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I'm a fluent English speaker. So the following is English vocabulary problems generated by a translation problem.
I'm writing a novel about really ancient Korea. I know my characters are talking in Old Korean, but I'm translating it back to English in my head (since I have semi-fluency with Korean, so often sentences come in my head as Korean then I translate them back to English again. I know my head is a mess.)
I've run against a problem. A word just won't translate properly even though I write in 100% English.
心
I *know* what it means, but I can't find a word with equal weight in English. In Japanese (Kokoro/Shin), Korean (Maum/sim) and Chinese (xin1) it means "Heart", but it also means "Mind" with a sense of a "center" (as in the phrase in English, "the heart of the matter.")
The context is roughly, make the Queen stronger because the King is bent on making her love him, but he doesn't want to leave his _blank_ open for attack. (Heart, mind, center of his being... It works so much better in Korean/Japanese/Chinese).
I need something that has the same kind of meaning, but without the religious aspect since the religious aspect I'm being careful to separate. Any bright ideas on best translation?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/心 is the original page.
Closest I got was psyche, I think, but it really doesn't get into "heart/emotions" as much as I'd like. Plus my head is warped with the original story, so I might be seeing more "heart" in that word than the average user.
If there isn't a good equal word it'll result in awkward info dump and extra explanation. I'd rather avoid it.
Suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
I'm writing a novel about really ancient Korea. I know my characters are talking in Old Korean, but I'm translating it back to English in my head (since I have semi-fluency with Korean, so often sentences come in my head as Korean then I translate them back to English again. I know my head is a mess.)
I've run against a problem. A word just won't translate properly even though I write in 100% English.
心
I *know* what it means, but I can't find a word with equal weight in English. In Japanese (Kokoro/Shin), Korean (Maum/sim) and Chinese (xin1) it means "Heart", but it also means "Mind" with a sense of a "center" (as in the phrase in English, "the heart of the matter.")
The context is roughly, make the Queen stronger because the King is bent on making her love him, but he doesn't want to leave his _blank_ open for attack. (Heart, mind, center of his being... It works so much better in Korean/Japanese/Chinese).
I need something that has the same kind of meaning, but without the religious aspect since the religious aspect I'm being careful to separate. Any bright ideas on best translation?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/心 is the original page.
Closest I got was psyche, I think, but it really doesn't get into "heart/emotions" as much as I'd like. Plus my head is warped with the original story, so I might be seeing more "heart" in that word than the average user.
If there isn't a good equal word it'll result in awkward info dump and extra explanation. I'd rather avoid it.
Suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.