Chinese translations for Safe by FFfan

FIREFLY CHINESE TRANSLATIONS

Chinese translations for Safe

POSTED BY: FFFAN
UPDATED: Sunday, December 5, 2004 20:14
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VIEWED: 25160
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Friday, November 8, 2002 5:09 PM

I just typed the dialogue as it appeared in the closed captions. Hope it's not too confusing!

1) Young Simon: "Jien tah duh guay!"

Like hell! (Basically, he was cussing.)

2) Simon's dad: "Nah mei guan shee."

That has nothing to do with it. (Or, that's totally unrelated.)

3) Simon's dad: Yes, and you'd have access to any "tyen shiao duh" that filtered in from the cortex.

Heaven knows what

4) Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."

5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

biao-tze = cousin or nephew?
ur-tze = son

6) Kaylee: He's just so "swai." You just want to take a bite out of him all over, you know?

7) Simon: We get to live on a piece of "luh-suh" wreck.
Kaylee: Serenity ain't "luh-suh."

Crappy

8) Simon: Bullied around by our "boo-tai jung tzahng duh" of a captain.

9) Mal: "Fei hua."

Nonsense (literally, crap talk)

10) Mal: Wash, get down to the infirmary. "Ma shong!"

Fast, or on the double

11) Wash: "Lao tyen boo."

12) Mal: Wash, I want you to go to town and see if you can find that "jing tzahng mei yong duh" doctor.

Useless

13) Simon: "Mei mei" everything I have is right here.

Little sister

14) Patron: You're not a witch are you "nyen ching duh?"

Youngun, youngster

-------------------------------

Note: Jiangyin was the name of the planet/moon the crew visited to deliver their cargo.

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Saturday, November 9, 2002 11:46 AM

INVISIBLEGREEN

Thanks! This episode was drenched in Chinese phrases and I almost started to feel lost. This helps a lot.

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Saturday, November 9, 2002 10:31 PM

LUCHANAN

I wish they'd use standard Hanyu Pinyin for Chinese in caption. It's so difficult to read :-)

I noticed you didn't translate all of it so I'm going to fill in the holes here :-) Hope you don't mind.

4) Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."

* da bianhua = big change

5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

biao-tze = cousin or nephew?
ur-tze = son

* I have no clue what the sentence means since it's not spelled in Hanyu Pinyin :-(

6) Kaylee: He's just so "swai." You just want to take a bite out of him all over, you know?

* shuai = handsome

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Saturday, November 9, 2002 10:56 PM

CHARLIEBLUE

Quote:
Originally posted by luchanan:
5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

biao-tze = cousin or nephew?
ur-tze = son

* I have no clue what the sentence means since it's not spelled in Hanyu Pinyin :-(

It looks pretty much phonetic to me. I'd guess "Liao kou xue de biao ce he hou ce de er ce."

Then again, that doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know if it's my mis-pinyin-izing or the fact that it's been years since I last took Chinese.

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Saturday, November 9, 2002 10:57 PM

CHARLIEBLUE

D'oh. I have no idea why it posted my last post twice. Weird.

Anyway, having actually gotten a couple of hours of sleep, I notice it actually all works out to real words as "Liao kou xue de biaozi he houzi de erzi."

I still don't know what it means, though. Does it look like anything to you, Lucha?

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Sunday, November 10, 2002 4:55 PM

BILLIAM

11) "lao tyen boo"
Probably should be "lao tien foo", "old sky father" literrally, translates more like "Oh Lord", "tien foo" is Father/Lord.

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Monday, November 11, 2002 5:06 AM

HOXBOX

5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

"Salivating son of a cheetau and a monkey." Is my best guess... And i'm chinese but have a hard time figure it out. Seems appropritate for some type of insult.

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Monday, November 11, 2002 9:34 AM

IKENTICUS

wow, this is so cool that you guys grab the closed captions translations of the chinese --- I have to go back and watch the older episodes again to see if I can figure out the translations based on syntax. my wife knows both dialects but can never understand the "Anglizations" of chinese words, whereas, I'm always making up English words that phoneticize chinese for her. Between the two fo us, perhaps we can clean up any missing translations

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Friday, November 15, 2002 4:45 AM

AMEZRI

Hello! This one of my first visits to the community :) I was watching this episode with my mother and these are the translations she came up with. Just another perspective ^_^

Young Simon: "Jien tah duh guay!"

