Can anyone here translate written Chinese into English?

[outofthenorm]

I'm working on a model kit made in China and I could use some help. The kit itself is very impressive, with accurately milled parts and top quality materials. Problem is the instructions are written in Chinese script, with no translation. It's not a huge amount of material, but I sure would like to know what it says. I am about 2/3 the way through building the hull and I have already made some errors.

I can easily scan the material and send an e-file.



Norm

[The Bigfella]

If they have the instructions on the web, you could cut and paste them into Google Translate. Works well. A scan won't work that way though

[outofthenorm]

No luck there Bigfella, extensive searching has turned up nothing.

[The Bigfella]

I haven't done any optical character recognition for a while... but it might be worth a try. Presumably Word still does it.

[Ian McColgin]

Personally I'd seek out a human translator. The internet is alive with alleged computer driven mistranslations. I don't have a way to check whether these things are real or not, but they are funny. For example:

[outofthenorm]

That's funny. It's why I thought I would ask here. Assuming that nautical terms are used in the instructions, it might pose a problem for a robot. I hate to think what it might do with the Chinese word for Futtock.

[The Bigfella]

Try this

http://cnedelcu.blogspot.com.au/2012...canned-or.html

[Thad]

There must be someone in Toronto.

[The Bigfella]

There must be someone in Toronto.

What, with Microsoft Office?

[Benson Gray]

Assuming that nautical terms are used in the instructions, it might pose a problem for a robot.

Translation robots don't just have problems with nautical terms. I traded messages about a canoe a few years ago with someone from Canada whose primary language was French. My approach was to use Google's translate robot to interpret his responses to my questions. I asked what he planned to do with this canoe and his response in French looked like he intended to restore it. Google translate told me that his response was "I want to eat it" which struck me as highly improbable.

Benson

[jeffcapeshop]

google translate's camera feature will translate on the fly on phone or tablet - it's by word or short phrase though so how useful it would actually be i don't know (probably not very) - but would save any OCR.

[StevenBauer]

Head on over to your closest Chinese restaurant. What could it hurt? At least you can get lunch out of the attempt.

[EFHeath]

I am bad at Chinese myself, but live in Hong Kong; my wife and kids read Chinese, and many of my colleagues obviously are Chinese. I would be happy to have a look at it with the assistance of the some or all of those people.

[John-1948]

Norm - my wife is Chinese and is fluent in Mandarin.
please email me a copy of the instructions and she will take a look at it.
problem is - her English isn't too good - but her Chinese is excellent LOL LOL
john.infla@yahoo.com

but if any part of the translated text reads "now glue the sprint to your forearm" (think twice).




.

[outofthenorm]

I just managed to force a bit of the scan through a robot translator, and thought I might share for your amusement.

Original Chinese test:
船体确定后 ﹐ 在銜接姓涂抹胺水﹐ 使整今船体固定﹐ 把外尤骨拆下， 船底打磨
平整， 繼禦把外尤骨安裝， 注意瑄隙的姓理… 准蚤妤砂蚔板

Translated as:
After determining the hull, painting amine adapters surname water, so that the entire hull this fixing, in particular the outer bone is removed, polishedbottom,
smooth following the Royal outer bone particular installation, attention Xuan gap name registration processing ... sand fleas Yu Qi plate

Very helpful.

[outofthenorm]

John, sent you an email with one page to see how it goes.

EFHeath, thanks for the offer. If you PM me your email, I can send some of it your way.

As for finding someone in Toronto, we have many, many, many Chinese speakers here. The challenge is to find someone who also speaks boat.

[Jay Greer]

My sympathies to you. Nice model though!
Jay

[John-1948]

Norm, regretfully, my wife said that if she tries to give you the English version,
your boat will not only sail sideways, the pilot house would be upside down, the hull
would have windows along the keel and all the hatches would be screen doors.
but she said basically .... take the small pieces and glue them together - and you will have a boat.
as Jay said, Deepest Sympathies that we can't help.

it is definitely going to take a "Nautically Minded Chinese" person to translate for you.

