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Translation, Interpreting, Editing/proofreading, Native speaker conversation, MT post-editing, Language instruction
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English to Chinese - Rates: 0.07 - 0.10 USD per word / 26 - 36 USD per hour Chinese to English - Rates: 0.08 - 0.12 USD per character / 27 - 37 USD per hour
Chinese to English: A Memorial-induced Calamity Ruining a Dignitary Family General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: History
Source text - Chinese 高祖武皇帝五天监十八年（己亥，公元五一九年）
春，正月, 辛卯，上祀南郊。魏征西将军平陆文侯张彝之子仲瑀-上封事，求铨削选格，排抑武人，不使豫清品。于是喧谤盈路，立榜大巷，克期会集，屠害其家；彝父子晏然，不以为意。二月，庚午，羽林、虎贲近千人相帅至尚书省诟骂，求仲-兄左民郎中始均不获，以瓦石击省门；上下慑惧，莫敢禁讨。遂持火掠道中薪蒿，以杖石为兵器，直造其第，曳彝堂下，捶辱极意，唱呼动地，焚其第舍。始均逾垣走，复还拜贼，请其父命，贼就殴击，生投之火中。仲-重伤走免，彝仅有馀息，再宿而死。远近震骇。胡太后收掩羽林、虎贲凶强者八人斩之，其馀不复穷治。乙亥，大赦以安之，因令武官得依资入选。识者知魏之将乱矣。
Translation - English In the 18th year of the Tianjian reign of the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD513), Lunar January 28, after the emperor presided over a memorial ceremony for the God in the southern suburb of capital of Northern Wei Dynasty (Luoyang in Henan of China today), he received a memorial on talent selection from Zhang Zhongyu, one song of Zhangyi, who also is the great general of “Conquers-the-West” of the reign at that moment.
The memorial proposed a new talent evaluation/ selection method-it proposed to restrict and even cancel armymen’s qualification of being assigned as a government top official. The news of Zhang Zhongyu proposing to push armyman aside spread quickly through the capital of Northern Wei Dynasty .It immediately caused a overwhelming censure, blaspheme, curse and personal abuse of Zhangyi and his sons in the large streets and small lanes of the city of Luoyang.It is mainly because most of government officials of the reign had obtained the official qualification by their military achievements. The people who strongly opposed the proposal, openly meet together in the street, to threaten even swore to kill the Zhangyi and his sons. However, as to the overwhelming blasphemes and the open threads, the father and son was quiet and doggedly thought it is merely an unwarranted anxiety.
Lunar February 7th of 513A.D, thousands of angry imperial palace guards flocked together at the Council of Advisors to the Throne to openly hurl a stream of abuses at Zhang Shijun( elder brother of Zhang Zhongyu),who working as a low-grade official in the council. Coincidentally the latter was not on duty at that day, the angry guards had to shriek their hate by throwing stones and tiles to gate of the council. It overawed all the people, including the government authority and no force was sending to control the mobs. Worse, under that situation out of control the furious mobs with stone and sticks in their hand as a weapon, as well as burning firebrand just made of firewood in the street, rushed and swarmed into the mansion house of Zhangyi ,violently hauling and pushing the host Zhangyi to the yards and fists-beating him to nearly death. Zhang Shijun, Zhangyi’s eldest son who had jumped over the wall and fled away, returned back, bowed down before the mobs and beg them for mercies to his father. But the noisy mobs beat him heavily and threw him into the fire burning the house. During the riot, Zhang Zhongyu, the poor proposer, also was beated and suffered a grievous bodily harm. And his father was died the next morning due to the fatal injury he had suffered. All people around the country were also shocked by the mobs’ brutalities but the empress dowager Hu, who was in power at that moment, only beheaded the eight fiercest mobs and the others was remitted. And the empress dowager even granted a general pardon to all imperial guards who had participated the riot only five days later (Lunar February 12th of the year) to pacify them. So, in the Tianjian reign of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the practice of selecting armymen as candidates of government officials was maintained as before. Based on the incident as well as the disposals taken by the imperial court, the thoughtful people also predict that a time of trouble for the reign of the Northern Wei Dynasty shall be coming soon.
