Talk:Daguanyuan

Translations and Terminology

In the article, the translations of names used in the novel is problematic because there are no "standard" agreed-upon translations. "Prospect Garden," for example, seems like a loosely paraphrased translation. Grand View is closer to the original Chinese, and thus more fitting to an academic exploration of the novel. Another instance of a translation issue is Baoyu's place in the garden, mentioned toward the end of the article. I'm not sure how to deal with this. --Catch153 (talk) 23:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, although it has been five years (!) and no one else has responded, I'd like to defend the translation of Daguanyuan as "Prospect Garden". (Anyway I'm ok with the present revert to the transliteration Daguanyuan.) In fact, "Grand View" isn't closer to the Chinese original. Besides, "Prospect Garden" sounds far less awkward in English. This isn't a "loose paraphrase" at all. The Oxford Dictionary of English gives one definition of "Prospect" as:

An extensive view of landscape. (Definition 4) Link here: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/prospect

Similarly, Merriam-Webster defines "prospect" as "a place that commands an extensive view". Which is exactly what the Chinese original Daguan means. "Grand View" is simply a character-for-character translation which doesn't mean anything specific, begging lots of questions. "View" especially has so many definitions that the original meaning of Daguan (as a sort of panorama) gets lost. DORC (talk) 16:29, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Grand View Garden → Daguanyuan – Juding from this article's history page, there are various disagreements over the two translated English names, "Grand View Garden" and "Prospect Garden", that are mentioned on this article. As a user already mentioned in the Revision history, "Prospect Garden" is the name that was used by David Hawkes in his translated version of the novel, The Story of the Stone; however other users argued (such as the above user Catch153) that "Grand View" is closer to the original Chinese title and "Prospect Garden" is "a loosely paraphrased translation". I've also seen the translation "Grand Prospect Garden" that's been used [1]. I think its better just to stick with the romanized Chinese name, "Daguanyuan", while also mentioning these various translated names in the opening. Relisted. BDD (talk) 05:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC) Sevilledade (talk) 16:34, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Skeptical: Do any English-language reliable sources refer to this as "Daguanyuan"? Moreover, the article's completely unsourced and it's been tagged with an unsourced template for three years. Notability doesn't seem established. Shouldn't it just be merged or deleted? —BarrelProof (talk) 21:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Personally I always try to search and add 1 source to any article before reading Talk/RM. Which means it is sourced now. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• Comment wouldn't that be the title used for the garden in Beijing modeled after the one in the novel, and not an article on the fictional one from the novel? -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 07:39, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
• Pick any - all 3 names in use in English and there's a smaller Prospect Garden replica in Shanghai not as famous as the Beijing one. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• Approve The Chinese is neutral among the English translations, which would have to be redirected in any case. If we go with an English translation, it would have to be the Hawkes version, so better to use the Chinese. ch (talk) 05:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. No one has shown any evidence that this is the most commonly used name in English, or really even close. And that is what we usually like to title our articles. Red Slash 09:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

A fair point, but how do we measure when none of these are exactly household words? Maybe WP:COMMON SENSE applies. It seems best to go with a relevant term. There are better arguments against the others. A quick Google search for "Prospect Garden" first page gets only the Wikipedia article itself as a relevant hit, and Grand View Garden gets mostly restaurants and apartments, though there is one hit to the Beijing Hong Lou Meng theme park. Daguanyuan is better and gets mostly hits that are relevant. Cheers ch (talk) 06:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Ahh, it seems like my oppose is the only thing stopping some random WP:RM regular from closing this. So fine, I have no better ideas and the current title has nothing to recommend it. Support Red Slash 10:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.