Translation Strategies

First and foremost, let me outline the difficulties of translating an abstract modern idea or theory from English to Chinese. One of the biggest obstacles is the lack of equivalent vocabulary in modern Chinese. Contemporary ideas are based on the conceptualization of modernity and modernism. Modern China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, is often referred to as a “compressed modernity”, in which modernization is fast tracked physically yet the language and school of thoughts is slower to keep up.

One solution to this problem, which has been adopted by Chinese scholars since its early days of translation of western ideas, is to use the Chinese words closest to the English meanings. This method of semantic translation of English words may be effective elsewhere, but quite problematic in translating subtle abstract modern ideas, where nuance is essential to the original meaning but usually gets lost in this way of translation. For example, the English word “modern” is translated into Chinese as xiandai (現代). Xiandai is a compound phrase composed of two Chinese characters: xian, which means the present, and dai, which means era. The word “modern” in English thus becomes “present era” in Chinese. This translation obviously leaves out the historical context of “modern”, and explains why many Chinese high school students have a hard time understanding why a time as far back as the 1920s and 1930s could be called xiandai.

If semantic translation of words loses subtle meanings, phonetic translation of words seems to overcome this problem. For example, In Japanese, foreign words that have no Japanese equivalents are incorporated into Japanese via Japanese hiragana and katakana mimicking the phoneme of Latin alphabets. The phonetic translation keeps the original connotation intact because it does not translate the meaning. In Chinese, phonetic translation is similarly possible. In the 1930s China, the word “modern” was phonetically translated as modeng (摩登). Modeng consists of two Chinese characters that represent the English pronunciation rather than the meaning. Compared to xiandai, Modeng would not be confused with “present era.” Unfortunately, phonetic translation of words is seldom used in Chinese today.

Accurate Chinese translation of words is most crucial to the success of literally linguistic translation of a complex modern idea. When the idea is articulated through many subtle uses of English terms, linguistic translation reaches an impasse: not enough Chinese characters could be accurately substituted for the English words. In this circumstance, the inexperienced translator would find the easy way out by force using some wrong Chinese words or even creating some non-existing phrase.

The main solution to this problem is to use adapted translation whenever it calls for. Unlike the problematic substitution of Chinese words for English words, adapted translation allows the meaning to get cross without having to follow faithfully the original words and structures and therefore bypass the limitation of vocabulary. Most experienced translator would like to use the combination of linguistic translation and adapted translation. Linguistic translation on the positive side is faithful to the original text, on the negative side, is confusing to the reader because un-adapted words and structure hinders understanding. Since the website is written for educated readers who seek quick understanding of foreign thoughts rather than primary source researching, being understandable takes precedence over being literally faithful.

I have mentioned the general challenge of art translation between English and Chinese. Now I need to specify the common errors of translation that hinder understanding of translated ideas, because the strategy that I am going to present is set against them. Here are the list of common problems:

1) Linguistic translation is used too much. Not much adaption of language structure is made. English words and expressions are mechanically substituted by Chinese characters with similar meanings. Translations as such read like an enhanced Google translation.

2) The presumptions of many translated ideas are not presented. Many arguments are based on hidden presumptions, which do not get mentioned as common senses or consensus. However, when an English argument is migrated for Chinese readership, the presumptions can not necessarily be taken for granted as common senses. Some of them should be treated as new information since the knowledge scope of a Chinese reader does not fully overlap with that of an English reader. For this reason, too much linguistic translations could be jumpy for Chinese readers to read as some hidden presumptions become missing information that is crucial to link logically different arguments.

3) The detachment of Chinese context alienates the reader. Some English ideas are illustrated with examples familiar to English readers. When translated into Chinese literally, these culturally-specific examples may be unfamiliar or even misleading to Chinese readers, and thus fail to facilitate understanding.

To address this problems, my translating strategies are based on highly adapted translation. In short, I do not translate (in a narrow sense) the English ideas; I re-create them in Chinese. Re-creation is a process through which I strip off the juicy original texts and keep only the dry kernel of the essential ideas as well as main supporting arguments; then I enrich the kernel with juicy Chinese friendly elements, which non-exhaustingly include logic, examples, structures, value, humor and implications. When re-creating ideas, I always keep the Chinese reader in mind, ponder into their knowledge pool, and anchor the foreign ideas accordingly. Content-wise, the outcomes are faithful to the core of the original ideas; form-wise, my re-creations are completely unrecognizable compared with the original texts, yet understandable and enjoyable for Chinese readership.

1) If necessary to facilitate understanding, I break an idea or argument into separate ones in different Chinese articles, or conversely glue different ideas or arguments from different original texts into a singular Chinese article. These strategies are based on my own process of understanding the ideas and the process I perceive of the Chinese reader, as well as the necessity to fill in the gap of unfamiliar hidden presumptions, or skip over some peripheral arguments so as to accentuate a sharp central idea for easy understanding.

2) In many instances, I come up with my own examples taken from everyday life in which Chinese readers can relate to.

3) The adaption for better communication does not compromise the complexity of the original ideas. A complex idea is usually not presented to overwhelm the reader in one article. To reduce cognitive load, it is usually broken down into smaller parts explained in different short articles, which accumulatedly form a comprehensive whole. This strategy requires planning ahead the order of short articles chronologically.

4) I sometimes limit the length of articles within a reasonable one thousand Chinese characters for online reading habits. Occasionally I write long articles for a feature read to punctuate the reading experience.

5) I try to avoid academic terminologies that repel many Chinese readers. I paraphrase them instead. If I have to mention them, or at times a whole article is about one terminology, I use examples to explain their meanings.

6) There are certainly exceptions in which a more direct translation strategy is used, for example, some interviews.

I notice that many readers do not like reading ideas and theories not because these ideas and theories are boring, but partly because they have been poorly presented to the readers. What my strategic translation does is to make the ideas and theories appealing, easy, and enjoyable to read.