[outofthenorm]

Thanks anyway John. I think the Chinese is a robot translation from some other language, so it likely makes no sense anyway. Tell your wife she's off the hook

[skuthorp]

Translated as: So?
"After determining the hull, painting amine adapters surname water, so that the entire hull this fixing, in particular the outer bone is removed, polishedbottom,
smooth following the Royal outer bone particular installation, attention Xuan gap name registration processing ... sand fleas Yu Qi plate"

Seems pretty clear to me, especially the bit about sand fleas…………….

I remember Japanese plastic model plane kits with no english instructions………………….. and the later ones where the translations were not much more help.

[Bob Cleek]

It does look like a nice model. There was a time there when the serious modeling community placed Chinese kits even lower on the food chain that the Italian ones. That one seems rather high quality. The problem with all of the foreign model kits is always the instructions. Even when they are written in what is supposed to be English, they can be maddening.

For this reason, many who take the hobby seriously eventually matriculate to scratch-building. Besides, the world doesn't need any more Victory and Constitution models. (Howard Chappelle famously wrote an entertaining piece published in the Model Shipbuilder's Assistant (Available from WBStore, or used to be) bemoaning the plethora of kits built to depict the same vessel over and over again.) It's great to see a model like this one that hasn't been overexposed. It also looks like it is built of high quality wood instead of the junk so often seen in kits.

That's the first I've seen of the horizontal fitting of what would have otherwise been the cant frames in the bow. Of course, it was probably quite common in the vessel's era. What is she? My guess would be a Dutch royal yacht. It's very nice. Keep us apprised with a few pictures as you go.

BTW, if you haven't discovered it already, the Nautical Research Guild's Model Ship World forum is quite good. https://modelshipworld.com/ You may find somebody in there familiar with your particular model who can answer your questions.

[Ian McColgin]

Ah, foreign directions. Dad brought back from a Tokyo flight a Toyostove. Great kerosene heater that we planned to use on the farm for barn and no power emergencies. The directions for assembly were, of course, in Japanese, with incomprehensible photos. But Dad and i were American Men. We Don't Need No Stinking Directions.

We did assemble the thing and it worked. We even got the "mousetrap" right though we did not undersand it at first. These heaters had a spring operated cover that would shut the flame at any hard vibration, like being kicked over or by an earthquake.

He turned one of his copilots on to the things. He made an import company and marketed them as Kerosun. Made a fortune. Great little units.

Point was the fun we had with incomprehensible directions.

[Andrew2]

Ah, foreign directions.
Point was the fun we had with incomprehensible directions.

Reminds me of the Honda bike engine I bought for a single seater project (test bed for a hydraulic transmission) Thought it might be a good idea to buy the manual. Interesting reading, but quite difficult to learn anything about the engine!

[outofthenorm]

It does look like a nice model. There was a time there when the serious modeling community placed Chinese kits even lower on the food chain that the Italian ones. That one seems rather high quality.

Bob, this is the first full kit I've purchased in about 20 years, and have to say I'm impressed. Framing material was accurately CNC milled (not laser-cut) from what appears to be black cherry and is absolutely consistent in thickness (.001 mm variance). The carvings are spectacular. There are about 120 pieces with very very fine detail. 3-axis machining left them crisp and clean, and it took me just 2 work sessions, say about 10 hours, to get them ready to finish. Overall, the model is a clever design that required no jig for setting things up. The lack of useful instructions is a pain, but I'll manage. Of course, this thing is no place for beginners.

For this reason, many who take the hobby seriously eventually matriculate to scratch-building. Besides, the world doesn't need any more Victory and Constitution models. (Howard Chappelle famously wrote an entertaining piece published in the Model Shipbuilder's Assistant (Available from WBStore, or used to be) bemoaning the plethora of kits built to depict the same vessel over and over again.) It's great to see a model like this one that hasn't been overexposed. It also looks like it is built of high quality wood instead of the junk so often seen in kits.

I've done my share of scratch and semi-scratch building, and I agree with Chappelle. But for this one, I wanted to skip the steps of drawing out the whole thing and then getting out materials. Unfortunately, having an aggressive cancer means that my health is going south fairly fast and time is precious. I did all the "usual suspect" models when I was younger, so this seemed like an interesting change, and it has been satisfying.

