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[语言求助] 这篇文章翻译的水平怎么样,有什么错误么?

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匿名  发表于 2019-5-7 03:04:36 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
本帖最后由 匿名 于 2020-10-9 02:30 编辑

大家好啊!
今天在互联网上无意间看到有一个很厉害的朋友,把现在学生学习的语文课的所有文章都翻译成英文了。他的想法是这些文章的中文意思我们都已经很熟悉,然后对照着英文仔细体会,对比中英内容,英文会有很大收获。这个想法不错,但是问题就在于他翻译的质量怎么样。我看了几篇,感觉还是很厉害的,比如下面这一篇,这是小学一年级的第一篇:

远看山有色,
From distance, mountain is richly colorful.
近听水无声。
At close-up, flowing water does not make a sound.
春去花还在,
Spring is gone, but flowers are still around.
人来鸟不惊。
People come near but birds do not seem frightened.

怀特森先生是我六年级时的科学课老师。他是一个很有个性的人,
Mr. Whitson was our Grade 6 Science teacher, and he was a person with amazing personality.
教学方法独特,常常有出人意料的举动。
He had a unique approach in teaching, and he often did things that took people by surprise.
记得第一天上课,他给我们讲授的是一种名叫“猫猬兽”的动物。
I still remember in the first class he gave us a lecture on a type of animals called “hedgehog-cat”.
他说这种动物一般在夜间活动,
He said in the main this type of animals was active at night.
因为不能适应自然条件的变化而绝种了。
They became extinct because they could not cope with changes in natural conditions.
他一面侃侃而谈,一面让我们传看一个颅骨。
While he was talking away, he let us pass (2) around a skull to look at.
我们全都认真做了笔记,然后是随堂测验。
We conscientiously jotted down notes and then we took a quiz in class.
---------------------------------------------------------------
当他把卷子发下来的时候,我惊得目瞪口呆,
When Mr. Whitson gave me back the test paper I was stunned with eyes wide and mouth agape (3).
因为在我写下的每一个答案后面,竟然都被画上了一个刺眼的红叉叉。
It was because a glaring red “X” was marked at the end of every answer.
我得的是零分!
My score was “zero”.
可这不公平,因为每一道题都是根据我的课堂笔记回答的。
That was not fair because every question was answered following the notes taken in class.
而且,吃惊的并不是我一个人,
Besides, I was not alone in getting a shock.
我们班上的所有同学都得了零分。
All the other students in class also scored zero in that test.
---------------------------------------------------------------
“很简单,”怀特森先生说,“关于猫猬兽的一切,都是我故意编造出来的。
“It is very simple.” Mr. Whitson said, “I fabricated everything about hedgehog-cat.
这种动物从来就没有存在过。
This type of animals never existed.
因此,你们记在笔记本上的,全部是错误的信息。
Therefore what you wrote in your notebooks is all misleading information.
难道你们根据错误的信息得出的错误答案,还应该得分不成?”
Surely you can’t possibly expect to get marks from wrong answers based on erroneous information, do you?”
---------------------------------------------------------------
不用说,我们全都气炸了。
Needless to say we all blew our tops (4).
这算什么测验?
How could anyone call this a test?
怀特森算哪门子老师?
What kind of teacher would Mr. Whitson be?
---------------------------------------------------------------
怀特森先生似乎根本不理会我们的心情。
Mr. Whitson did not seem to care how we felt.
他说,每一个人都应该具有独立思考和独立判断事物真伪的能力,
He said everyone should have an independent mind to deliberate and judge right from wrong.
同时也应该具有怀疑的能力。
At the same time, people should be able to look at things with skepticism.
他告诉我们,当时他让我们传看的只是一个普普通通的猫的头骨盖,
He told us what we saw was an ordinary cat’s skull.
并且,就在那堂课上他还提醒过我们:到目前为止,世界上从来没有发现过这种动物的痕迹——
Besides, during class he reminded us that up the present time there was no trace of this type of animals.
那么这个头骨盖是从哪儿来的呢?
If such was the case, then where did the skull come from?
当时我们中间居然没有一个人提出疑问。
At that time, not one person among us actually raised a question.
“其实我的破绽还有很多。其中包括猫猬兽这个古怪的名字,
“In fact there were many flaws on what I said, including the peculiar name of ‘hedgehog-cat’.
你们却都深信不疑。”
But all of you fell for it as if they were Gospel.”
为此他特别强调,本次测验的零分纪录都将写进每个人的成绩报告单。
In that regard, he particularly emphasized the zero score of this test would be entered into everyone’s report card.
同时,他希望我们从这个零分中吸取教训,不要让自己的脑子睡大觉,
At the same time, he hoped we all learned a lesson in this zero-score test result and should never allow our brains to go into a trance.
一旦发现问题,就应该立刻指出来。
Whenever we notice a problem, we should point that out right away.
---------------------------------------------------------------
从此,科学课对于我们来说就成了一种“冒险”。
From that moment onwards, the science subject became an “adventure” from our perspective.
怀特森先生总是想方设法让我们来接受他的挑战。
Mr. Whitson always found ways in allowing us to take on his challenges.
有时,为了驳倒他的一个貌似正确的“论点”,我们常常会在课后花好几个小时甚至几天的时间去思考和论证。
Sometimes in order to disprove a seemingly correct argument from him, we often would spend hours, or even days, after school to ponder and expound on the issue.
然而,正是在一个个饶有趣味又充满刺激的过程中,我们逐渐增长了见识,也逐渐懂得了如何去接近真理。
However, it was those fun-filled and stimulating processes that we were able to enrich our experience and get close to the truth over time.
---------------------------------------------------------------
这是一种终身受益的教训。
It was a lesson that benefited us for life.
怀特森先生让我还有我的同学明白了一个重要的道理:不要迷信书本,也不要迷信权威。
Mr. Whitson also made all his students understand an important truth: we should not follow books and pundits blindly.
---------------------------------------------------------------
当然,并不是所有的人都能够理解怀特森先生的做法。
Of course not every person could appreciate Mr. Whitson’s approach.
有一次,我把怀特森先生的方法介绍给一位朋友。
Once I introduced Mr. Whitson’s method to a friend.
他听后吓坏了,说:“他怎么能够这样来糊弄你们呢?”
He was astounded and said: “How could he confuse you like that?”
我立刻看着那位朋友的眼睛,并告诉他:“不,你的看法错了。”
I looked my friend in the eyes and said to him: “No, the way you look at it is incorrect. (4)”

