|
Trainee
|
Trainee's
Statement of Their Translating Experience
|
| A
|
For me,
translating from English into Chinese seems to be
much easier a task than translating from Chinese
into English. |
| B |
It is said that
poems are the most difficult to translate. My experience
with advertisement translation tells me that it
is no less difficult. At least, ads are more difficult
to deal with than technical instructions. |
| C |
My trainer often assigns us many sentence
translation exercises. It's not difficult for me
to offer satisfactory translations. But when I'm
supposed to deal with paragraphs, the picture is
rather different. |
| D |
I feel frustrated
that I need to consult a bilingual dictionary so
frequently to figure out what an English word means. |
| E |
I work for an international company.
The language for all documents and written correspondences
at work is English. In most cases I have no difficulty
at all reading them. But I still remember how I
struggled to complete the task I had been assigned
to translate the user's book of a newly published
software for local customers. It posed no difficulties
when I read it but turned out to be a torture when
I had to translate it into Chinese. |
| F |
Whenever I finish
a Chinese-English translation exercise, I read it
through. But it always seems awkward and is far
from idiomatic. I feel as though I am saying things
in a Chinese way with English words. |
| G |
I'm a lover of literature. I have
noticed that there has been a tendency in China
since the 1980s to re-translate many significant
works written in foreign languages. |
| H |
English subjects
have been treated very differently both in my own
translation and in other people's translations I
read. |
| I |
All the English translations of poems
written in Classical Chinese cannot compare to their
originals at all. I'm proud of the Chinese language
for its capacity to create beauty. |
| J |
I often wonder
whether there are any differences between writer-translators
like Lu Xun and those translators who are not professional
writers. |
| K |
I haven't had much experience in being
commissioned for translations, but my limited experience
makes me feel that the fees paid to translators
are too low and do not match the efforts made by
the translators. |
| L |
When I was in
high school we often discussed works we had recently
read. The fact that we always referred to what we
read, for instance, as shashibiya de baofengyu
(Shakespeare's Tempest) as if we were reading
the English original seems to bother me somewhat
now. What we read was actually Chinese translations
but nobody mentioned the work done by the translators. |
| M |
I once read an English translation
of the introduction to a tourist spot when I traveled
by air. For some terms describing objects or customs
unique to the given culture, the translator used
the pinyin forms of the Chinese words and provided
extra explanations about those objects or customs.
The words of explanation were of course absent from
the Chinese original. I was a bit curious how the
translator determined what required an explanation. |
| N |
I found that
the more I translate the better my English becomes. |
| O |
I usually feel that translations offered
for one and the same original vary from each other
in many ways. |
| P |
I came across
a long English sentence recently and am not satisfied
with any of the translations suggested so far for
it either by myself or by my friends. I wonder how
I can work out a satisfactory solution. |
| Q |
Although I have done some translations,
I do not understand how I did them at all. |
Brainstorm about Your Own Translating Experiences