English to Chinese: Apartheid Legacy’s in South African Schools General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Business/Commerce (general)
Source text - English KHAYELITSHA, South Africa — Seniors here at Kwamfundo high school sang freedom songs and protested outside the staff room last year because their accounting teacher chronically failed to show up for class. With looming national examinations that would determine whether they were bound for a university or joblessness, they demanded a replacement.
Joao Silva for The New York Times
“We kept waiting, and there was no action,” said Masixole Mabetshe, who failed the exams and who now, out of work, passes the days watching TV.
The principal of the school, Mongezeleli Bonani, said in an interview that there was little he could do beyond giving the teacher a warning. Finally the students’ frustration turned riotous. They threw bricks, punched two teachers and stabbed one in the head with scissors, witnesses said.
The traumatized school’s passing rate on the national exams known as the matric — already in virtual free fall — tumbled to just 44 percent.
Thousands of schools across South Africa are bursting with students who dream of being the accountants, engineers and doctors this country desperately needs, but the education system is often failing the very children depending on it most to escape poverty.
Post-apartheid South Africa is at grave risk of producing what one veteran commentator has called another lost generation, entrenching the racial and class divide rather than bridging it. Half the students never make it to 12th grade. Many who finish at rural and township schools are so ill educated that they qualify for little but menial labor or the ranks of the jobless, fueling the nation’s daunting rates of unemployment and crime.
“If you are in a township school, you don’t have much chance,” said Graeme Bloch, an education researcher at the Development Bank of Southern Africa. “That’s the hidden curriculum — that inequality continues, that white kids do reasonably and black kids don’t really stand a chance unless they can get into a formerly white school or the small number of black schools that work.”
South Africa’s new president, Jacob Zuma, bluntly stated that the “wonderful policies” of the government led by his party, the African National Congress, since the end of apartheid 15 years ago, “have not essentially led to the delivery of quality education for the poorest of the poor.”
Translation - Chinese 希利亚.W.道格尔2009年9月19日于南非卡雅利沙（KHAYELITSHA）报道- Kwamfundo中学教研室外，一群中学高年级学生高声唱着自由之歌抗议他们的会计学老师长期习惯性的不给他们上课。面对迫在眉睫即将进行的大学入学招生考试，这些学生强烈要求学校给他们换授课老师，因为这场即将到来的考试将决定他们是上大学还是失业。
Chinese to English: 土方开挖作业方法 Method Statement for Earth Excavation General field: Tech/Engineering Detailed field: Construction / Civil Engineering
Source text - Chinese 2.2.1 本工程填土为原土回填，填土方料应符合以下要求，土内不得含树根、烂草有机物杂质和粒径大于15公分土块。
2.2.2 压实机具为汽油打夯机，回填土层层回填，层层夯实，每层铺土厚度为300㎜，每层压实遍数为2～3遍。打夯时，夯位相互搭接，防止漏压，使压实度达到设计要求。
2.2.3 基槽（坑）回填应在相对两侧或四周同时进行，在基础墙的两侧回填土时要掌握好高差，以防把基础挤歪。
2.2.4 检查标准，允许偏差：标高-50，分层压实系数>0.95（按设计要求），表面平整度20。
Translation - English 2.2.1 The original soil excavated from the foundation pits shall be used for earth backfill in this project. The soil for backfilling shall not contain any roots, rotted straw and other organic impurities, as well as soil block of 15cm in grain size.
2.2.2 Gasoline tampers shall be used to compact the soil backfilled amd leveled. And the soils shall be backfilled and compacted layer by layer .The thickness of each soil layer shall be 300 mm before compaction and it shall be compacted 2 or 3 times to achieve a compactedness conforming to the design requirement. And the backfilled soil layer shall be overlapped to avoid of compacting-missing.
2.2.3 Earth backfill shall be conducted from both side or around the foundation pit at the same time. While backfilling soil at the both side of the foundation wall, altitude difference shall be controlled well to avoid of foundation deformation caused by pressing of soil.
2.2.4 Inspection standard and allowable deviation :The allowable deviation for elevation is -50 ,for layering compact coefficient it shall be less than 0.95(as per design requirement) ,and for surface flatness the allowable deviation shall be 20.