That's the first I've seen of the horizontal fitting of what would have otherwise been the cant frames in the bow. Of course, it was probably quite common in the vessel's era. What is she? My guess would be a Dutch royal yacht. It's very nice. Keep us apprised with a few pictures as you go.

The bow structure was one of the things that attracted me. As you say, it's different, but that's the way it was done in the Netherlands at the time. The original was built as a corporate rather than royal vessel. Used for transporting VIPs about the place in comfort and style.

BTW, if you haven't discovered it already, the Nautical Research Guild's Model Ship World forum is quite good. https://modelshipworld.com/ You may find somebody in there familiar with your particular model who can answer your questions.

Bob, I discovered that the established North American modeling community isn't much interested in Chinese kits, no matter how good they are. DAMHIKT, but a discussion of these kits can get you kicked right off those places.

- Norm

[Bob Cleek]

"Bob, I discovered that the established North American modeling community isn't much interested in Chinese kits, no matter how good they are. DAMHIKT, but a discussion of these kits can get you kicked right off those places." Sounds like plywood and epoxy used to be in this forum!

While it may be a "pre-machined" exercise in assembly, particularly with the CNC carvings, which some scratchbuilders might find threatening, it's still a very nice model of high quality materials. The Nautical Research Guild forum does seem to keep kit builders and the scratch builders in different categories, much like a lot of vets have separate waiting rooms for cats and dogs! Reading posts in their forum makes it instantaneously obvious that there are those modelers who are fully familiar with all things nautical and with traditional rigs and rigging, while others' nautical experience is limited to following directions found in a kit. That shortcoming is often also evident in their completed models which will often have minor details completely wrong, such as the direction deadeye lanyards are rove or the placement of blocks which fail to provide for a fair lead. I once examined a very well executed kit model of the clipper Red Jacket under construction by a dentist. (His manual dexterity and familiarity with working to close tolerances at small scale really showed.) On her deckhouse roof, where the first class passenger cabins were located, were charley nobles, one for each cabin heating stove. The good dentist had painted these bright gold to depict polished brass! That error really jumped out at me, but the good dentist was oblivious to it. When I delicately asked "what those gold thingsey were," he said they were "brass chimneys." I seriously doubt that even the White Star Line, this being their first ship, had brass stovepipes they kept polished.

I'm truly sorry to hear of your health challenges. Hang in there. We're all holding good thoughts for you, Shipmate!

[Phil Y]

IKEA instructions are challenging, but I see their point.

[Peerie Maa]

I'm working on a model kit made in China and I could use some help. The kit itself is very impressive, with accurately milled parts and top quality materials. Problem is the instructions are written in Chinese script, with no translation. It's not a huge amount of material, but I sure would like to know what it says. I am about 2/3 the way through building the hull and I have already made some errors.

I can easily scan the material and send an e-file.



Norm

This might interest you.
http://www.history-of-world.com/wh/N...ipbuilding.pdf

[outofthenorm]

Outstanding! It's obscure and esoteric - right up my street. Nice find.

[Bob Cleek]

This might interest you.
http://www.history-of-world.com/wh/N...ipbuilding.pdf

Damn! That one is a keeper. $120 in hardback on Amazon and free to members of the WoodenBoat Forum! I love finds like this.

[Vince Brennan]

Damn! That one is a keeper. $120 in hardback on Amazon and free to members of the WoodenBoat Forum! I love finds like this.

Just killed an hour and a half reading most of the book.... thanks, Nick! Great find!

[sharpiefan]

On Translation,-- from the movie Space Cowboys ----

Barbara Corvin: Would you like me to read the instructions to you again?

Frank Corvin: Let me tell you something, my dear. Those instructions were written by a fellow in Japan when they made this damn thing. They were probably translated by some gringo who was an expatriate American that couldn't get a job in this country. And then the Japanese guy probably translated him just to double check on him. You don't need these instructions. Not at all. Tear them up.