Lit. "Meet his ghost."

Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."

Basically "talking crap"

River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

Erm.. hmm..

"Liou coe shway duh biao-tze.." could be "The ones who drool are.." Maybe.. I dunno

"hoe-tze duh ur-tse" could be "retarded son" - um.. depending on actual pronunciation. Can we get a dialect coach in here ^.^*

Kaylee: He's just so "swai."

Handsome (but I think we all knew that ;)

Simon: We get to live on a piece of "luh-suh" wreck.
Kaylee: Serenity ain't "luh-suh."

lit. "garbage"

Simon: Bullied around by our "boo-tai jung tzahng duh" of a captain.

Er.. literally "doesn't swear much"

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Friday, November 15, 2002 6:20 AM

DOCEBO

This was my take on em

Young Simon: "Jien tah duh guay!"

Lit. "You must have seen a ghost" - Your lying

Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."

"such a big change/suprise"

River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

"you are the son of a salavating bitch and a monkey"

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Friday, November 15, 2002 12:09 PM

LUCHANAN

>> Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."

>> Basically "talking crap"

ha ha ha ha.... I can see how you misunderstood. It's actually "da bianhua" and not "dabian hua".

I'm very positive that he meant "da bianhua" as in big change because Simon's dad said that his mom bought him a source box or something. Besides, Simon looked happy. I doubt he meant "dabian hua" which literally means "sh*t talk" haha... :-)

Ni hao, wo shi Lucha Nan.

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Friday, November 15, 2002 2:50 PM

KLAUREL

I grabbed the TiVo remote and shoved my mom down in front of the TV to work on the translations with me and we STILL couldn't get most of it. My mother and I are both fluent Mandarin speakers with my mom being much better than me, having been raised in China/Taiwan, versus the US.

They REALLY need a dialect coach on that show. It was SOOOO bad, when I watched it, I didn't even realize that it was Chinese until friends told me.

However, in sounding this out:

>>5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."<<<

It sounds something along the lines of:

"You are certainly the precious good son."

The "biao" could be the first part of "precious".

>>>6) Kaylee: He's just so "swai." You just want to take a bite out of him all over, you know?<<<

Well, I wouldn't translate it as handsome. I would more translate as "suave and debonaire", which definitely includes handsome, but the meaning is so much more.

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Friday, November 15, 2002 4:32 PM

AMEZRI

Quote:
Originally posted by luchanan:
ha ha ha ha.... I can see how you misunderstood. It's actually "da bianhua" and not "dabian hua".

I'm very positive that he meant "da bianhua" as in big change because Simon's dad said that his mom bought him a source box or something. Besides, Simon looked happy.

I dunno. I talked it over with my mother and she agreed that "da bianhua" doesn't make sense in the context.

Quote:
I doubt he meant "dabian hua" which literally means "sh*t talk" haha... :-)

I know that's what it literally means, but I figured I'd keep the translation clean

Anyway, it is possible that he meant "dabian hua" considering the way some kids talk to their parents. "Dad, that's such crap" (in a you must be joking sense) is a kind of comment where Simon could be smiling while he said it.

I'm just saying...

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Friday, November 15, 2002 6:04 PM

GAHERIS

I agree with Amezri. It's probably "dabian hua" in the context of "you've got to be kidding me."

Oh and Klaurel? Just to tell you I really don't think that translation for river's that good. Look at the context. She'd just woken up and is ranting. That's definitely not "Your such a precious son." the "Salivating son of a monkey and a bastard" is probably closer.

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Saturday, November 16, 2002 5:04 PM

LUCHANAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Gaheris:
I agree with Amezri. It's probably "dabian hua" in the context of "you've got to be kidding me."

Oh and Klaurel? Just to tell you I really don't think that translation for river's that good. Look at the context. She'd just woken up and is ranting. That's definitely not "Your such a precious son." the "Salivating son of a monkey and a bastard" is probably closer.

