It should be possible to translate these sentences differently.
Even in English the first, second and fifth sentences have the same meaning. I agree that the may be used differently, to emphasize different parts of the sentence, but the underlying meaning is the same.
all of them could work, if you do want more nuance i guess it would be like
我妈妈会做很好吃的蛋糕 (i chose to emphasize the fact that your mother knows some recipe to make tasty cakes.)
我妈妈做的蛋糕很好吃 (basically same meaning as above, just a different way to express it)
好吃的蛋糕是我妈妈做的 (like, “oh, that tasty cake over there? yeah my mom made it”)
我妈妈做了很好吃的蛋糕 (made)
我妈妈做的蛋糕(都)很好吃 (not really sure what’s trying to be emphasized in this one. seems like the same thing as the first few)
我妈妈做的(这块儿/个…)蛋糕很好吃 (referring to an actual physical cake/a slice, not just “oh she CAN make good cake)
Each of these “nuanced” sentences can be expressed with quite the same level of specificity in Chinese. Putting up these same sentences in ZH is just some condescending joke made by someone trying to make ZH look silly. I’m not going to go through the whole list to point out how to express these individually and accurately, but just for example, the third one would be 那個好吃的蛋糕是我媽做的 (other phrasing is of course possible) and the meaning is as clear as it is in English. There seems to be a subcurrent in Western culture that insists on making the Chinese language look slightly ridiculous, so as to comfort us in our assumed superiority, I presume. The fact is that any level of nuance is available once a certain ignorance is overcome.
No these all look right. You could make them more specific with other grammar, but that may or may not make sense to do based on the situation. Chinese in general is just less specific since it depends so much on context.
It all seems correct, Chinese grammar (generally) is simpler than English grammar and relies more heavily on context
the translator is wrong. although Chinese doesn’t have tense and plural, the counterparts of those six sentences should be very different.
My mother makes tasty cakes 我妈妈会做好吃的蛋糕。
My mother makes a tasty cake. 我妈妈在做一块好吃的蛋糕。
My mother made the tasty cake. 我妈妈做了那块好吃的蛋糕
My mother made a tasty cake. 我妈妈做了一块好吃的蛋糕
The cakes my mother makes are tasty. 我妈妈做的蛋糕很好吃。
The cake my mother made is tasty. 我妈妈做的那块蛋糕很好吃。
I thought maybe it would be:
我媽媽做好吃的蛋糕,
我媽媽做好吃的蛋糕,
我媽媽做了那個好吃的蛋糕,
媽媽做的蛋糕很好吃,
媽媽做的那個蛋糕很好吃。
Are translators in general? Or just one translator? Or just this translator? Generally or in the past since a translation (click) or translations (of sentences) were or have been made? Is your translator a grammatically male, female, neuter? Does it/he/she/they change its/his/her/their cases when you rearrange their functions?
Specifications can be made in Chinese if necessary but almost all the time they are either too obvious or too trivial or too pretentious to be bothered with in every day speech but unfortunately for some languages they’re built in.
If you want to distinguish previous background information from new comment, say the former first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_and_comment
From a local’s perspective, there are still subtle differences among these sentences.
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The first sentence should be translated as: “我妈妈做的蛋糕很好吃”. This is a general description.
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The second sentence should be translated as: “我妈妈做了一个很好吃的蛋糕”. This describes something that has happened.
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The third sentence should be translated as: “这个好吃的蛋糕是我妈妈做的” This is similar to the second sentence in meaning.
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The fourth sentence should be translated as: “这些好吃的蛋糕是我妈妈做的.” This emphasizes the plural: “these.”
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The fifth sentence should be translated as: “这个好吃的蛋糕是我妈妈做的.” This emphasizes the singular: “this.”
In Chinese, the past tense is generally indicated using “了” (le), such as “做了” (did/made) or “吃了” (ate). Singular and plural can be distinguished using “个” (ge) and “些” (xie). For example, “这些人” (these people) indicates multiple people, while “这个人” (this person) refers to a specific individual.
Step 1 is figure out the meaning difference, in English. What is the difference between “she makes tasty cakes” and “she makes a tasty cake” and “the cakes she makes are tasty”? There is no diffence in meaning, in English. Why should there be a difference in Chinese?
Note that in English, present tense is not about a present action. It is about a repeated action. So the actual meaning is “Each time that my mother makes a cake, it is tasty”. 我妈妈做的蛋糕都很好吃。
Don’t expect computer programs like Google Translate to do as well as fluent humans. They can’t do it.
I think you are trying to find the solution to a problem no one is having
The third and sixth are also nearly the same. Not to mention that while articles and verb tenses are mandatory in English, they simply don’t exist in Mandarin. One certainly could distinguish them all in Chinese, but probably might not unless it felt important to be explicit.
What? These are clearly lazy translations. A commenter below was less lazy and showed how Chinese can have the same level of specificity.
我妈妈会做好吃的蛋糕 is more like “My mother can make/knows how to make tasty cakes.”
我妈妈在做一块好吃的蛋糕 is “My mother is in the process of making a piece of tasty cake.”
The other sentences seem right, I would just use 个 as the counter instead of 块, because 块 is used for a piece of cake, not a whole cake.
My mother makes a tasty cake. 我妈妈在做一块好吃的蛋糕。
‘My mother makes a tasty cake’ and ‘My mother makes tasty cakes’ are the same meaning in normal usage, so I’d argue this one’s wrong (though now I think about it, English textbooks in China & grammar books for small children would definitely use it in a literal sense like your translation implies; but you’d never hear it in normal use).
Other than that, I agree with you 100%.
Though I’d also say that in Chinese these nuances are often skipped when not really neccessary (context is king), so the original meme isn’t too far off base
Thank you for doing the work. Crazy how upvoted the wrong comments above are.
I had a problem, because Duolingo accepted a specific translation only. I wanted to understand my error and ended up with these translations (from Google translate).
Your modified second sentence is unnatural. 了should not be added. And it should be 一「個」蛋糕instead of 「塊」. For the whole cake we use the former while the latter is for a “piece”.