Legend of Korra, “Skeletons in the Closet” & “Endgame” - Book 1 Finale

I got a little screenshot happy with this one, mostly because it was such a high-intensity scene.  The only Chinese text in the entire season finale was one rather ominous sentence that appeared on Air Temple Island, the Rally, and presumably all over Republic City:

阿蒙的時代開始了 āméngdeshídàikāishǐle:

•  阿蒙的āméngde.  As I’ve previously translated, 阿蒙 is the Chinese transliteration of Amon’s name.  的 is a possessive particle, so this means “Amon’s” or “(insert object) of Amon.”
• 時代 shídài means “age,” “era,” “generation,” or perhaps less commonly “epoch.”
• 開始了 kāishǐle is a pretty simple verb phrase.  開始kāishǐ means “to start” or “to begin.” As I’ve discussed in previous posts, 了 le is a particle attached at the end of a verb to signify a past-tense.  This isn’t always directly the past tense we are familiar with in English (the Chinese view time, at least verbally, differently), but it works that way here.
   

阿蒙的時代開始了 āméngdeshídàikāishǐle  = “The Era of Amon has begun” or “Amon’s Era has begun”

I find it particularly interesting how much of a figurehead Amon turned out to be; it was never “The Era of Equality has begun” or “Equality is the Answer” but “The Era of Amon has begun” and “Amon is the answer.”

Legend of Korra, “Turning the Tides”

Super stoked to take another crack at a newspaper.  The only legible headline is right above a photo of Tarlokk, so let’s see what it has to say:
 

聯合日報 liánhérìbào

• 聯合 (trad.) liánhé is normally a verb meaning “to combine” or “to join.” Here however I suspect it functions more in its noun/adjectival form as “alliance” or “united.” (it can be used to mean “an alliance” or as a verb “to unite” as well)
• 日報 (trad.) rìbào simply means “daily newspaper.”  日 rì means “sun,” or “day.” 報 bào usually means “to inform” or “to announce.” 
   

Legend Korra, “When Extremes Meet”

Asami’s radio tuner is a lot like the clock I posted about from “The Voice in the Night.”

The numbers read from right to left and are as follows:

• 一 yī one (1)
• 二 èr two (2)
• 三 sān three (3)
• 四 sì four (4)
• 五 wǔ five (5)
• 六 liù six (6)
• 七 qī seven (7)
• 八 bā eight (8)
• 九 jiǔ nine (9)
• 十 shí ten (10)
• 十一 shíyī eleven (11)
• 十二 shí’èr twelve (12)
• 十三  shísān thirteen (13)
• 十四  shísì fourteen (14)

atla-annotated:

The Chinese Names of Characters and Places

Note: These are NOT the names the creators gave, these are the names the Chinese translation/dub/fandom uses.They may not always completely match the names of the English version. And as these are transliterations, there may also be multiple different spellings in use.

Watch the Chinese version here: Enjoy! (Some sub-ed, some dub-ed)

科拉传奇 Legend of Korra

共和城（Republic City）

科拉（Korra）
馬寇（Mako）
博林（Bolin）
丹增（Tenzin）
金诺拉（Jinora）
依姬（Ikki）
密罗（Meelo）
佩玛（Pema）
琳（Lin）

佐藤廣（Hiroshi Sato)
佐藤麻美（Asami Sato）

達諾（Tahno）

塔拉克（Tarrlok）

点穴术士（Chi-blockers）
反御术士 Anti-benders
平隐团 Equalists

御金警 (Metalbenders)

超级御术 Pro-bending

阿蒙（Amon）
娜嘎（Naga)
帕波（Paboo）

火鼬 or 火鼬鼠 (fire-ferret)
北極熊狗 (polarbear-dog)

降世神通 Avatar: The Last Airbender

水善部落（Water Tribe）：御水术（Water Bending）

土强王国（Earth Kingdom）：御土术（Earth Bending） 　　

火烈国（Fire Nation）)：御火术（Fire Bending） 　

气和族（Air Nomad）：御气术（Air Bending）

安(Aang)
卡塔拉(Katara)
苏卡(Sokka)

祖克王子 (prince Zuko)
爱龙皇叔 (Iroh)
阿祖拉(Azula)
北方拓芙(Toph Beifong)
阿帕(Appa)
莫莫(Momo)
奥赛（Ozai）
龙腾 (Lu Ten)
哈鲁（Haru）
梅（Mai)
泰丽（Ty Lee）
阿祖龙 (Azulon)
闪闪爆炸男（Sparky Sparky Boom Man

杰（Jet）
善射（Longshot）
臭虫（Smellerbee）

长风（Long Feng）
布米（Bumi）
陶（Teo）
苏姬（Suki）
帕库（Pakku）
月（Yue）
罗库（Roku）
虚子（Kyoshi)
库拉（Kuruk）
杨尘（Yangchen）
珍(June）
哈玛（Hama）

Source and more: One, two,.three

There go my career plans! jkjk  This is a great resource for anyone interested in watching the show in Chinese/using it for any academic purpose.