If he did mean "dabian hua" as in "sh*t talk", then explain why would Simon curse like that? First of all, the Tam family is supposed to be a wealthy, sophisticated family. Also, Simon just received good news. Having a Source Box in the house would be a BIG CHANGE as in "da bianhua".

Ni hao, wo shi Lucha Nan.

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Sunday, November 17, 2002 6:29 AM

BARDICVOICE

Although I do not speak Chinese, I would go with "da bianhua," in the sense of "big change," rather than the mildly cussing alternative, because I would bet that the original English version of the script had young Simon saying, "Dad, that's so radical!" The script writers don't speak Chinese, so they are writing in idiomatic English, including English slang, and then they have someone try to convey the essence of what they intended in Chinese.

The problem with doing a straight translation is that it never quite captures an idiomatic or slang usage. A kid in American culture saying that something is "radical" is saying that -- to use even more slang! -- it is so neat that it is way beyond being simply "cool." The common English meaning of "radical" as an adjective is a major departure from the norm, something new and very different from what was there before. So, someone trying to translate "Dad, that's so radical!" into Chinese -- a move likely adopted to avoid the datedness of American slang -- could very well have gone with "such a big change!"

I had a recent exchange of email with the official Firefly website in which I suggested that the Chinese translations should be posted, and Kyle's response was "We're working on the Chinese translations. Stay tuned!" So, it looks as if we'll have some help in trying to decipher what's going on!

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Sunday, November 17, 2002 6:48 AM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Quote:
Originally posted by Bardicvoice:
I had a recent exchange of email with the official Firefly website in which I suggested that the Chinese translations should be posted, and Kyle's response was "We're working on the Chinese translations. Stay tuned!" So, it looks as if we'll have some help in trying to decipher what's going on!

Oh, but that would take out all the fun of guessing!

________________

Still unhappy? Okey-doke. I've got two words that are going to take all the pain away: Miniature. Golf.

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Sunday, November 17, 2002 9:23 AM

HOTARUANNE

thanks....it's nice to know what they're saying in chinese

http://glaivemaster.cjb.net/
Just another Firefly fan

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Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:28 AM

PURPLESUN

1) Young Simon: "Jien tah duh guay!"

* You big devil!

3) Simon's dad: Yes, and you'd have access to any "tyen shiao duh" that filtered in from the cortex.

* anything under the sun

5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

* Son of a salivating female cousin (maternal) and a monkey.

8) Simon: Bullied around by our "boo-tai jung tzahng duh" of a captain.

* Not very rational

12) Mal: Wash, I want you to go to town and see if you can find that "jing tzahng mei yong duh" doctor.

* frequently useless

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Friday, November 22, 2002 10:31 AM

ANDELONG

I think Simon must have said "da bianhua" because he had been mildly chastised the moment before for swearing. "Language, son" from Simon's father. Followed by an appology. He would probably not swear after that nor would it have been received well by his father.

ande long

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Sunday, December 8, 2002 6:03 PM

GAHERIS

Ok, about river's quote... Everyone's been going about it kinda wrong. biao-tze means "PROSTITUTE" Thus, River's term means "Drooling prostitute and a monkey's son". Possibly relating Inara and Mal since its related to Mal. Or wiat, maybe it means "son of a drooling prostitute and a monkey." That sounds more right. Anyways, River was cussing.
-Gaheris.

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Monday, December 9, 2002 2:37 AM

LUCHANAN

OoOOOOOOOooOOOO! Biaozi! Wow, that's a slang I haven't heard in a while. Everything make sense now

Ni hao, wo shi Lucha Nan.

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Wednesday, January 8, 2003 6:10 PM

QUIXOTE13

Just to add to the diversity of translations:

Quote:
Originally posted by FFfan:
3) Simon's dad: Yes, and you'd have access to any "tyen shiao duh" that filtered in from the cortex.

Heaven knows what

I think this may be mispronounced and miscaptioned, but it'd make more sense to be "tian xia de" which is "everything under the sky." If it's "heaven knows what," I can imagine it as a literal translation of English into Chinese, but it's certainly not how Chinese would express this thought.

Quote:
4) Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."