Chinese to English: 北魏豪门斗富，笑叹未生逢石崇 A Close Wealth-Showing Contest between Wealthy and influential Princes General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Chinese 高祖武皇帝五天监十八年（己亥，公元五一九年）
时宗室外戚权幸之臣，竞为豪侈。高阳王雍，富贵冠一国，宫室园圃，侔于禁苑，僮仆六千，伎女五百，出则仪卫塞道路，归则歌吹连日夜，一食直钱数万。李崇富埒于雍，而性俭啬，尝谓人曰：“高阳一食，敌我千日。”
河间王琛，每欲与雍争富，骏马十馀匹，皆以银为槽，窗户之上，玉凤衔铃，金龙吐旆。尝会诸王宴饮，酒器有水津锋，马脑碗，赤玉卮，制作津巧，皆中国所无。又陈女乐、名马及诸奇宝，复引诸王历观府库，金钱、缯布，不可胜计。顾谓章武王融曰：“不恨我不见石崇，恨石崇不见我。”
融素以富自负，归而惋叹，卧疾三日。京光王继闻而省之，谓曰：“卿之货财计不减于彼，何为愧羡乃尔？”融曰：“始谓富于我者独高阳耳，不意复有河间！”继曰：“卿似袁术在淮南，不知世间复有刘备耳！”融乃笑而起。
Translation - English In the 18th year of the Tianjian reign of the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD513),
Those days, luxurious living has become the fashion and some members of imperial clan and relative of an emperor on the side of his mother and wife, as well as some powerful officials who were regarded with special favor by the emperor and the empress dowager Hu in power, have been very rich and fabulously wealthy. As one of wealthiest man in the country, Tuoba Yong, Princes Gaoyang, held luxurious palace and garden nearly equal to the imperial park. Additionally, he also had a great deal of servants and dancers- 6000 servants and 500 woman dancers. While he was going out ,his honor guards, servants and others who plays drums, trumpets and other musical accompaniments ,always blocked the road and streets; and as soon as he returned or stayed in his mansion, song and dance were being performed day and night .Meanwhile, one meals he had daily, costs more than ten thousands of money . Li Cong, another wealthiest man and powerful official (Shangshuling1 and part-time Yitongsansi) in the country, was so stingy and criticized and blamed princes Gaoyang “One meal of Princes Gaoyang, equals to my meals cost for 1000 days!”
Another money-bag in the country, Tuoba Chen (Princes Hejian) deprecated wealth of Prince Gaoyang and flaunted his riches in public by offering more than ten steeds the silver mangers and decorating all his windows with a pattern of jade swan holding bell in its mouse and golden dragon flying near flags on it. Meanwhile, in his extravagant banquets for those princes of the time a lot of precious and well-made dish wares such as crystal cup, agate bowl, red-jade goblet from other countries, were just used for holding or serving foods. After the banquets in his mansion, he also showed his horses, rare jewels, precious stones and other rare treasures to the guests, as well as music and dances by his woman musicians and dancers. He even invited those princes looking around his store-house filled with innumerable silk fabrics and moneys. In front of those rare treasures, in a deliberately artificial way he sighed in lamentation to Tuoba Rong (Princes Zhangwu, another super-rich): “It is not a pity to have no opportunity to have been born together with Shichong1; it is a greater pity to miss an opportunity to show my wealth to him.”
After back from the banquet, Tuoba Rong, who had been proud of his wealth, sighed and alleged illness as the reason for sleeping in his bed for three days. At hearing his illness, Tuoba Ji (Princes Jingguang) went to visit him and asked: “it is well known that your wealth is not less than his (Princes Hejian’s)! Why did you still feel shame and envy for that?” The answer he gave was quite surprising: “ In my mind before, only Princes Gaoyang is richer than me in this country but now unexpectedly Princes Hejiang also”.Tuoba Ji consoled him: “You ,Yuan Shu2 in Huainan , surely know little of a nouveau riche(new rich) like Liu Bei3 (Prince Hejian)!” At hearing these remarks, Tuoba Rong felt a relief and got up immediately.
Remarks:
1 .Shichong: the wealthiest man in Western Jin Dynasty. He was famous of his victory in defeating Wang Kai,a wealthiest noble supported by the emperor in an wealth-showing contest at the time.
2 Yuan Shu: a warlord during the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms era of China. He was the younger cousin of Yuan Shao(one of the most powerful warlords of the time) Yuan Shu declared himself emperor under the short-lived Zhong Dynasty in 197.
