The process of translation
involves an understanding of the source language
and the expression in the target language.
I break down this process into four steps:
1.Form a general idea or impression
of the diction, style, tone, etc.
of the source language
2.Understand the meanings of the words
in the source language,
and analyze the grammar and logic if necessary
3.Look for the appropriate expressions
in the target language
4.Make revisions according to the vernacular
of the target audience
Let me use one example to explain
what these four steps mean and how they work.
I want to point out before we start
that there is no clear distinction
between these four steps
and they do not follow the exact order,
that when we become experienced translators
we may merge these steps,
but now, for the purpose of teaching,
I have deliberately distinguished the steps
one from another
and I try to analyze each step in details.
Before we start to do any translation,
we should read the paragraph first.
Roné Boyko,
an otherwise healthy 38-year-old woman
who likes to jog and swim,
had her first attack of vertigo
in the summer of 2003.
"I woke up one morning
and couldn’t see straight,"
the Winnipeg mother of two
and vice-principal
of a French elementary school remembers,
"I felt the floor was going to fall out
from underneath me."
This paragraph is taken from an article about
popular science.
Articles of this kind
are written for a general audience,
normally in precise language,
with clear description, and strict logic.
These characteristics should be found
in our translation as well.
The language of this paragraph is not difficult.
The narration is very clear.
But the two sentences are a little bit long,
and the structure of the sentences
is a little bit complicated.
We may need to rearrange the order of the words
and phrases in our translation.
This is what we know from the first reading:
what type of writing it is;
what is the style of its language;
and what is the structure.
The second step
is to understand the meanings of words
and phrases.
In this paragraph
maybe the only word we don’t know is "vertigo".
We’ll simply look up the word in the dictionary
or on the internet.
In Chinese "vertigo" means 眩晕.
Now we can translate.
罗内?博伊柯
一个喜欢慢跑和游泳的
We stop here because
we find it very awkward if we go on.
How do we translate the word "otherwise"?
We know the meaning of this word in Chinese:
否则 不然 除此之外
however, if we translate the sentence into
一个喜欢慢跑和游泳的否则健康的38岁女性
or 不然健康的38岁女性
or 除此之外健康的38岁女性,
it doesn’t make sense.
The reader will be confused.
This is bad Chinese.
So we need to look into the meaning of this word
within the context
and find a best Chinese expression for it.
How do we do that?
We can analyze the relationship between this word
and what comes before and comes after it.
The subordinate clause in this sentence
tells us that this woman is 38 years old,
that she likes to jog and swim;
in other words,
she is young and healthy.
The main clause tells us that
she was attacked by vertigo in the summer of 2003,
and we know that vertigo is a kind of illness.
Putting these together,
we know that before that attack of vertigo,
she didn’t really have any serious
health problem.
Now we can translate this sentence into
一个喜欢慢跑和游泳的原本健康的38岁女性
Let’s go on with our translation.
罗内?博伊柯
一个喜欢慢跑和游泳的原本健康的38岁女性
在2003年夏天第一次被眩晕侵袭
This is the first draft of our translation.
Is all the information in the source language
retained in the Chinese translation? Yes.
Is the translation good Chinese? No!
It is not really Chinese.
It is "translationese".
It reads very awkward.
We need to revise it.
When we revise the translation,
there are three things that we need to consider:
the meaning must be correct and precise;
the narration must be clear and logical;
the language must be fluent and vernacular.
Now let’s go back to the first sentence.
The word "woman"
is modified by an adjective phrase after it
"who likes to jog and swim"
and two words before it
"38-year-old" and "healthy",
and "healthy" itself
is modified by "otherwise",
which makes this part of the sentence
look like a little tree with twigs
reaching out in all directions.
English sentences and Chinese sentences
are structurally different,
and translation involves
not just the meanings of words,
but the structures of sentences,
and the cultural differences.
In the following lectures we will deal with these.
For now we need to know
that because of the different structures
in English and Chinese sentences,
we need to trim this sentence.
This part makes several points:
Roné is 38 years old;
she was healthy;
she likes to jog and swim.
In Chinese:
罗内?博伊柯38岁
原本身体健康 喜欢慢跑和游泳
By breaking down a long English sentence
into smaller parts
separated by commas in a Chinese sentence,
we have done the translation
not only in terms of the language code,
but also in terms of the sentence structure.
"Had her first attack of vertigo"
was translated into 第一次被眩晕侵袭
which is bookish and not good Chinese.
We can change that into 第一次感到眩晕
Now let’s look at the second sentence.
The subject of this sentence is very long.
In the first draft,
this subject is directly translated into Chinese,
which makes the sentence very unbalanced,
like a person with a thick strong upper body
and very thin and short legs.
But this part is between two quotes,
and cannot be broken down into smaller parts,
as we did with the first sentence.
How do we solve this?
We can change the order of the words,
and sometimes sentences,
when we translate paragraphs and passages,
as long as the original meanings
are correctly conveyed.
Actually word order is one important consideration
when we do translation
and you will learn the technique
of changing the word order
in the following lectures.
Now the second sentence tells us two things:
her role as a mother and a school principal;
and the first attack of vertigo.
So can we rearrange the order of all the points,
tell the general information of Roné first,
and then talk about the specific incident?
Let’s try that:
罗内?博伊柯38岁
是两个孩子的母亲
住在温尼伯
在法语小学担任副校长
原本身体健康
喜欢慢跑和游泳
2003年夏天
她第一次感到眩晕
一天早上
我醒来后发现自己无法直视前方
她回忆说
我感觉地板就要在我脚下塌陷
We notice that in this second draft
the order of the original sentences
has been greatly changed,
but all the information is retained,
and the Chinese reads much better
than the first draft.
Finally let’s polish the language
and give a finishing touch to the translation.
Where is Winnipeg?
The city may not be known to the Chinese readers.
They may know Vancouver or Toronto,
but maybe not Winnipeg.
We can add 加拿大 before it
to help the Chinese readers better understand
where Roné is from.
This is a commonly
used translation skill called "addition",
which we will discuss in details
in the following lessons.
The word 加拿大 is added
to provide the readers with cultural information.
We can also put a full stop after 副校长,
to separate two different points.
When we do this,
we need a subject for this new sentence,
so we add 她.
We use the technique of addition again,
this time to make the sentence
grammatically correct.
地板就要在我脚下塌陷
this expression is not native to Chinese.
It can be changed into
我脚下的地板就要塌陷了
Now our final draft becomes:
罗内?博伊柯38岁
是两个孩子的母亲
住在加拿大温尼伯市
在一所法语小学担任副校长
她原本身体健康
喜欢慢跑和游泳
2003年夏天
她第一次感到眩晕
一天早上
我醒来后发现自己无法直视前方
她回忆说我感到脚下的地板就要塌陷了
This final draft
retains all the information
in the original paragraph;
it gives the narration a very clear logical order;
and it is in Chinese vernacular.
I hope this example can give you an idea
of how translation is done.