You can't translate those typically Chinese terms....

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Silverobama

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Joined
Aug 8, 2010
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Chinese
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China
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China
When Elieen Gu (The Freestyle skier who won her gold medal in the Winter Olympic Games) was eating a Chinese snack (fried dumplings) when she was interviewed by some reporters. She didn't know how to say that snack in English. It was literally translated as "garlic chive fried dumplings" in English.

In our online group, we discussed how to translate the term so that it could be better understood by native speakers who have never been to China (know nothing about Chinese food culture) but I still none of them made much sense because it's understood only by Chinese. I know there are many terms like this one in Chinese and people try to translate them into English but they don't make any sense. I then said to him:

You can't translate those typically Chinese terms into English. They don't make any sense to native English speakers.

Is the italic sentence good?
 
Are my sentences in italics good?

Yes, but not true. Garlic and chive fried dumplings or garlic and chive dumplings fried could be understood by any speaker of English.
 
Are my sentences in italics good?

Yes, but not true. Garlic and chive fried dumplings or garlic and chive dumplings fried could be understood by any speaker of English.
I think what Gu was eating really is "garlic chive(s)":
Allium tuberosum (garlic chives, Oriental garlic, Asian chives, Chinese chives, Chinese leek) is a species of plant ...
 
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In that case change my earlier sentences tp garlic chives fried dumplings or garlic chives dumplings fried.
 
Silver, you need to delete a "when" in the first sentence. Pick one.
 
I know there are many terms like this one in Chinese and people try to translate them into English but they don't make any sense.
You can translate fried dumplings. Some may be unfamiliar with garlic chives, though I wouldn't worry too much about that- you could just say chives and give us an idea.
 
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