Does Longteng.com have selective translation?

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Source: Zhihu.

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First of all, make it clear: yes!

As an old member of Longteng (Longteng read the translation of his net post before the forum, and the website at that time was really poor), I have some say on this issue.

This post only discusses the political section, because I think this section has the most obvious tendency.

First of all, translation is indeed selective. As long as you look closely at Longteng Forum, you will soon find the tendency of translation (in the political section): you prefer to praise China's posts, while criticizing China's posts is even more stupid criticism. In short, reading too much will lead to illusion: 1. Foreigners appreciate China very much. It is foolish to criticize foreigners who don't appreciate China in China.

But this is not the fault of the translator, but various reasons lead to this situation.

1. The properties of Longteng.com itself. As a net post translation forum, naturally there are a large number of friends who don't understand foreign languages who need to know how the outside world views our country. People with foreign language ability will go to the outside media by themselves, while those with economic ability will go abroad to study and live, and get in touch with ordinary people abroad directly to get information. No, you can only get outside information through these similar translation websites. Therefore, it is inevitable for translators to translate posts selectively for the needs of Longteng audience. The more likes and replies the audience likes, the more natural translators will have the motivation to make a comeback.

2. At present, the nationalist sentiment in China is high. Due to the strong rise of China in the past decade (undoubtedly the political, economic and military rise, especially overseas), some people have a high understanding of nationalism and patriotism that are out of the picture. At this time, everyone likes to watch the translation of the rise of great powers, and can feel the envy of foreign countries for the development of China, which can satisfy the appetite of Longteng audience. It looks good! Awesome! And that kind of brain-dead criticism of China's post also satisfies the audience's appetite. 233! Foreigners are so stupid! Self-confidence is greatly satisfied. It's not that people think what he said is wrong, but that people don't like watching it because of embarrassment. To tell the truth, many problems in China are related to the system, and ordinary people are unable to solve them, so they simply avoid this problem. This is equivalent to screening out those negative news in disguise, giving Longteng audience an illusion that foreigners are either very envious of China's development or will only criticize China with brain damage. As a result, rational criticism of the China issue has gradually become unacceptable, forming a vicious circle.

3. Because of 1 and 2, websites like Longteng are destined to attract a large number of nationalists from the beginning. They may come here to see foreigners praise themselves. Due to the open registration of websites, there will inevitably be a common problem faced by all open registration websites: more and more water, and the average quality of netizens will inevitably decline. In fact, Longteng's early comments are not so bloody, and everyone will pay great attention to maintaining the discussion atmosphere of the forum. But it gradually developed into this situation, and people who speak disrespectfully always occupy the page. The audience's feedback will affect the translator's translation. I remember that there were excellent translators and commentators before, and the atmosphere of the forum became worse, and they were left alive by newcomers.

4. External factors, you know: censorship. It's not that you don't want to hand it in, but that you try to hand it in and risk being reported and deleted. Even if you dare to send it, Longteng administrator may not be willing to send your post for fear of trouble. Even if it is sent, the audience may not buy it for the above reasons, and finally find themselves doing a thankless thing and have no motivation to continue. This, I think, is a very important reason, that is, external factors make it difficult to publish posts on the rational view of the China issue. Officials themselves don't want you to see this.

5. There are many posts that can seriously criticize China and rationally point out China's shortcomings, but you need to rationally tell the root and essence of a problem, which requires a lot of language descriptions, many of which are lengthy papers. This translation will be very tired. Perhaps this part itself has caused many translators not to translate. Fast food websites are really much better than posts. But since it is a fast food online post, the natural level is not much higher.

6. It's really a problem with foreign net posts. As I said in point 5 above, online forum posts are in the form of fast food, and foreign netizens are ordinary people. Who will analyze the problem at length, naturally all kinds of brain-dead comments that can't stand scrutiny will come out. Talking about brain damage here is not only criticizing China's viewpoint, but also praising China's viewpoint. It's just that people like to watch others praise themselves, often ignoring this point and reveling in the feeling of being praised and appreciated.

Finally, to sum up:

Longteng's net posts are biased in translation, but this is not intentional by translators or manipulated by forum managers, but a tendency gradually formed under the double screening of external environment and internal audience. Longteng Forum itself is an open forum, and you can translate all kinds of posts that you think are valuable. However, due to the above reasons, such posts are generally difficult to occupy the layout or even appear, which leads to your impression of Longteng website.

Even though Longteng posted online translation has these problems, I still thank those translators who have paid silently.

The above is my humble opinion of an old audience of Longteng. Thank you for your advice.