荒腔走板

English translation: cacophony

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
Chinese term or phrase:荒腔走板
English translation:cacophony
Entered by: Gloria (Shufen) Huang (X)

07:56 May 19, 2012
Chinese to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Music
Chinese term or phrase: 荒腔走板
當他們好不容易在2月第一次團體練習舒伯特小夜曲,卻荒腔走板。

The sentence is from a documentary which tells the story of a group of guitarists who picked up their guitars 30 years later after they first staged a concert. They were only amateur guitarists, but their first concert was quite successful.

I wanted to translate the term like "the outcome was terrible", but it just doesn't sound good enough.
Gloria (Shufen) Huang (X)
Taiwan
Local time: 04:46
cacophony
Explanation:
caterwauling, dreadful din, terrible racket, nasty screeching, sounded like they were torturing a cat, horrible commotion, chorus of wildebeest, might as well have been the Taichung donkey chorale!

Tip:
DON'T use a word like "result" or "outcome" in this sentence. It's not a natural way to phrase it in English.
當他們好不容易在2月第一次團體練習舒伯特小夜曲,卻荒腔走板。
When they finally managed to get together in February to practice Schubert's Serenade, they produced a terrible racket.

There is another option, which is to avoid any sound words at all. If you choose this option, "result" is useful:
It was February before they were all able to meet up and run through the Schubert Serenade together. The results were not pretty.
Selected response from:

Phil Hand
China
Local time: 04:46
Grading comment
Thank you very much!
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4 +2见下。。。。
GY Ren
3 +1cacophony
Phil Hand
3play out of tune
Vladyslav Golovaty
2the result was dreadful
Di Anna (X)


  

Answers


1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
见下。。。。


Explanation:
这个如果照真实意思翻就会是。。。 out of tune, out of beat。。。个人觉得有点严重 (虽然事实可能是如此),所以翻成 the outcome is far from satisfactory 应该就好了,比较正面一点,因为估计接下来就会说他们排练得越来越好。

GY Ren
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:46
Native speaker of: Native in ChineseChinese, Native in EnglishEnglish
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you for the suggestion. It's good, and will be useful when I come across a similar text in the future.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Huang Yi-Chun
2 hrs

agree  Jessie Doherty
5 hrs
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36 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
play out of tune


Explanation:
to fib, stretch the truth quite a bit

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2012-05-19 10:21:39 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

There might be some irony like, say, "to prettify" Schubert a bit, though how could they improve the utmost perfection?
Do not blame my extrapolation, but ...they played it out of tune in the sense that they played it too freely, may well be it was "better" than the authentic serenade, well, afterwards their performance got closer to the genuine piece.
Therefore, out of tune, but "for the better" :-)

Vladyslav Golovaty
Ukraine
Local time: 22:46
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in RussianRussian
Notes to answerer
Asker: Hi, thanks for the response. If I were to use your translation, should it be: "When they finally got together to practice playing Schubert's Serenade, they played it out of tune."?

Asker: I see. Thank you very much for your professional explanation. ^^

Asker: Thank you for the suggestion, and I believe it'll be useful when I come across something similar in the future.

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6 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5
the result was dreadful


Explanation:
just another way of putting it

Di Anna (X)
Germany
Local time: 21:46
Native speaker of: German
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you. ^^

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6 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +1
cacophony


Explanation:
caterwauling, dreadful din, terrible racket, nasty screeching, sounded like they were torturing a cat, horrible commotion, chorus of wildebeest, might as well have been the Taichung donkey chorale!

Tip:
DON'T use a word like "result" or "outcome" in this sentence. It's not a natural way to phrase it in English.
當他們好不容易在2月第一次團體練習舒伯特小夜曲,卻荒腔走板。
When they finally managed to get together in February to practice Schubert's Serenade, they produced a terrible racket.

There is another option, which is to avoid any sound words at all. If you choose this option, "result" is useful:
It was February before they were all able to meet up and run through the Schubert Serenade together. The results were not pretty.

Phil Hand
China
Local time: 04:46
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 4
Grading comment
Thank you very much!

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Dariush Robertson
2 days 5 hrs
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