{"id":85197,"date":"2022-08-01T14:59:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T05:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.gengo.com\/translators\/resources\/avoiding-overtranslation-chinese\/"},"modified":"2022-08-01T14:59:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T05:59:11","slug":"avoiding-overtranslation-chinese","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/gengo.com\/en-gb\/translators\/resources\/avoiding-overtranslation-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding overtranslation: Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"h3\">Tips for translating from Chinese to English: Avoiding overtranslation<\/h1>\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-62490\" src=\"https:\/\/gengo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/2017_04_19-header.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1368\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gengomarketing.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/2017_04_19-header.png 1368w, https:\/\/gengomarketing.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/2017_04_19-header-300x139.png 300w, https:\/\/gengomarketing.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/2017_04_19-header-768x355.png 768w, https:\/\/gengomarketing.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/2017_04_19-header-1024x473.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1368px) 100vw, 1368px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p>When translating between languages and cultures as different as Chinese and English, the problem is the inadequacy of the target language to express the source. Chinese, with its incredible succinctness, can often express in a couple of characters what seems to need a phrase to say in English. It\u2019s not surprising that sometimes, like the translator of the photo above, people just give up altogether!<\/p>\r\n<p>Overtranslation has a range of meanings in translation theory, but here I will talk about translating things that don\u2019t necessarily need to be explicitly translated. This is something we see quite regularly when we carry out quality reviews. Avoiding overtranslation can help your text read more naturally in English and make it more useful to the client.<\/p>\r\n<p>For example, one phrase that\u2019s used a lot in Chinese is <em>baokuo<\/em> \u5305\u62ec which means \u201cincluding\u201d and <em>deng<\/em> \u7b49, which means \u201cetc.\u201d or \u201cso on\u201d. A common mistake made by translators is to use \u201cetc.\u201d in the English translation when that can inadvertently change the meaning of the sentence.<\/p>\r\n<div class=\"box-gray\">\r\n<p><strong>Original text:<\/strong><br \/>\r\n\u4e9e\u6295\u884c\u5728\u7db2\u7ad9\u516c\u5e0313\u500b\u65b0\u6210\u54e1\u540d\u55ae\uff0c\u5305\u62ec\u9999\u6e2f\u3001\u52a0\u62ff\u5927\u3001\u963f\u5bcc\u6c57\u7b49\u3002<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Overtranslation:<\/strong><br \/>\r\nThe Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank published a list of 13 new members on its website, including Hong Kong, Canada, Afghanistan, etc.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>A more natural translation:<\/strong><br \/>\r\nThe Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank published a list of 13 new members on its web.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p>In more formal contexts such as this one, or when you are dealing with long and complex sentences, it is much better to leave \u201cetc.\u201d out of the translation. None of the meaning of the source text is lost (\u201cincluding\u201d is all that is required in English), and the register of the source is preserved.<\/p>\r\n<p>Another example is the word <em>yijing<\/em> \u5df2\u7d93, or \u201calready\u201d. Given that Chinese does not use inflection to express tense like English does, this word often fulfills the same function as the past tense in English. That means the word \u201calready\u201d doesn\u2019t need to appear in the translation. For example, the following sentence is far better without it:<\/p>\r\n<div class=\"box-gray\">\r\n<p><strong>Original text:<\/strong><br \/>\r\n\u7532\u65b9\u4fdd\u8b49\u5df2\u7d93\u95b1\u8b80\u548c\u7406\u89e3\u4e86\u5982\u4e0a\u6587\u4ef6\u3002<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Overtranslation:<\/strong><br \/>\r\nParty A guarantees that they have already read and understood the above documents.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>A more natural translation:<\/strong><br \/>\r\nParty A guarantees that they have read and understood the above documents.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p>Of course, there are also many situations in which <em>yijing<\/em>\u5df2\u7d93 does need to be translated as \u201calready\u201d such as:<\/p>\r\n<p>\u5979\u8d95\u5230\u767b\u6a5f\u53e3\u6642\u98db\u6a5f\u5df2\u7d93\u98db\u8d70\u4e86\u3002<br \/>\r\nBy the time she had rushed to the gate the plane had already taken off.<\/p>\r\n<p>As with most things in translation there are no hard and fast rules. The best way to avoid overtranslation is to ensure that you don\u2019t translate character by character: read the whole sentence before beginning to translate, determine the function each character\/phrase plays in the sentence as a whole, and, if necessary, translate according to this function rather than the literal dictionary definition. Be ready to adapt your translation strategies to the specific text you are working on.<\/p>\r\n<p>Few people have \u201covertranslated\u201d as much as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ezra_Pound\">Ezra Pound<\/a> (1885-1972), the modernist poet who freely translated the works of Li Bai and others into English despite having little knowledge of Chinese. On occasion, he even translated each of the component parts of Chinese characters into English, as in the first line of the <em>Analects<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<div class=\"box-gray\">\r\n<p><strong>Original text:<\/strong><br \/>\r\n\u5b78\u800c\u6642\u7fd2\u4e4b\uff0c\u4e0d\u4ea6\u8aaa\u4e4e\uff1f<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Overtranslation:<\/strong><br \/>\r\nTo study with the white wings of time passing, is not that our delight?<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>A more natural translation:<\/strong><br \/>\r\nIs it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try it out at due intervals?<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p>Here, he has understood the character <em>xi<\/em> \u7fd2 (to practice) in terms of its components <em>yu<\/em> \u7fbd (wing) and <em>bai<\/em> \u767d (white) to get the translation \u201cwhite wings\u201d. This is wonderfully poetic, but unfortunately means that the emphasis on \u201crepeated practice\u201d in the original is missing. Compare renowned scholar <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/D._C._Lau\">D.C. Lau\u2019s<\/a> far more natural yet less poetic translation of the same phrase.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tips for translating from Chinese to English: Avoiding overtranslation When translating between languages and cultures as different as Chinese and English, the problem is the inadequacy of the target language to express the source. Chinese, with its incredible succinctness, can often express in a couple of characters what seems to need a phrase to say [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-85197","resource","type-resource","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Avoiding overtranslation: Chinese - Gengo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gengo.com\/en-gb\/translators\/resources\/avoiding-overtranslation-chinese\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Avoiding overtranslation: Chinese - Gengo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tips for translating from Chinese to English: Avoiding overtranslation When translating between languages and cultures as different as Chinese and English, the problem is the inadequacy of the target language to express the source. 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