I have to side with the "big change" faction here--Simon's stodgy and seemingly well-bred father wouldn't have allowed "shit talk" I don't think; not to mention again it would be a direct translation of English without any cultural mediation (to make it a valid and equivalent Chinese phrase).

Quote:
5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."

Gaheris, you rule! I agree with your second translation, essentially, "Son of a drooling whore and monkey!" Again, I get confused when trying to figure out what they're saying--"liou kou shuei" does mean drooling/salivating, but it's just not used as part of an insult like this in Chinese.

Quote:
9) Mal: "Fei hua."

Nonsense (literally, crap talk)

I thought literally it meant, "waste of words"?

Quote:
11) Wash: "Lao tyen boo."

"Lao Tian" is Heavenly Father (King of Heaven), and I've usually heard it as "Lao Tian Ye," the "ye" having a more grandfatherly and so elderly/ancient connotation. What Wash means is, "Oh Lord, no..."

Quote:
12) Mal: Wash, I want you to go to town and see if you can find that "jing tzahng mei yong duh" doctor.

Useless

"Jing cang" means "often."

Quote:
14) Patron: You're not a witch are you "nyen ching duh?"

Youngun, youngster

Again, this is the Firefly people using a direct English translation--"nian qing" means "young"--it's an adjective without a noun (it would be better to say "young person" as "nian qing ren.")

Take care,

Quixote 13

Ivan Chan Studio: Invite Beauty: www.ivanchan.com

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Monday, January 20, 2003 9:05 PM

PIP

Hey all.

Was watching Safe, and discovered something.

Simon does NOT say 'boo-tai jung tzhang duh' when he's talking to Kaylee. What he says sounds like (and keep in mind he says it fairly quickly, and it sounds like a voice-over):

Pien doh (or joh) duh (or juh) joh tyaren.

Any translations for that? :) I read somewhere that it's supposed to mean 'not very rational'.

Just me. ;)

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Friday, August 15, 2003 5:07 AM

LJC

I need the hanyu pinyin for "luh-suh," can anyone help me?

So far, I've found

lājī (n) garbage
lièzhì (adj.) trashy

but neitehr of which are pronounced the way Sean and Jewel pronounce it, so I'm at my wit's end trying to figure out what they said...

--
Some take the high road. Some take the low road.
And some just go screaming down the highway, dropping flaming bits of wreckage.

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Saturday, August 16, 2003 12:57 PM

FFYING2

Quote:
I need the hanyu pinyin for "luh-suh," can anyone help me?

So far, I've found

lājī (n) garbage
lièzhì (adj.) trashy

Edited now that I found it on http://zhongwen.com/ .

lèsè

Le4se4 is the Taiwan pronunciation of la1ji1(2).

垃圾
For those who can't see that, you can see the characters as images on Unicode's Unihan database site:

lā la1
垃 http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5783

jí ji2
圾 http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=573E

Keep flying!

Ying/
Firefly Funsite
http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net

EDIT: and now also http://fireflychinese.home.att.net

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Sunday, August 17, 2003 6:47 AM

CASTLE02

Quote:
Originally posted by InvisibleGreen:
Thanks! This episode was drenched in Chinese phrases and I almost started to feel lost. This helps a lot.

I'm chinese and I don't even understand what they're saying.

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Monday, August 18, 2003 4:54 PM

SERENITYVALLEY

I doubt some of the actors had enough practice with the language to be pronouncing it right. After all, according to Cappy, all of Alan's lines sound the same anyway.

Also, a few weeks ago I decided to learn Mandarin. Not the written language, just the spoken. I take French and that's all flowy and nice and all and English is just silly with its hypocritical rules. Mandarin is fun with all the smaller quick words. It's just fun to say and sounds cooler and I like it. Hopefully this spur of the moment "I'm going to learn Mandarin today, Mommy!" thing doesn't parish when school starts in a few weeks.

http://www.simple-assault.com/Firefly.htm

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Friday, December 26, 2003 7:07 PM