大家可不可以看看上面的这一段,你们感觉这个作者翻译的水平怎么样?我感觉还是很不错的,但是也有所怀疑。比如这一句:
怀特森先生总是想方设法让我们来接受他的挑战。
Mr. Whitson always found ways in allowing us to take on his challenges.

我在Google中搜索"found ways in allowing",竟然只有一个结果,就是这个作者翻译的页面...。
大家觉得作者翻译水平如何?可以把这些资料作为参考来学习么?








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发表于 2019-5-7 09:34:54 | 只看该作者


我觉得吧,这里有两个问题:1)要不要从汉英材料里面学英语;2)这篇汉英材料怎么样

第一个问题,现在的英语教材都强调原汁原味,我想楼主应该知道「大家的共识」是什么。

有的材料,比如英译红楼梦也很不错呀,这是实话,不过从「学习英语世界文化」的角度讲,这类材料作用小了点,所以一般也不怎么用。

有的作家,比如林语堂,汉语英语都很好,看哪个呢?这是阅读趣味的问题,本来就是同一个人,喜欢看就多看点,跟学英语关系不大。
下面说第二个问题,这篇材料怎么样

其实这材料,一看就是《读者》这类鸡汤杂志里常见的那种,具体怎么来的呢?先把英语文章翻成汉语,再注注水,加加鸡精,打打激素,非要读者从中学习个人生大道理不可。

把这种矫揉造作的文章重新逐字翻译成英语,纯粹是……嗯,说明做这事儿的人压根没察觉到「文风」这档子事儿。

有人讲,翻译还要讲文风哪?对啊,有本书叫《中式英语之鉴》,里面讲了不少文风问题,说白了就是,有的表达方法,说英语的人从来都不用,不能照着逐字说。

这篇文章里面有多少注水鸡精呢?好在其实我们有这篇文章的原文,先看段落:

假冒注水文段落:
从此,科学课对于我们来说就成了一种“冒险”。
From that moment onwards, the science subject became an “adventure” from our perspective.
怀特森先生总是想方设法让我们来接受他的挑战。
Mr. Whitson always found ways in allowing us to take on his challenges.
有时,为了驳倒他的一个貌似正确的“论点”,我们常常会在课后花好几个小时甚至几天的时间去思考和论证。
Sometimes in order to disprove a seemingly correct argument from him, we often would spend hours, or even days, after school to ponder and expound on the issue.
然而,正是在一个个饶有趣味又充满刺激的过程中,我们逐渐增长了见识,也逐渐懂得了如何去接近真理。
However, it was those fun-filled and stimulating processes that we were able to enrich our experience and get close to the truth over time.

