Guest guest Posted November 22, 2001 Report Share Posted November 22, 2001 > > >>>>>>Unfortunately I do not read enough to read complete books and do not have the time to learn (or more accurately have other priorities). So I have to rely on translations. I think when one reads a translation one can tell when characters are translated out of context. How? If the reading sounds artificial it probably follows such formulary i.e. standard translation for each character without taking context into account. Chinese is certainly a context dependent language, but I don't see how you go about arriving at such decisions without a knowledge of those contexts. I do not want to name names or translations but I see this often. To me an example of a well written book, although not a strictly translation, is the new Warm disease from eastland press. I haven't had a chance to look at it carefully yet, but I've seen the good things said about it on the list recently and hope to take a close look before long. But when you appraise the value of the translated material, how do you determine such issues as context? authenticity? etc. I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by " formulary " but one of the great benefits of a published bilingual gloss is that it permits readers to look at translated texts and know more or less at a glance what original Chinese term is intended by a given English word or phrase. Do you find value in this? Ken > - > yulong@m... > > Thursday, November 22, 2001 1:09 PM > Reading (was Re: Shaoyang) > > > Alon, > > > > c) I believe there are nuances in the language that are very deep > are hard to understand?Hence the argument to learn to read. > > >>>>That is why an approach that takes a formulary approach to > translation does not work. > > The point made here was the importance of > learning to read Chinese. It's an important > one, since access to the knowledge base of > the subject depends upon access to the > language in which the bulk of that knowledge > base is stored. > > It is true that until we can get up to speed > with providing access to the Chinese originals > we are put in a position of having to rely > upon translations, and for making decisions > as to which translations to use, we should > discuss the different approaches different > translators have used and continue to use. > > Not sure exactly what you mean by " formulary > approach " . Maybe you can clarify. And if > whatever this approach is doesn't work for > you, what do you prefer? > > Do you do translation? If so, what methods > do you use? > > Ken > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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