一个英国人的汉译英试译（以此接得某大项目）

nigerose wrote:

Dumont，既然你开这个帖子请peers评价你的译文，就应该虚心一点。

我觉得有个问题要提醒你一下，其实你也早就知道的道理。

翻译先要做到“信”，然后求“雅”。
你在论坛上的英文发言看来写得还比较“雅”。我不是学英文专业的，还写不出来呢。
但是，看看ysun在本帖子第三页指出的你的译文错误，基本上就栽在“信”上。做不到“信”，还跟native比什么nativeness？
国内专利翻译领域，基本上不会要英文专业毕业生做专利翻译，而是请理工科研究生博士生。当然理工科毕业生在英文水平上不如英语专业毕业生，但专利翻译最重要的是“信”，不需要“雅”。
其实无论什么翻译，首先要做到“信”。


[修改时间: 2009-03-24 02:23 GMT]

[修改时间: 2009-03-24 02:28 GMT]

dumont wrote:

wherestip

I think you are telling the truth here about how the issue came up.

It really was because you said the five points (which I think are mistakes) were all acceptable to a native that I somehow lost my patience (but not necessarily my temper).

I still can't understand why you say they are all acceptable speech patterns to a native. Take the most obvious example, where in the translation “kneading” (by the way, Mr. Sun has agreed that it should be “kneaded”) is used instead of the word "kneaded", to me, it is totally unacceptable. In real situations, I guess no translation agency, no proofreader, no end customer would have accepted that the two words “kneading” and “kneaded” are interchangeable in a sentence without drastically affecting the meaning of what is conveyed.

Granted, that you have a valid reason for saying so, then what about the mistakes that Mr. Sun found in my translation. Did you find anything in the mistakes pointed out by Mr Sun as “not really mistakes since they are all speech patterns acceptable to a native”? If that is the case, what is the point of inviting Mr. Sun to criticize the translation?

PS:
Having said all these, I still believe that I am taking this discussion rather professionally, without much of personal feelings against anyone. I would not necessarily expect the same from the other party or parties in the discussion, because I realize that there are people of different shades, so to speak. I wouldn’t care people saying disliking me. That’s their privilege. I only advise that do not make your dislike too obvious, because you cannot at the same time hide a certain weakness that is associated with that blatant showcasing of feeling.
I also congratulate the mods here for being very helpful in moderating this discussion.

isahuang wrote:

well, since the dollar has depreciated, it is probably only worth 1 cent now

I think what you mean by "nativity" should be "nativeness". And "native people" is different from native speakers.

dumont wrote:

isahuang

google results of "nativity of language" clearly outnumber that of "nativeness of language".

i would have hoped that wherestip would have come up with a "acceptable speech patterns to the native" theory to explain it, but .....

dumont wrote:

isahuang

google results of "nativity of language" clearly outnumber that of "nativeness of language".

i would have hoped that wherestip would have come up with a "acceptable speech patterns to the native" theory to explain it, but .....

isahuang wrote:

I wouldn't use the expression of nativeness of language. If you choose to compare "nativeness of language" with "nativity of language", that is your business. Both expressions sound weird. I don't care about google results. But I know people here don't say it that way.

dumont wrote:

Of course, you are all day long around the natives, you know better.

What are the words or ways they would use to say it then?

dumont wrote:

nigerose:

其他的不说,难道你也认为这个获选译文是"native"做的?

看来我是要把这个译文贴到natives多的地方,让他们评评到底是不是native做的。 不搞清楚我简直会死不瞑目啊

dumont wrote:

以上这个译稿，客户一口肯定是英国人的，说句老实话，我不太相信。

dumont wrote:

希望大家对我的译文也批批，抓到一个类似以上的比较严重的错误，感谢不尽。不要说没有问题，难道我的译文比英国人的译文还好吗？
：）

dumont wrote:

But of course, I do think my test is comparatively better than the one they choose.

dumont wrote:

I still can't understand why you say they are all acceptable speech patterns to a native. Take the most obvious example, where in the translation “kneading” (by the way, Mr. Sun has agreed that it should be “kneaded”) is used instead of the word "kneaded", to me, it is totally unacceptable. In real situations, I guess no translation agency, no proofreader, no end customer would have accepted that the two words “kneading” and “kneaded” are interchangeable in a sentence without drastically affecting the meaning of what is conveyed.

nigerose wrote:

而原文应该指“正在揉捏”。

Libin PhD wrote:

昨天收到一个广告邮件，是一个提供发送大文件服务的公司以CEO的名义发的，标题就是：

Cutting-Edge Services for Cutting Costs

这里Cutting Costs和kneading的情况类似。

另外，译者在心里可能觉得加热过程和kneading的过程同时发生，Native speakers 并不一定100%遵循既定的规则。

中文中也有各种各样的用法可能也不规范，但是时间久了就成了大家能够接受的了，尽管竭力提倡纯粹化的语法专家反对也没用。现有的语法规则也是长期使用慢慢形成的。