Matters Need to Notice When Translating English into Chinese

English-Chinese translation is a very common translating skill and is the problem that students often need to face. So, what principles translators need to know when they are translating? In fact, when translators translate they should know that the translation needs to be faithful to the original and the expression should follow Chinese habit. The translation should not be too much formal nor rigid. Translators should not stick to the original language blindly, because it is so easy to damage the ideas of the original. A good translation can achieve the unity of form and content.

In the process of English-Chinese translation, try to avoid free translation if the work is suitable for literal translation, and understand the work before doing the translation. In English, the first sentence is generally the main idea followed by illustration. There are methods to illustrate the main idea, for example, we can conclude first and then define, followed by synonymous to repeat or pronouns to refer. Using this technique, we can read through the full text first when translating English into Chinese to fully understand the meaning of the original and grasp the relationship among paragraphs, so that we can determine the word meaning and finish the translation with correct understanding.

We can start from the design and collocation in understanding the word to understand the meaning of the sentence when we do translation. For example, we can use suitable translation (translate according to the order of the original work) or inverse translation (translate in a contrary sequence of the order of the original one) to translate long sentence, while another method is repetition (the method to repeat the word appeared before to realize the smooth translation). In addition, there is a method of division to translate, which is to translate the constituent of the sentence into several parts. Using these methods properly, we can do a good job in the translation process.

It is very vital to understand the original work correctly. Besides, all we need to do is to use translation skills and express according to Chinese criterion. For instance, we can use the method to add the lexical, positive and negative expression, synectics, transformation and ellipsis etc. After the completion of a translation, we need to check the translation carefully and determine its accuracy and coherence, and pay attention to the key points, even at the same time bear in mind that the structure of the full text.