3.Liu Bei: (161– 21 June 223), styled Xuándé, was a general, warlord, and later the founding emperor of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history.He declared himself Emperor of Shu Han in 221. Liu grew up in a poor family, having lost his father when he was still a child. To support themselves, Liu and his mother sold shoes and straw-woven mats.
English to Chinese: Found in Translation/翻译的价值 General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - English AS the author of “Las Horas,” “Die Stunden” and “De Uren” — ostensibly the Spanish, German and Dutch translations of my book “The Hours," but actually unique works in their own right — I’ve come to understand that all literature is a product of translation. That is, translation is not merely a job assigned to a translator expert in a foreign language, but a long, complex and even profound series of transformations that involve the writer and reader as well. “Translation” as a human act is, like so many human acts, a far more complicated proposition than it may initially seem to be.
Let’s take as an example one of the most famous lines in literature: “Call me Ishmael.” That, as I suspect you know, is the opening sentence of Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” We still recognize that line, after more than 150 years.
Still. “Call me Ishmael.” Three simple words. What’s the big deal?
For one thing, they possess that most fundamental but elusive of all writerly qualities: authority. As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.
It’s a little like waltzing with a new partner for the first time. Anyone who is able to waltz, or fox-trot, or tango, or perform any sort of dance that requires physical contact with a responsive partner, knows that there is a first moment, on the dance floor, when you assess, automatically, whether the new partner in question can dance at all — and if he or she can in fact dance, how well. You know almost instantly whether you have a novice on your hands, and that if you do, you’ll have to do a fair amount of work just to keep things moving.
Authority is a rather mysterious quality, and it’s almost impossible to parse it for its components. The translator’s first task, then, is to re-render a certain forcefulness that can’t quite be described or explained.
Although the words “Call me Ishmael” have force and confidence, force and confidence alone aren’t enough. “Idiot, read this” has force and confidence too, but is less likely to produce the desired effect. What else do Melville’s words possess that “Idiot, read this” lack?
They have music. Here’s where the job of translation gets more difficult. Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear. Ideally, a sentence read aloud, in a foreign language, should still sound like something, even if the listener has no idea what it is he or she is being told.
Let’s try to forget that the words “Call me Ishmael” mean anything, and think about how they sound.
Listen to the vowel sounds: ah, ee, soft i, aa. Four of them, each different, and each a soft, soothing note. Listen too to the way the line is bracketed by consonants. We open with the hard c, hit the l at the end of “call,” and then, in a lovely act of symmetry, hit the l at the end of “Ishmael.” “Call me Arthur” or “Call me Bob” are adequate but not, for musical reasons, as satisfying.
Most readers, of course, wouldn’t be able to tell you that they respond to those three words because they are soothing and symmetrical, but most readers register the fact unconsciously. You could probably say that meaning is the force we employ, and music is the seduction. It is the translator’s job to reproduce the force as well as the music.
“Chiamami Ismaele.”
That is the Italian version of Melville’s line, and the translator has done a nice job. I can tell you, as a reader who doesn’t speak Italian, that those two words do in fact sound like something, independent of their meaning. Although different from the English, we have a new, equally lovely progression of vowel sounds — ee-a, ah, ee, a, ee — and those three m’s, nicely spaced.
If you’re translating “Moby-Dick,” that’s one sentence down, approximately a million more to go.
I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I’ve learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. It is not, of course, translated into another language but it is a translation from the images in the author’s mind to that which he is able to put down on paper.
Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. It’s one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it’s transcendent, it’s brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire.
But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it’s never the book that you’d hoped to write. It’s smaller than the book you’d hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire.
It feels, in short, like a rather inept translation of a mythical great work.
The translator, then, is simply moving the book another step along the translation continuum. The translator is translating a translation.
A translator is also translating a work in progress, one that has a beginning, middle and end but is not exactly finished, even though it’s being published. A novel, any novel, if it’s any good, is not only a slightly disappointing translation of the novelist’s grandest intentions, it is also the most finished draft he could come up with before he collapsed from exhaustion. It’s all I can do not to go from bookstore to bookstore with a pen, grabbing my books from the shelves, crossing out certain lines I’ve come to regret and inserting better ones. For many of us, there is not what you could call a “definitive text.”
This brings us to the question of the relationship between writers and their readers, where another act of translation occurs.
