Certified Chinese translation is the process wherein Chinese is used to carry out an accurate presentation of the English text. We need to notice the following aspects in translation: firstly, translators are supposed to convey the meanings of sentences or articles rather than the structure; secondly, translation is not a simple transformation of the structure into another language. The process of translation can be generally divided into three stages: reading and comprehension, expression in Chinese as well as revising and polishing. The common translation methods include:
The modern world is experiencing the rapid development of science and technology.
I. Conversion of Parts of Speech: There’s a huge gap between the two language systems of Chinese and English, thus the structures and expressions of the two languages also vary greatly. Consequently, we need to make a conversion of the parts of speech in the original text (such as the conversion of verbs to nouns and adjectives to nouns, etc.) to achieve a smoothly translated text. For instance,
The modern world is experiencing the rapid development of science and technology.
[Analysis] The adjective “rapid” is converted to adverbial in Chinese.
We need clean air， but unfortunately， air pollution is generally present， especially in cities.
II. Supplementation: If we conduct a literal translation of some English sentences, there will most likely be some loss in meaning. Thus, supplementation of Chinese is necessary to be faithful to the original text and completely reproduce the meaning of the original text in accordance with the meaning, figures of speech and syntactic needs.
For example:
We need clean air， but unfortunately， air pollution is generally present， especially in cities.
[Analysis] “如此” is added in the Chinese translation text in order to avoid the incomplete expression of “尤其是在城市裏”.
There is no snow， the leaves are gone from the trees， the grass is dead.
III. Omission Translation Method: The literal translation of some words in the original text will lead to a cumbersome translation and will not conform with the customary Chinese writing style due to the gap in wording and grammatical structures between English and Chinese. Under this circumstance, some articles, pronouns, prepositions or conjunctions may be omitted without affecting the transmission of the meaning of the original text. For example:
There is no snow， the leaves are gone from the trees， the grass is dead.
[Analysis] The concept of “葉落” in Chinese is easy to understand, thus “from the trees” is omitted in the translation.
He could see that she had been patient all her life， so that now， after years of it， her lips were set in a gentle and saintly smile.
IV. Progressive Translation: The original text will be translated successively according to the order in the English expression, thus contributing to the basic unanimity of the translated text with the original text. For instance:
He could see that she had been patient all her life， so that now， after years of it， her lips were set in a gentle and saintly smile.
[Analysis] The order of the English sentence is identical to the order in Chinese in terms of structure.
It is our task to put up a nuclear power station somewhere by the end of this year.
V. Regressive Translation Method: As for complex English sentences, the latter part sometimes needs to be translated first, making the translation order from the latter part to the former parts of the original text.
For example:
It is our task to put up a nuclear power station somewhere by the end of this year.
[Analysis] When translating a series of adverbials in English, translators should organize the translated sentences according to the adverbials of time, place and manner.
During the meeting, a decision was made to transfer a part of the students to another school.
VI. Splitting: This lengthy English sentence will be split into several independent sentences with the original sequence to keep a coherence of the sentence.
For Example:
During the meeting, a decision was made to transfer a part of the students to another school.
[Analysis] The post positive attributive of the subject in the sentence is relatively long and the predicate is very short, so the post-infinitive and the main clause are separated in order to have a balanced sentence.
One can perhaps get a clearer picture of Japan’s acute population pressure by imagining what Switzerland would be like if that small and mountainous country were inhabited by 28 million people instead of the 5.7 million at present.
VII. Synthesis: Translators conduct a synthetic processing of the whole sentence based on the time order or logical order after careful consideration. The literal meanings of English and Chinese are not completely equivalent, but the connotative meanings are the same.
For Example:
One can perhaps get a clearer picture of Japan’s acute population pressure by imagining what Switzerland would be like if that small and mountainous country were inhabited by 28 million people instead of the 5.7 million at present.
[Analysis] The focus of the original sentence is on “One can…population pressure”. Based on the Chinese convention, followed by a summary, the narrative will be done first, thus the original text will be processed from the middle part of the sentence “by imagining…” to the beginning of the sentence. The free translation is also applied in the Chinese sentence.
The up mentioned techniques are commonly used in certified Chinese translation procedure. We will share more on this topic.