原文段落:

Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn't let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

呵呵!「接受他的挑战」一句原文其实根本没有,后面两句原文是举例,翻译注水后竟然成了「有时」……


所以还能说什么呢?汉语本来就是注水鸡精文,把好端端的一篇简洁文字愣是编译成了倒胃口的鸡汤,选进教材都很勉强,竟然还有人看不出这个问题,硬要重新翻译成什么英文……你还要跟着这样的人学!英!文!吗!!!

原文在下面:

Best Teacher I Ever Had
by David Owen
Extracted from Reader's Digest (Asian Edition), April 1991, pp. 47-48.

url: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~leonghw/Courses/cattywampus.html
Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?

Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?

Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?

We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the every moment he was passing around the cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat's), hadn't he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn't have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn't been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.

Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience. Teachers and textbooks are not infallable. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.

Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn't let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren't used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say ``cattywampus.''

If I'm ever asked to propose a solution to the problems in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven't made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson's class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can have fun doing it.

Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. ``He shouldn't have tricked you like that,'' he said. I looked that teacher right in the eye and told him that he was wrong.


点评

有理有据,大写的服气  发表于 2019-5-8 09:34
完全赞同  发表于 2019-5-7 11:48
原文很清楚流畅,中文翻译和中文再翻译过来的英文都很干燥。  发表于 2019-5-7 10:11

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    发表于 2019-5-8 01:16:24 | 只看该作者
    先不说作者从英译汉的文章再译回英语的做法对不对,但这篇译文的质量确实不错呀,比如一些用得很好的词汇和短语:glaring, deliberate, go into a trance,  ponder and expound on the issue, etc. 可不像楼上某位说的是四级水平。。。我敢说有些词你不查词典你都不敢确定意思和用法合不合适,而作者要是没在词典等工具的辅助下翻译出这样的文章,可以说相当厉害了!

    再回到作者从译文再回翻到原文的这一问题上。经k大指出,中文译文在翻译过程中做了多处改动,甚至还有多处自行添加内容,这样再翻成原文确实有失妥当。但我们可以在这里“开发”出另一种学习方法,即找到翻译质量高的中文文章,再基于中文内容翻回原文,最后进行对比总结,可以说对译者来说大有裨益啊!另外值得提一下,楼主提供的作者翻译的文章来源于小学课本,小学课本内容简单且句式不复杂。如果文章失真度不低的话,不失为外语初级、中级学习者练习翻译技巧、掌握词汇的好途径!

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    发表于 2019-5-7 11:11:31 | 只看该作者
    我是不懂拿翻译者的身份出来抬轿子有什么意思

    汉语又不是只有一两百人说的语言,很缺翻译的人么

    这个年代也不是闭关锁国的年代,什么汉英材料看不到?

    如果要鉴赏人家的译文,请直接说译文
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    发表于 2019-5-7 08:57:33 | 只看该作者
    find ways of doing ,可能会好一些啊。
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    发表于 2019-5-7 09:01:14 | 只看该作者
    英语4级的水平。还要进一步提高。

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    发表于 2019-5-7 10:00:23 | 只看该作者
    klwo2 发表于 2019-5-7 09:34
    我觉得吧,这里有两个问题:1)要不要从汉英材料里面学英语;2)这篇汉英材料怎么样

    第一个问题 ...

    感谢版主分析!我是觉得他的想法很好,但我不会轻易学习质量不可靠的知识的。你分析的太有道理了,谢谢谢谢!
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    发表于 2019-5-7 10:12:14 | 只看该作者
    klwo2 发表于 2019-5-7 09:34
    我觉得吧,这里有两个问题:1)要不要从汉英材料里面学英语;2)这篇汉英材料怎么样

    第一个问题 ...

    太佩服您这个治学严谨的精神了,学习了!
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    发表于 2019-5-7 10:23:44 | 只看该作者
    很有意思,尤其是对比原文和译文和译文的译文来看…  
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    发表于 2019-5-7 10:44:17 | 只看该作者
    我记得这个翻译者和他儿子当中至少有一个人母语应该是英语,这个翻译明显是不错的。不是母语人士,汉英翻译时是不可能如此快的。
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    发表于 2019-5-7 10:45:48 | 只看该作者
    你去哪里 发表于 2019-5-7 10:44
    我记得这个翻译者和他儿子当中至少有一个人母语应该是英语,这个翻译明显是不错的。不是母语人士,汉英翻译 ...

