."

- "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be."

There were 8 entries submitted in this pair during the submission phase.

Entries submitted in this pair were rated on a per-segment basis. Listed below are all submitted translations of each individual source text segment.

Submitted segment translations

Translations submitted for each source text segment are listed below. Segments have had surrounding punctuation stripped, and the resulting identical segments have been grouped together, so each listed translation should differ, but the difference may be subtle (eg. internal punctuation or diacritics).

Viewing segment # out of 14

Source text segment #5

- "I can't concentrate when I'm thinking."
Rank by:
+26 | -1
This doesn't make sense because the whole point of concentrating is to improve one's thinking - just the opposite of what this hillarious sentence is implying.
+12
It's [definitely] humorous because [usually] when you concentrate, you ARE thinking... but concentrating on the ball at sports does not imply you are necessarily thinking. There is a common missing element to all the source quotes: CONTEXT. It is key to k
+8 | -3
It makes perfect sense to me: when one tries to focus (concentrate) on the game (run fast, throw or catch the ball, etc,), one has no time to stop & consider one's options & risks: you just play without thinking it over: you had prepared in advance!
+3
This is a merger of two expressions that each mean the same thing but together the logically cancel each other out. They are "I can't think while doing X" and "I can't concentrate while [you're] doing X".
+4 | -1
Typical surrealistic impossibility
+5 | -2
It's [supposedly] humorous because when you concentrate, you ARE thinking.
+1
This is about difference between concentrating and thinking.
+1
Both thinking and concentrating occupy your mind in the same way, but paradoxically, they are not synonims. They are, actually, exclusive (can't be in your mind at the same time), but one needs the other in order to occur!! Nice complexity...
I can't concentrate when I am thinking. Meaning you think too much, losing your focus. Не могу сосредоточиться, слишком много мыслей в голове.
+4 | -8
I can't concentrate on another thing when I am thinking about something else.

Translations of this segment (8 total; 8 unique)

我思考的时候无法做到专注
我陷入沉思的时候注意力总是不集中
当我在思考时我不能全神贯注
我腦子裡有事的時候是没有辦法專心的
我思考的時候專心不了
我没法集中精神思考
思考都捣乱了我的沉思
当我想别的事情时，我不能集中精力做事。”（做事的时候就该专心致志，不要想别的
Viewing segment # out of 14