I teach writing, and one of the first questions I ask my students every semester is, who are you writing for? The answer, 9 times out of 10, is that they write for themselves. I tell them that I understand — that I go home every night, make an elaborate cake and eat it all by myself. By which I mean that cakes, and books, are meant to be presented to others. And further, that books (unlike cakes) are deep, elaborate interactions between writers and readers, albeit separated by time and space.
I remind them, as well, that no one wants to read their stories. There are a lot of other stories out there, and by now, in the 21st century, there’s been such an accumulation of literature that few of us will live long enough to read all the great stories and novels, never mind the pretty good ones. Not to mention the fact that we, as readers, are busy.
We have large and difficult lives. We have, variously, jobs to do, spouses and children to attend to, errands to run, friends to see; we need to keep up with current events; we have gophers in our gardens; we are taking extension courses in French or wine tasting or art appreciation; we are looking for evidence that our lovers are cheating on us; we are wondering why in the world we agreed to have 40 people over on Saturday night; we are worried about money and global warming; we are TiVo-ing five or six of our favorite TV shows.
What the writer is saying, essentially, is this: Make room in all that for this. Stop what you’re doing and read this. It had better be apparent, from the opening line, that we’re offering readers something worth their while.
I should admit that when I was as young as my students are now, I too thought of myself as writing either for myself, for some ghostly ideal reader, or, at my most grandiose moments, for future generations. My work suffered as a result.
It wasn’t until some years ago, when I was working in a restaurant bar in Laguna Beach, Calif., that I discovered a better method. One of the hostesses was a woman named Helen, who was in her mid-40s at the time and so seemed, to me, to be just slightly younger than the Ancient Mariner. Helen was a lovely, generous woman who had four children and who had been left, abruptly and without warning, by her husband. She had to work. And work and work. She worked in a bakery in the early mornings, typed manuscripts for writers in the afternoons, and seated diners at the restaurant nights.
Helen was an avid reader, and her great joy, at the end of her long, hard days, was to get into bed and read for an hour before she caught the short interlude of sleep that was granted her. She read widely and voraciously. She was, when we met, reading a trashy murder mystery, and I, as only the young and pretentious might do, suggested that she try Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” since she liked detective stories. She read it in less than a week. When she had finished it she told me, “That was wonderful.”
“Thought you’d like it,” I answered.
She added, “Dostoyevsky is much better than Ken Follett.”
“Yep.”
Then she paused. “But he’s not as good as Scott Turow.”
Although I didn’t necessarily agree with her about Dostoyevsky versus Turow, I did like, very much, that Helen had no school-inspired sense of what she was supposed to enjoy more, and what less. She simply needed what any good reader needs: absorption, emotion, momentum and the sense of being transported from the world in which she lived and transplanted into another one.
I began to think of myself as trying to write a book that would matter to Helen. And, I have to tell you, it changed my writing. I’d seen, rather suddenly, that writing is not only an exercise in self-expression, it is also, more important, a gift we as writers are trying to give to readers. Writing a book for Helen, or for someone like Helen, is a manageable goal.
It also helped me to realize that the reader represents the final step in a book’s life of translation.
One of the more remarkable aspects of writing and publishing is that no two readers ever read the same book. We will all feel differently about a movie or a play or a painting or a song, but we have all undeniably seen or heard the same movie, play, painting or song. They are physical entities. A painting by Velázquez is purely and simply itself, as is “Blue” by Joni Mitchell. If you walk into the appropriate gallery in the Prado Museum, or if someone puts a Joni Mitchell disc on, you will see the painting or hear the music. You have no choice.
WRITING, however, does not exist without an active, consenting reader. Writing requires a different level of participation. Words on paper are abstractions, and everyone who reads words on paper brings to them a different set of associations and images. I have vivid mental pictures of Don Quixote, Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, but I feel confident they are not identical to the images carried in the mind of anyone else.
Helen was, clearly, not reading the same “Crime and Punishment” I was. She wasn’t looking for an existential work of genius. She was looking for a good mystery, and she read Dostoyevsky with that thought in mind. I don’t blame her for it. I like to imagine that Dostoyevsky wouldn’t, either.
What the reader is doing, then, is translating the words on the pages into his or her own private, imaginary lexicon, according to his or her interests and needs and levels of comprehension.