    单论翻译本身,我也觉得挺好,个别语法错误。
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    发表于 2019-5-7 10:56:32 | 只看该作者
    jonah_w 发表于 2019-5-7 10:45
    单论翻译本身,我也觉得挺好,个别语法错误。

    反正学习汉英翻译是很好的,一些错误无非是翻译太快导致的,我感觉人家汉英翻译就像我们发朋友圈一样的速度,语法错误就像论坛里面讨论时太快出现错别字一样,与水平没什么直接关系。翻译者是多伦多校报编辑和他儿子。
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    [LV.5]常住居民I

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    笑傲江湖章灌水大神章

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    发表于 2019-5-7 11:51:41 | 只看该作者
    学英文是为了同世界交流,而不是同中文母语者交流。学习有中文背景的英文资料感觉有点两边不靠:如果想提高中文水平,为啥不直接读中文经典;如果想提高英文水平,为啥不读原汁原味的英文资料。

    我能想出的唯一的好处就是,可能有助于提高翻译中文资料的水平。如果志不在成为翻译,学习这样的资料我觉得没意义。
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    发表于 2019-5-7 13:04:31 | 只看该作者
    本帖最后由 一眼望不到边 于 2019-5-7 13:11 编辑

    那我也发一篇文章吧,自己翻译的(或者不应该说是“翻译”,而是“写作”),请大家指点指点


    加缪在《鼠疫》里写过一个哮喘病人,五十岁起便不再工作,靠一小笔年金过日子,平日里最讨厌钟表,就用两锅鹰嘴豆来估摸时间:每天醒来,把满满一口锅里的豆子一粒一粒地放进另一口锅里,每装十五锅,就该吃饭了。他妻子说,因为他从未对任何事情产生过兴趣。

    In his literary masterpiece 'The Plague', French novelist Albert Camus writes of an asthmatic who wouldn't take any job since he was but 50. This sickly character lived entirely on a meager allowance allotted once a year by the government.

    As far as anyone knew, the man had an idiosyncrasy - he hated clocks, presumably for their incessant noise of ticking, or for the tireless pivoting of their hands. To keep track of time, however, the man employed two frying pans as a substitute for the timepiece. Here is what he would be doing right after wake-up every single day: first, he would fill one of the two frying pans with chickpeas, then move these chickpeas one at a time to the other pan, and then do it all over again in reverse. On and on the process would go until he had finished up to 15 pans' worth of counting, at which point he knew it was time for lunch.

    No one could see the cause or the meaning of his weird idiosyncrasy. But according to his wife, this poor man had never shown the slightest interest in any other activity that wasn't this messing around with the two frying pans.

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    翰林院专用章灌水大神章笑傲江湖章小蜜蜂章管理组专用章

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    发表于 2019-5-8 09:57:35 | 只看该作者
    逆风的香 发表于 2019-5-8 01:16
    先不说作者从英译汉的文章再译回英语的做法对不对,但这篇译文的质量确实不错呀,比如一些用得很好的词汇和 ...

    我不知道啥叫【用得很好】,你在这里举的几个例子,只有glaring一词在原文中有对应句子,ponder and expound on the issue在原文中有大致对应的句子,一起看一下:

    因为在我写下的每一个答案后面,竟然都被画上了一个刺眼的红叉叉。
    It was because a glaring red “X” was marked at the end of every answer.


    There was a big red X through each of my answers.


    你的意思是原作者用了大俗词语big,不如glaring 用得好?

    有时,为了驳倒他的一个貌似正确的“论点”,我们常常会在课后花好几个小时甚至几天的时间去思考和论证。
    Sometimes in order to disprove a seemingly correct argument from him, we often would spend hours, or even days, after school to ponder and expound on the issue.


    It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept.


    put together 也不如 ponder and expound 用得好?

    我的立场一直是,这篇文字文风有问题,跟英语世界里面自然的文风相差很远,用词什么的根本是次要的。假如我们中国的小学生跑去迪士尼玩了一圈,写一篇作文开心一下,文笔稚嫩,用词平易,自然流畅,我们当然会认为写得不坏了。要是哪位外国人跑出来说,你的用词不华丽,看我手上这么大一本成语词典,不用点成语可惜了!话音未落,就哗啦啦地抖落出什么【春风拂面】【五光十色】【光怪陆离】,我们会说用了华丽辞藻,作文真的更好吗?

    当然了,从翻译的角度看,有人要说,原文有多恶心,译文跟它一样恶心,不是天经地义吗?这里有两个问题,一、【中式英语】一样可以用这个逻辑辩护,中文就是这么恶心着说的,翻成英文也得这么恶心;二、这文章很明显是翻译过来的,做二次翻译,一点思考也没有,像是合格的译者吗?