Thread: Good Chinese Translation?

Is anyone aware of a good translation of the Bible into modern(ish) Chinese? A native Taiwanese friend of mine (who up until a couple of weeks ago had zero knowledge of Christianity) is currently using a Chinese/English NIV Bible. She says that the Chinese translation is quite bad - often completely missing the English translation.

She also regularly attends a Chinese Bible study. She says that the leaders of this Bible study have to continually inform the attendees of portions of this Bible that are poorly translated so that much of the Bible study is spent trying to figure out the correct Chinese translation. The leaders have pointed her to a different translation that is supposedly much better, but it is apparently a much older language that is difficult for modern Chinese speaking people to understand.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Nate

Originally Posted by NateLanning

Is anyone aware of a good translation of the Bible into modern(ish) Chinese? A native Taiwanese friend of mine (who up until a couple of weeks ago had zero knowledge of Christianity) is currently using a Chinese/English NIV Bible. She says that the Chinese translation is quite bad - often completely missing the English translation.

She also regularly attends a Chinese Bible study. She says that the leaders of this Bible study have to continually inform the attendees of portions of this Bible that are poorly translated so that much of the Bible study is spent trying to figure out the correct Chinese translation. The leaders have pointed her to a different translation that is supposedly much better, but it is apparently a much older language that is difficult for modern Chinese speaking people to understand.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Nate

I have to beg your friend's pardon for not agreeing with her.

The most popular version the Union version is till the best version
available, although I haven't read many English versions, the Chinese
version's accuracy compared with some English version (including NIV)
is admirable.

As you said your friend is a new believer, hopefully as she grows in the
grace as well as the knowledge of, she will come to understand that
the Union version is an excellent one to taste God's word.

Originally Posted by duncan001

Originally Posted by NateLanning

Is anyone aware of a good translation of the Bible into modern(ish) Chinese? A native Taiwanese friend of mine (who up until a couple of weeks ago had zero knowledge of Christianity) is currently using a Chinese/English NIV Bible. She says that the Chinese translation is quite bad - often completely missing the English translation.

She also regularly attends a Chinese Bible study. She says that the leaders of this Bible study have to continually inform the attendees of portions of this Bible that are poorly translated so that much of the Bible study is spent trying to figure out the correct Chinese translation. The leaders have pointed her to a different translation that is supposedly much better, but it is apparently a much older language that is difficult for modern Chinese speaking people to understand.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Nate

I have to beg your friend's pardon for not agreeing with her.

The most popular version the Union version is till the best version
available, although I haven't read many English versions, the Chinese
version's accuracy compared with some English version (including NIV)
is admirable.

As you said your friend is a new believer, hopefully as she grows in the
grace as well as the knowledge of, she will come to understand that
the Union version is an excellent one to taste God's word.

Thanks for the input - I will pass this on to her.

My take is a practical one. If she is really having a hard time understanding the words of the older text, then I hope she has a good teacher to help her in her study. If she doesn't, it is no help to her to continue reading on and confusing, missing, or misinterpreting the precious truth in God's word.

The Chinese students in my seminary in Singapore used a Chinese/ESV English Bible, which they highly recommended. Not sure what it's called, but it's certainly available in Taiwan.

Originally Posted by NateLanning

Is anyone aware of a good translation of the Bible into modern(ish) Chinese? A native Taiwanese friend of mine (who up until a couple of weeks ago had zero knowledge of Christianity) is currently using a Chinese/English NIV Bible. She says that the Chinese translation is quite bad - often completely missing the English translation.

She also regularly attends a Chinese Bible study. She says that the leaders of this Bible study have to continually inform the attendees of portions of this Bible that are poorly translated so that much of the Bible study is spent trying to figure out the correct Chinese translation. The leaders have pointed her to a different translation that is supposedly much better, but it is apparently a much older language that is difficult for modern Chinese speaking people to understand.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Nate

I asked a young lady who is in China from our church and got this answer:

I asked XXXXX about this yesterday. He said there are three main versions in China, all of which he thinks are acceptable. All of them do have their problems, but compared to the translations that have been done in other countries, he thinks they are quite good, maybe comparable to our NIV. One of the three is better than the others, it is the union Bible, probably the one she was recommended and it is more like our KJV and is harder to understand. Assuming that the Taiwanese person is using one of these versions, XXXXX felt that the Bible study leader was over emphasizing the problems with the translation with the effect of destroying confidence in the text. Just like we have King James only people, they have union Bible only people, except they don't take it as far. There are some very bad translations out there, but the most widely ones used are all acceptable in his mind. He didn't know the names off the top his head.

Originally Posted by rbcbob

I asked a young lady who is in China from our church and got this answer:

I asked XXXXX about this yesterday. He said there are three main versions in China, all of which he thinks are acceptable. All of them do have their problems, but compared to the translations that have been done in other countries, he thinks they are quite good, maybe comparable to our NIV. One of the three is better than the others, it is the union Bible, probably the one she was recommended and it is more like our KJV and is harder to understand. Assuming that the Taiwanese person is using one of these versions, XXXXX felt that the Bible study leader was over emphasizing the problems with the translation with the effect of destroying confidence in the text. Just like we have King James only people, they have union Bible only people, except they don't take it as far. There are some very bad translations out there, but the most widely ones used are all acceptable in his mind. He didn't know the names off the top his head.

Thanks for looking into this. She is using the Union Bible, which based on the feedback seems to be a decent translation. I'll pass your advice on to her.

As a side note, she had started her studies in the Book of Ezra... not what I would pick for someone not familiar with Christianity! Anyway, I've started going over the gospel books with her and she seems to be understanding much more.

What translation do the Chinese speaking people in the Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore use? What translation does Christian China Books http://www.chinachristianbooks.org use?