Here, then, is the full process of translation. At one point we have a writer in a room, struggling to approximate the impossible vision that hovers over his head. He finishes it, with misgivings. Some time later we have a translator struggling to approximate the vision, not to mention the particulars of language and voice, of the text that lies before him. He does the best he can, but is never satisfied. And then, finally, we have the reader. The reader is the least tortured of this trio, but the reader too may very well feel that he is missing something in the book, that through sheer ineptitude he is failing to be a proper vessel for the book’s overarching vision.
I don’t mean to suggest that writer, translator and reader are all engaged in a mass exercise in disappointment. How depressing would that be? And untrue.
And still. We, as a species, are always looking for cathedrals made of fire, and part of the thrill of reading a great book is the promise of another yet to come, a book that may move us even more deeply, raise us even higher. One of the consolations of writing books is the seemingly unquenchable conviction that the next book will be better, will be bigger and bolder and more comprehensive and truer to the lives we live. We exist in a condition of hope, we love the beauty and truth that come to us, and we do our best to tamp down our doubts and disappointments.
We are on a quest, and are not discouraged by our collective suspicion that the perfection we look for in art is about as likely to turn up as is the Holy Grail. That is one of the reasons we, I mean we humans, are not only the creators, translators and consumers of literature, but also its subjects.
Translation - Chinese 对于我的小说《时时刻刻（The Hours）》,西班牙语，德语和荷兰语译者们分别将其译成 《Las Horas》，《Die Stunden》和《De Uren》 。作为该作品的作者，我得承认，这些译者凭着其超凡的实力，将这部作品译成了一部部独具特色的作品。这也让我对翻译有了一个全新的看法：所有文学作品均是翻译的产物-也就是说，翻译不仅是一项精通某门外语翻译专家们的工作，它还涉及被翻译作品的作者和读者，会给人们带来长期，复杂而深刻的思想和意识转变。作为一项人类活动，和其他人类活动一样，比起人们对其最初的定义，“翻译” 一词，如今被赋予了更为复杂的含义。
以某部著名文学作品中的名句为例，“Call me Ishmael（叫我以实玛利吧！）”, 我想读者都知道，是作家赫尔曼.麦尔维尔作品《白鲸》的开卷语。虽然已经过了150多年，读过这部作品的读者，可能都还记得这句话出自该作品。
不过，我想一定有读者会问 ：“Call me Ishmael.”，这句仅仅包含三个单词的句子， 其中难道有什么奥妙？
首先 ，这三个词，体现了一个作家应该具备的最根本的也是最难以捉摸的潜质:自信和权威。 作为作品的作者，我们必须一开始就自信而权威地给我们的读者定下这部作品的基调，掌控作者和读者之间这场无声对话的主导权。
这和首次与一个新舞伴跳华尔兹有点相似-任何一个会跳华尔兹，狐步，探戈或者其它要求和舞伴有身体接触舞蹈的人，在舞池里接触到一个新舞伴，一开始就会不自觉的对新舞伴的舞技进行评估-估评他/她到底会不会跳舞，如果会，跳得好不好。 其实，会跳舞的人几乎一接触到新舞伴的手，就能判断出其是不是新手。而且，一旦确定对方是初学跳舞的新手，你就不得不把自己放在主导和权威的位置上，付出更多的努力，以便于让这场舞能继续跳下去。
对自己作品的自信与权威，是一个作家所具有的一种相当难以思议的品质和才能，而且这种品质和才能的成因几乎不可剖析 。而作为作品的译者，其第一要务，则是对作品作者这种几乎不能进行描述或解释的自信和权威进行再次的诠释和翻译。
虽然“Call me Ishmael”这句话足够有力，可以体现作者对自己这部作品的权威和自信，但这三个词所体现出来的力度还是有所不足。“Idiot, read this（傻子，看看这句）”这句话也很有力，也在一定程度上体现了作者的权威和自信，但比起卷首语“Call me Ishmael”来说，还是没法比，不大可能产生出作者期望达到的震撼效果。那作为卷首语，麦尔维尔的“Idiot, read this”这句话比起 “Call me Ishmael” 这句， 到底缺少了些什么其它东西呢？
