User Comments - mikeledorta
mikeledorta
Posted on: 自然灾害
April 18, 2007 at 11:40 AMI don't know why my previous posting has been repeated. Oh well. Anyway, thank you Rich, for your comments. For me, it would be best to have an English translation as a kind of appendix, separate from the actual dialogue. Then, when I have finished with my English translation, I could go back and compare and see how I have done. As for how I check the right meaning, I check all the main dictionaries and, in the very end, I ask Chinese friends. In translating from Chinese to English, sometimes you have to fill in information that is understood in Chinese but left out but such information is called for in English. You have to fill in the dots as it were. I have studied many languages and the more different the languages are, the more "paraphrasing" you have to do. When translating from a Western language to English, the underlying substratum is Graeco-Roman culture with all its references. Even if the Western language is not Indo-European, e.g. Basque, Finnish, Hungarian, etc., the underlying Graeco-Roman Judaeo-Christian tradition is there. The fascination is when translating from an Asian language into English, you also have to translate different substrata. For example, from Thai to English, you have to take into account the Sanskrit-Pali Buddhist context. From Chinese to English, you have to take into account Chinese history, Taoism, etc. An example of this substratum is the name of the planets. In Thai, many of the words are from Sanskrit-Pali while English takes the names from Latin (or a Frenchified version of Latin, e.g. Mercury, Saturn, Neptune instead of Mercuriious, Saturnus, Neptunus). The Chinese have their own words for planets. But I digress. The main thing is to compare one's feeble attempts at translation with someone else's. In that way, you learn from your mistakes and from someone else's prowess
Posted on: 自然灾害
April 18, 2007 at 11:39 AMI don't know why my previous posting has been repeated. Oh well. Anyway, thank you Rich, for your comments. For me, it would be best to have an English translation as a kind of appendix, separate from the actual dialogue. Then, when I have finished with my English translation, I could go back and compare and see how I have done. As for how I check the right meaning, I check all the main dictionaries and, in the very end, I ask Chinese friends. In translating from Chinese to English, sometimes you have to fill in information that is understood in Chinese but left out but such information is called for in English. You have to fill in the dots as it were. I have studied many languages and the more different the languages are, the more "paraphrasing" you have to do. When translating from a Western language to English, the underlying substratum is Graeco-Roman culture with all its references. Even if the Western language is not Indo-European, e.g. Basque, Finnish, Hungarian, etc., the underlying Graeco-Roman Judaeo-Christian tradition is there. The fascination is when translating from an Asian language into English, you also have to translate different substrata. For example, from Thai to English, you have to take into account the Sanskrit-Pali Buddhist context. From Chinese to English, you have to take into account Chinese history, Taoism, etc. An example of this substratum is the name of the planets. In Thai, many of the words are from Sanskrit-Pali while English takes the names from Latin (or a Frenchified version of Latin, e.g. Mercury, Saturn, Neptune instead of Mercuriious, Saturnus, Neptunus). The Chinese have their own words for planets. But I digress. The main thing is to compare one's feeble attempts at translation with someone else's. In that way, you learn from your mistakes and from someone else's prowess
Posted on: 自然灾害
April 18, 2007 at 11:21 AMMy only wish is that there could be an English translation for the Advanced level. It is always interesting to compare the two languages and how they differ in expressing ideas. Perhaps that will be done in the future. I hope so. Of course I can work it out the meaning but it would be great to compare what I can work out with a reliable translation
Posted on: 自然灾害
April 18, 2007 at 8:28 AMMy only wish is that there could be an English translation for the Advanced level. It is always interesting to compare the two languages and how they differ in expressing ideas. Perhaps that will be done in the future. I hope so. Of course I can work it out the meaning but it would be great to compare what I can work out with a reliable translation
Posted on: 自然灾害
April 18, 2007 at 4:21 PMI don't know why my previous posting has been repeated. Oh well. Anyway, thank you Rich, for your comments. For me, it would be best to have an English translation as a kind of appendix, separate from the actual dialogue. Then, when I have finished with my English translation, I could go back and compare and see how I have done. As for how I check the right meaning, I check all the main dictionaries and, in the very end, I ask Chinese friends. In translating from Chinese to English, sometimes you have to fill in information that is understood in Chinese but left out but such information is called for in English. You have to fill in the dots as it were. I have studied many languages and the more different the languages are, the more "paraphrasing" you have to do. When translating from a Western language to English, the underlying substratum is Graeco-Roman culture with all its references. Even if the Western language is not Indo-European, e.g. Basque, Finnish, Hungarian, etc., the underlying Graeco-Roman Judaeo-Christian tradition is there. The fascination is when translating from an Asian language into English, you also have to translate different substrata. For example, from Thai to English, you have to take into account the Sanskrit-Pali Buddhist context. From Chinese to English, you have to take into account Chinese history, Taoism, etc. An example of this substratum is the name of the planets. In Thai, many of the words are from Sanskrit-Pali while English takes the names from Latin (or a Frenchified version of Latin, e.g. Mercury, Saturn, Neptune instead of Mercuriious, Saturnus, Neptunus). The Chinese have their own words for planets. But I digress. The main thing is to compare one's feeble attempts at translation with someone else's. In that way, you learn from your mistakes and from someone else's prowess