AGREY

Actually they did have a dialect coach as I understand-that from watching the DVD features and talking to a pair of my friends who had the luck to actually be on-set during filming (I didn't ask how, as, knowing these two, it probably involved bribery, blackmail, and straight-up family connections), and this is my understanding (which is based on statements from the behind the scenes special and from Sean and Emily):
That it was not really the dialect coach's fault as it was simply the fact that the actors had trouble pronouncing Mandarin. Which is understandable...having spent time with the extremely large (and liguistically gifted) wing of Sean and Emily's extended family, I have actually had the "privelege" of being swore at in well over fifty languages (they told me that later...my count was thrity-seven at that point) and having tried to speak Mandarin with coaching from no less than three fluent experts, I don't blame the actors for mispronouncing it.
Besides, it adds a sense of reality to the show...after all, how many people do you know who speak perfectly (not fluently, but perfectly) with absolutely correct pronunciation and grammar in their native tongue?

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Friday, December 26, 2003 11:11 PM

INFRA172

And how do you know the language and pronounciation of Chinese won't change in the future.

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Friday, January 16, 2004 6:42 PM

FLAMETREE

Hello

I have to admit to trying and failing for many years to learning mandarin. Therefore I feel not speaking manadrin topic which I am a qualified expert in.

My take is this, If manadarin( or most asian languages) where common the people would be able to pronoun the tones. I was happy to hear worse speakers than me so I can say none of characters grew up hearing mandarin at all.

However there is a way around this! In the middle ages they had vulgar latin( literal bad latin) used by people who studied bits of it but could not use it in the classical sense. This is vulgar mandarin!!

Further I notice it was mainly used to insult people or things therefore it was not used as a diplomatic language (as say french was by the middle english and hence french was incorporated into the diplomatic language.) But mainly as a low class language. Therefore the chinese must have been conquered and forced to work in laboring jobs. This would allow the introduction of swearing words into the language.

Any other thoughts?

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Friday, January 16, 2004 7:16 PM

SAINT JAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by flametree:
In the middle ages they had vulgar latin used by people who studied bits of it but could not use it in the classical sense. This is vulgar mandarin!!

You have to give the actors leeway since they don't speak Chinese. But just looking at when they speak Chinese is enough to support your arguement.

Quote:
Therefore the chinese must have been conquered and forced to work in laboring jobs.

I can't agree with you there. If they were conquered, the Alliance flag wouldn't look like this (remove extra spaces): www3 .telus.net /vchrusch/Alliance.gif

Great thoughts!

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Sunday, January 18, 2004 10:51 PM

FLAMETREE

Thanks Saint Jayne,

I tried looking at the site but could not get there. I will try watching the eposides again to see if I can see a flag.

Ok assuming they where not conquered maybe the influence of Hong Kong and Chinese movies spread? How about a cultural invasion? Followed by political unification?

Xie Xie ni

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Sunday, August 8, 2004 6:09 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

Folks you've got a fantastic translation going on here

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Sunday, December 5, 2004 8:14 PM

IZCHAN

3) Simon's dad: Yes, and you'd have access to any "tyen shiao duh" that filtered in from the cortex.

- Tien Shiao Duh ... means only heaven will know.

So the translation to common will be
Simon's Dad : Yes, and you'd have access to "heaven knows" anything that filtered in from the cortes.
(his father was joking)

4) Young Simon: Dad, this is so "dah bien hua."
- dah bien hua ... means big change

So the translation to common will be
Young Simon: Dad, this is so "COOL"!!!!

5) River: "Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze."
- The whole thing translates to
"You are a son of a drooling whore and monkey"
(which is quite a curse)

6) Wash: "Lao tyen boo."
Lao tyen boo - is an english literal translation of "oh lord, NO!!!!!"

12) Mal: Wash, I want you to go to town and see if you can find that "jing tzahng mei yong duh" doctor.

- jing tzahng mei yong duh ... is broken down to this
jing tzahng - "Panic Stricken"/"Cowardly"
mei yong - "Useless"
duh - is a common chinese grammer to indicate "in association with"

So the translation to common will be
Mal: Wash, I want you to go to town and see if you can find that "useless coward of a" doctor.

14) Patron: You're not a witch are you "nyen ching duh?"
nyen ching duh - means young one.

So the translation to common will be
Patron: You're not a witch are you "young one"?

----

Hope this helps.

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