I’ll have more translations up tonight if all goes according to plan :) 

Legend of Korra, “The Aftermath”

Since I’ve got the main poster of Hiroshi’s translated, I’d like to take a look at the poster you can see in the background of the first photo:

跟着阿蒙 gēnzheāméng

• 跟着 gēnzhe means “to follow after something,” or “immediately afterwards.” 着 can also imply an action that is ongoing, so I originally read it as “following Amon” which seemed so silly - why would you throw this poster up in your super-secret garage?  “Oh hey Chief Beifong, like my poster that totally incriminates me by telling you EXACTLY what I’m doing?”  I’ve instead taken this to be an imperative form of the verb.
• 阿蒙 āméng is how the creators of the show decided to transliterate the name “Amon.”  You should read my earlier post for all the juicy details about Amon’s name in Chinese.

I posted the second picture to point out a little fluke in the animation.  The poster in the background of the second image is simply a black square, and it’s nowhere near subtle enough to be due to in-scene lighting.  Details you can only notice while painstakingly going through the episode, frame-by-frame, for a decent screenshot.

So:
跟着阿蒙 gēnzheāméng = “Follow Amon” 

Legend of Korra, “The Aftermath”

The juiciest of juicy…

Okay, really glad to be done translating this one.  I got really hung up on the last two characters because of the calligraphy (you don’t wanna know how long I spent trying to figure out what characters they were) so I’m very excited to finally say that these posters say…

阿蒙就是答案 āméngjiùshìdá’àn

Lemmebrekehdownfayall:

• 阿蒙 āméng is how they chose to transliterate the name “Amon.”  Interestingly, this is exactly how the Chinese transliterate the name of the Egyptian god Amun, who’s arguably one of the most fascinating deities in Egyptian mythology (he almost single-handledly made Egyptians monotheistic).  This was undoubtedly chosen due to the similarity of the way that Amon and Amun’s names are pronounced, but it leads to an interesting observation: the second half of Amon’s name - 蒙 méng - is a verb meaning “to cover.” The same character - pronounced with a different intonation - is used to mean “to deceive,” “to cheat,” or “to hoodwink” (the latter of which always makes me giggle).  This is very, very interesting given Amon’s mystique and the role he plays in the Legend of Korra story.  I’m not sure how much I’d read into the character choice here, though - it can also mean “drizzle,” “mist,” “blind,” “Mongolian,” or “knocked unconscious.”  I suspect this character is being used primarily for the sound, but the coincidence is eerie.
• 就是jiùshì is often difficult to translate into English.  Simply put, it emphasizes that something is exactly as stated.  是 shì is the sum/es/est of Chinese - it just means “is” or “to be.” 就 jiù is just (see what I did there) an emphatic.
• 答案 dá’àn means “answer” or “solution.”  Chinese makes little to no use of really any sort of article (“the,” “a,” “an,” etc.), so in this context - to make it flow a little better into English - it’s best to imagine the direct object of a sentence as pre-packaged with the appropriate article. 

If you could just, for a moment, look at that first character in 答案 and compare it to the one written on the poster, you can understand some of my frustration and my immense satisfaction at having finally figured it out.

So! :) It is my sincere pleasure to translate this as:

阿蒙就是答案 āméngjiùshìdá’àn = “Amon is (the) solution” or“Amon is (the) answer”

Legend of Korra, “The Aftermath”

And here’s where it starts to get juicy!  This one is pretty self-explanatory:

共和城 警察gònghéchéng jǐngchá

• 共和 gònghé means “republic” (i.e. the political structure) and 城 chéng is an abbreviation for “city.” 
• As we’ve seen before, 警察 jǐngchá means “police.”

So 共和城 警察 gònghéchéng jǐngchá= “Republic City” and “Police”

Legend of Korra, “And the Winner Is…”

Nothin’ from “The Spirit of Competition” unfortunately, and all that there is to translate in this episode is this shot, which - again - is the recurring Equalist motto.

平 píng meaning “equal,” “level,” or “calm.”