Is "circle" a mistake in the translation of Zhejiang University's anniversary?

Because there is an extra day off, everyone is very happy on the Dragon Boat Festival. I dare not say happiness, because saying "Happy Dragon Boat Festival" will be stopped by countless well-meaning people, who will tell you that you can only say "Ankang" seriously. After listening to their specious explanation, you follow. You have never questioned the true origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, never understood the relationship between the customs of the festival and this origin, and never questioned why the good people around you asserted that well-being is more in line with the atmosphere of the Dragon Boat Festival than happiness. In short, you followed, because you live in your circle. The truth of the matter and the ins and outs of the truth are not important. What matters is the attitude of people in the circle and the truth in their mouths. This is the dilemma caused by the circle.

The vigorous celebration of Zhejiang University120th anniversary before the Dragon Boat Festival is obviously caught in the predicament of this circle. The slogan of the main venue is impassioned, but the English translation below is ridiculous. Mr. Shu, a linguist and college English teacher, was ecstatic when he saw this translation, because this slogan, which is just over twenty words, integrates nine mistakes and is really a golden negative textbook. Teacher Shu's wonderful article (click to view) analyzes these mistakes in detail, which has been madly forwarded in the field of language teaching and translation. In two or three days, the reading volume reached 65438+ million+,which can be regarded as the contribution of Zhejiang University to English teaching.

As a professional manager who has been in the marketing field for many years, I am no stranger to such translation mistakes. I am more interested in the causes of these mistakes than the mistakes themselves. There are only a few possible reasons: the level of the principal, the workflow, the translator's vision and circle.

Level is definitely not a problem.

It is hard to believe that this is a question of level. Teacher Shu is just an ordinary university teacher, not an authoritative scholar in the translation field. What he pointed out is not a profound mistake. In fact, Mr. Shu's articles can be forwarded in such a large number, and "harmony without difference is not in the minority" itself shows that "flexion" is not too high. People who are better than Mr. Shu in Zhejiang University are afraid to be everywhere (it is not strange to offend Mr. Shu). Why didn't they produce high-quality translations? With the academic level of Zhejiang University, it is not arbitrary to speculate that this poor translation is not from the foreign language teacher of Zhejiang University, is it?

Is there a problem with the workflow?

So who wrote this translation?

Ten years ago, the mainstream business community in Canada suddenly realized that almost all the population growth in this country comes from immigrants, so it is very important to seize the new immigrant market. For a time, several major banks have launched multilingual web pages, which not only introduce their wealth management products, but also provide new immigrants with information on all aspects of Canadian life. However, the country's largest bank was smarter than it was, and translated "living in Canada" into "living in Canada" on its Chinese website, as if immigrants were struggling for survival, which became a joke for a while. With tens of thousands of employees in such a big bank, isn't there anyone who is proficient in Chinese? It's not that simple. I know the procedures of the Bank of Canada, and it is impossible for an insider to complete such a translation. The reason is simple-avoiding risks. The official languages of Canada are English and French. If a large company publishes promotional materials in Chinese, it will generally add a small line at the end, indicating that all contents are subject to English or French version, and Chinese translation is for reference only. Even if there is such a statement, they still feel uneasy, because if the translation comes from the hands of internal employees, once there is a legal dispute, it is difficult for the company to pull itself out of the middle and hand it over to a third-party translation company, and there is no responsibility for any problems.

Although I don't know how the slogan of Zhejiang University came out, from the example I gave, we might as well guess that the staff of Zhejiang University probably outsourced translation to a third party for similar reasons, so as not to take responsibility for it. Maybe it's because of the workflow, or other reasons we don't know. In this process, they ignored the experts in the school and never thought of asking for their advice.

Vision and circle

It is also a good choice to give it to a translation company. After all, they are professionals in this field. In fact, the slogan translated by the translation company is not too wrong. I tried Google Translation, Youdao Translation and Baidu Translation respectively, and the results were all wrong, far lower than this version of Zhejiang University.

The problem is not the level, but the horizon and circle. My first job after graduating from college was in an American-funded enterprise. My working language is English, all my emails are written in English, and there is no Chinese input method in my computer. At that time, no one in my circle wrote business in Chinese, so my vision in this area was very limited. A few years later, I went to work in a Chinese-funded enterprise and suddenly found that I didn't know how to write an email in Chinese. The balance of tone, the proportion of words and expressions, and even the titles of superiors and subordinates have a process of re-adaptation. Although Chinese is my mother tongue and I have been engaged in writing, it is a brand-new challenge for me to communicate with people in Chinese in the workplace environment. I must get rid of the influence of the old circle on my thinking habits and integrate into the new circle.

Similarly, translation is a human being and has its own life circle and professional circle. Aside from the top Daniel, ordinary English translators have no long-term experience in living and working in English-speaking countries, and their horizons are not wide enough. It is not difficult to imagine that the daily contact of a translation company in China is nothing more than official documents, business contracts, product descriptions and so on. This kind of translation requires high accuracy. Advertising copy and advertising language are completely different. If they have not been exposed to authentic slogans in the English-speaking world, then when they take over this translation job, they will take it for granted that they will pursue accuracy from their past work experience, regardless of whether the language is authentic or not. This is a limitation caused by vision.

The limitations brought by the circle are even more harmful. When everyone in your circle of friends tells you that the Dragon Boat Festival can't be said to be happy, but to be well-being, this invisible pressure will make you drift with the tide. If the clients who ask you to translate slogans, their leaders, their colleagues and their clients, all have a little knowledge of English, all live in the same language circle with you, and even their horizons are not as broad as yours, then as a translator, you may not even realize the limitations of your horizons.

What shall we do? Many people learn English by watching American and English dramas. This is obviously a shortcut to the south, leading directly to the most authentic English. But this is a dialogue in a life scene. If you want to improve the translation level of business English advertising slogans, you might as well look at the writing methods of business newspaper articles such as The Wall Street Times and English Advertising, and give yourself a new "circle".