首先，麦尔维尔选择的卷首语“Call me Ishmael”更有乐感。这也是给译者们的工作带来了更大的难度。小说的语言，都是由具有相当意思和乐感的字词汇集而成，作者写出的句子都应该有一定的节奏和韵律，这种节奏和韵律会暗合句子所要表达的意思，读者在阅读这些句子的时候，会如同听到作者谱唱出一首优美动人的曲子，给读者的内心带来愉悦的感觉。而理想的译文，则应该是当读者在大声朗诵出来时，即使听者根本听不懂其所听到句子的意思，也会凭这些译文句子的节奏和韵律，感觉到原文作者所要表达的一些意思或情感。
现在，我们暂且不论“Call me Ishmael”这句话有什么具体含义，先来听听这句话读起来听众的乐感如何。
先来听听这几个元音: ah, ee,和软元音i, aa-这四个元音，听起来都各不相同， 各个半元音，都有着舒缓的调子。用辅音来拼读这个句子单词的元音，听起来会有乐感- 开口重读辅音 c ，和a这个元音拼读，随后拼出这个单词末尾的半元音 l ，随后，用愉悦的声调铿锵有力地拼出“Ishmael ”这个词尾的半元音 l。换句话说，如果是换成Call me Arthur” 或者 “Call me Bob”，看起来也足够有力，但由于句末的词都没有和 “call” 这个词对应的半元音l ，因此也达不到作者所要求的那种满意的效果。
当然，大多数读者都不具备这种与作者进行心灵对话，对其每句用词都能有回应或触动的能力，他们也不知道作者选用这三个词组成卷首语，是因为这三个词组成的句子有着舒缓的调子，读起来还铿锵有力，给人带来音乐般的享受。 但是，大多数读者肯定无意中就为此对这三个词组成的句子有了深刻的印象，弥久难忘。有的读者很可能会说，作品中句子的意思才是作者主要采用的给读者留下深刻印象的手段，而其带来的乐感不过是个诱因。 暂且不论此话对错，对翻译来说，翻译出和原文一样具有同样有力而且有相同乐感效果的句子却是其职责所在。
“Chiamami Ismaele.”，是麦尔维尔这部作品卷首语“Call me Ishmael”的意大利语译文，这位译者翻译得很棒。对于那些不懂意大利语的读者，我可以明确地说，这两个意大利语单词组成的句子实际上听起来似乎有着独立的意思表示。虽然意大利语 不同于英语，但这句译文里也有新的，能同样带来愉悦乐感的元音ee-a, ah, ee, a, ee —而且这个句子里还有三个m,和原文的半元音l对应，极好的诠释出了原文句子铿锵有力的乐感。
也就是说，如果你在翻译“Moby-Dick ”这部作品，那可得小心从事，因为你很可能因为某一句话译得不当，让读者产生误解，如同坠入万里迷雾，不得要领哦！
我鼓励译者们翻译我的作品，如果需要授权，我也会乐意提供。这并不是一种看似英雄的姿态，主要是因为我本人曾经和译者们共事多年，知道翻译不易为之，而且我认为：从某种角度上说，小说的原作，本身也是一种“翻译（translation）”。当然，这种翻译，不是把作品从一种语言翻译成另一种语言，而是通过语言把作者脑海中的图像和情景写到纸上，成为供人们阅读的作品。
English to Chinese (Translators Association of China) English to Chinese (Swansea University) Chinese to English (College English Test) Chinese to English (Translators Association of China) Chinese to English (Swansea University)
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* A full time chief translator&English Senior Secretary who have been working in the companies engaged in the construction of pertrochecmical complex projects ,drinking water treatment plant project and thermal power plant project in domestic or abroad for more than 7 years (refer to my CV).
* Part-time translator of more than 20 translation agents in China for years.
*Solid experience in translating various engineering technical data, contract and bidding documents, as well as writing synopsis.
*Deliver high quality of translation work from Chinese to English (and vice versa) while meeting tight deadline
*Self-starter, result-oriented, strong sense of responsibility, team player and leader, mature, able to work under pressure
*Fluent in English and Mandarin
*Proficient in using major software such as Microsoft Office and Chinese input
*A perfectionist and a language/culture translation enthusiast.
All in all , I am a translator striving to do translation for realizing the communication of the author and the readers-just be the bridge or a channel between the author and the readers.
As a real translator responsible for my translation works ,What principle of translation I believe and put it into practice is: thoroughly comprehending the author by all means I can find, then give a complete transcript of the idea of the original works(quoted from Essay on the Principle of Translation by Alexander Fraser Tyler).
Member since Oct '21
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