Here's a Chinese finger-play…
Ten Fingers
Finger Play
Finger Play
(Chinese)
(English)
Three horses are drinking,
Three horses are feeding,
The two men are fighting,
The old woman pleading,
The baby is crying,
But no one is heeding.
Notes
The literal translation of the Chinese title seems to be "Three Horses are Grazing".
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Here's a literal translation I came up with for this rhyme:
Three Horses Are Eating Grass (or Are Grazing)
Three horses are eating grass,
Three horses are eating grain,
Two men are fighting,
An elderly lady is pleading to stop,
The child in the room is crying*.
*Not sure about this line – it might be something like, "The child in the room is shrieking." If anyone would like to give input about this line or the whole translation, that would be great!
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Pinyin
sān mǎ chī cǎo, sān mǎ chī liào
liǎng rén dá jià
lǎo tài tài shuō bà bà bà
xiǎo hái ér zài wū gā lā gā lā
Comments
I welcome comments and suggestions for fine-tuning the translations.
Computerized Text
(We apologize if this doesn't display properly on your screen):
三马吃草
三马吃草三马吃料
两人打架
老太太说罢罢罢
小孩儿在屋嘎拉嘎拉
Thanks and Acknowledgements
This rhyme and the English translation above are from the book, Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes, by Isaac Taylor Headland of Peking University (copyright 1900).
Many thanks to Yuan Ping for typing this rhyme in Chinese text for us!
M goi! & Xie xie!
