proper noun translation, is a very common problem in translation work.
Therefore, on the first day of practice in our training camp, we examined the translation skills and standards of names of people and names of dishes.
Students who have participated will probably feel particularly friendly if they meet Fajita in a Mexican restaurant in the future, laugh~
This content is where novices can easily stumble.
is not difficult, but it can easily expose the problem that translators lack verification awareness, lack of verification experience, or do not understand the translation specifications .
sometimes fails to be translated in trials, and it may depend on whether the translation of proper nouns is standardized. Because it is easy for reviewers to determine whether the translator is a rookie who knows nothing or whether he has received formal training.
The homework submitted in each session of the training camp also somewhat confirmed my guess. I think it's good to be able to help novices find this vulnerability.
However, recently I read Teacher Li Changshuan’s " Non-literary Translation Theory and Practice " , and I discovered that the teacher had already discussed this issue in detail! A fairly rich set of examples is also provided.
Oops, the title of the book is too plain and too unattractive. Even if we compare the 90 days with Teacher Han Gang and change it to "Professor of Advanced Translation of Northern Chinese Language: Teach you how to master translation in 100 days", the sales volume will increase at least ten times. The marketing is not strong enough. If some students of
can read this book thoroughly before doing trial translation, they can definitely avoid many traps.
reading is always the lowest cost way to learn. Even though I am doing paid translation training now, I still insist on saying this.
If you are a student with strong self-learning ability, I personally think that if you read and practice the books of Siguo, Yu Guangzhong , Li Changshuan and Han Gang several times, absorb and digest them, you can become a qualified Translator for .
By the way, I also like reading very much. In addition to writing translation articles, this year I am also writing about my life, opinions and book lists as a freelancer. Almost every article will be a good book hiahiahia, welcome to play with me ~
The following is excerpted from Teacher Li Changshuan’s introduction The method of using Google to check proper nouns such as names of people and places is very practical.
is highly recommended for novice students to learn and master. For more verification methods, it is recommended that you find books and read them yourself.
(1) English to Chinese
① For uncommon proper nouns (names of people, places), translate them according to the transliteration table.
② Common proper nouns, if you cannot determine the Chinese word, you can enter the English name in Google and click to find the Chinese website. There will be a responsible translator After the Chinese name, add the original name in parentheses.
Before the name added, it is the translation you are looking for.
If more than one translation is found, choose the authoritative one (such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website) or the commonly used one (enter different Chinese names into Google to search, whichever one has more hits will be more commonly used).
But the most commonly used may not be the best, so you have to rely on your own judgment.
③ This method can also be used to find professional terms that have just entered Chinese and whose translation has not yet been established, because ordinary translators will add the original text after the translation that they are not sure about. Their translations can at least serve as your reference.
can be used in both Chinese and English directions.
Example: Find the Chinese translation of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
[Analysis] Enter Aung San Suu Kyi in the Google search box and click to search all Chinese web pages. You can see that there are basically three translations: Aung San Suu Kyi, Aung San Suu Kyi , and Aung San Suu Kyi .
Enter the three translations into the search box respectively, click to search for Simplified Chinese webpages ("All Chinese webpages" includes Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese webpages), to see which one has more hits .
The results found: Aung San Suu Kyi has 610 items, Aung San Suu Kyi has 186 items, and Aung San Suu Kyi has 5,620 items. From a quantitative point of view, "Aung San Suu Kyi" should be used.
If you want to further ensure that the translation is consistent with the translation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of my country, you need to see whether the relevant article is an article from China's official media.
(2) Chinese to English
To convert English names translated into Chinese (as well as Japanese, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese names) back to English, you can use the following methods:
① Enter the Chinese name in Google, search for Chinese websites, and hope to find the In the result, a well-meaning translator put the English in brackets.
Example: You want to look up the English spelling of General "Stilwell".
[Analysis] Enter "Stilwell" in the Google search box, and one of the search results shows: "Stilwell is in China, Joseph Warren Stilwell (Joseph Warren Stilwell) is..."
② If you know how to say part of a proper noun in English and enter this part into the search box, you can speed up the search.
Example: To search for "Norman Bethune", you already know Norman.
[Analysis] You can enter "Norman Bethune" at the same time (note the space between the keywords), and you can find it in one click (of course, this name is easy to find without entering English).
③ If you enter Chinese alone, there will be many search results, but you can’t find any with an English saying. You can add an English word to the keyword to narrow the search scope (limited to searching for websites that have both Chinese and English).
Example: To find the English version of " Matteo Ricci "
[Analysis] After entering "Matteo Ricci", you will find that there are countless search results. You can also enter "Matteo Ricci Italy" and you will find it all at once. :…Congratulations! We are from Matteo Ricci (Li Madou in Chinese) Institute IN Italy…
