在翻译论坛上,网友们对“相亲”一词的英语表达各抒已见。小结一下,有以下这些说法:
1. blind date
2. matchmaking 3. arranged date 4. marriage interview 5. pay a call to the girl’s parents 6. to size up a prospective mate
7. set me up with someone
8.nearsighted date
比较常见的一种说法是blind date,我们来看这句话:
A blind date is a date where the people involved have not met each other previously. The match could have been arranged by mutualfriends, relatives or by a dating system.
因为“相亲”是“从未晤面的男女经第三者安排所作的约会”,这么看来英语(论坛)中的这个“blind”用得真是相当地传神呢。可不能看到这个说法就望文生义地以为是“盲目约会”或“瞎约会”哦。
除此之外,现在网络非常发达,很多相亲的人在约会之前就已经在网上看到过对方的照片,甚至用聊天软件聊天过了。
这样的“相亲”叫做nearsighted date,也就是“近视相亲”。我们来看这句话:
As opposed to a blind date, where you have no idea what the other person looks like, a nearsighted date is one where you’ve seen a photo or chatted via web before meeting in person.
所以说“近视相亲”是相对于“盲约”而言的,后者在见面前根本不知道对方长什么样,而前者则事先看过照片或者在网上视频聊过天。
这听上去似乎比“blind date”要可靠很多,不过有时候照片也不能代表一切,比如这种尴尬的情况:
The picture he emailed me must have been from before he quit the gym. 我昨天晚上去相亲了,他邮件给我的照片肯定是他还在锻炼身体的时候拍的。