We say that translation is a science, because it has its own laws and methods.Take the translation between English and Chinese for example. If we want to translate well, we must be entirely familiar with the content of the original and all the knowledge it concerns. In addition,we should have a comparatively comprehensive and thorough study of English and Chinese so that we may do our work with high proficiency.
Chinese and English have their respective characteristics. True, they have similarities,for example,the word order of the subject and its predicate,of the transitive verb and its object and of the preposition and the object it governs;and at the same time,they have remarkable differences: for instance, the former has no articles but the latter has the definite "the" and the indefinite "a" and "an". Although the two
languages have their respective characteristics which are not quite
alike, still we can do the translation between them. It is because lan
guage is the direct reality of thought and the basic law of reality-
thought --- language which reflects the objective existence is in common to both English and Chinese, thus making it possible to express
the same ideas and feelings in different languages. And quantities of
translated works have long proved the possibility of translation.
And at the same time,we must admit that the languages in which
various peoples think and express their thoughts are quite different in
characteristics and usage. This is the problem that troubles the transla
tors, including the veteran ones. No smatterers can solve such a difficult problem. If one wants to be a qualified translator,one should,first
of all,have a penetrating study and careful comparison of the similari
ties and differences between these two languages so that one may find
the corresponding laws and methods in the translation berween them,
do translation effectively and ensure the quality of translation.
Corresponding laws do exist in translation. Fake the following
sentence as an example:
The horse is a useful animal.
This is a very simple sentence, and there is no question about
word order. But the matter of how to deal with the two articles in the
original is worth studying. Many beginners of English often, to our
disappointmcnt, translate the sentence like this:
这马是一个有用的动物。
At first sight. thc translation seems to be very faithful. Every word
is translated into Chinese,but in fact it is one hundred per cent wrong
because it fails to convey the intrinsic sense of the original. No Chi
nese would say so in such a situation. The correct translation should be
马是一种有用的动物.Now the translation makes sense.But in or
der to achieve the conciseness which is characteristic of the Chinese
language,it ought to be further improved as 马是有用的动物.This
shows that in accordance with the usage of Chinese both the definite
and indefinite articles had better be omitted in the translation. By the
same token,if we translate the sentence back into English,it will nev
er do for us to render it word for word. But on the contrary, we are obliged to add the two articles required by the English usage. Of
course, the English translation may also go without articles on condi
tion that we use the two nouns in the plural form as in "Horses are
useful animals".
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