Chinese Translation Instance and skills

Chinese Translation Instance and skills

1. Formal and Informal, Attributive Clauses and Culture

Source: Our company was founded by young entrepreneurs who all experienced problems with the privacy issues you see today. Governments gather massive amounts of information of citizens in politically unstable nations.

Chinese: Crypted由一个年轻富有活力的团队创办. 我们在个人隐私安全和保护方面有着丰富的经验. 如今,出于商业或其它目的, 黑客或某些组织会收集和窃取大量的私人信息.

Direct translation from Chinese:

The Crypted was founded by a young and active team. We have rich experience on with the privacy issues. Today, for commercial or other purposes, Hacker or other organizations gather massive  personal information.

Comment:

1. 1 Why I use Company name – “Crypted” to replace “Our Company”?

A: It follows the Chinese language style. when you first time refer to the company in Chinese in a a formal company profile, We usually use company name instead of “our company (我们公司)” or “we（我们）”.

Both “our company (我们公司)” and “we（我们）” in Chinese are verbal and informal in Chinese.

1.2 Why I use a separated sentence to translate content following “Who all experienced problems…”?

A: There are also “attribute “ in Chinese, eg “这是一个非常有创造力的翻译团队（It is a creative translation team）”- “有创造力的” is a pre-attribute of “翻译团队”.

But for Attributive Clauses, it is better to use a separated sentence. Why? If try to use a sentence in Chinese, the length will be very long and hard to understand.

1.3 Why I totally change the second sentence?

A: it considers Culture! In china, most people still trust their government. And more, China is not one of “unstable nations”. Actually，the translation “某些组织(other organizations)” already include China government and other governments even are more accurate.

2. Modifier (language ) sequence

English: Today, some of the world's big companies begin to embrace the new concept.

In above stentence, there are three modifiers for "companies" - "some of",  "World's ", "Biggest". how to arrange the sequenece of them in Chinese. generally, you will get the following 4 results:

Chinese option 1: 今天, 一些世界上的大型企业开始采用这一理念。

Chinese  option 2: 今天， 世界上的一些大型企业开始采用这一理念。

Chinese Option 3：今天，世界上的大型的一些企业开始采用这一理念。

Chinese Option 4： 今天，一些大型的世界上的企业开始采用这一理念。

2.1  which one is accepted in modern Mandarin (Chinese)?

Answer: option 1 and option 2 are accepted. the others are wrong.

2.2 Which one is the best Chinese stentence?

Answer: option 2

2.3 Why option 2 is the best one?

First, we sort three modifiers by categories.

"Some of" is quantifier;

"World's" is about space/location

"Big" is about size of company, one attribute of company. big is adjective in Chinese

rules we must know:

a. big company (大型企业）is common saying - we must put "big" in front of "company", so option 3 and 4 are wrong

b. it better to put a quantifier more close to its object when another modifier is a countalbe noun . so option 2 is the best one.

Rules we get now --  put a quantifier more close to its object when another modifier is a countalbe noun .

 

大型机械企业 vs 机械大型企业 - Which is right saying ?

Answer: 大型机械企业 is right.

Why?

Answer: when we sort company by size /scale, there are only three - big, medium, smal. when we sort company by industry, there are many industries -electronic, mechanical, plastics, agriculture...

So mechanical company (机械企业) is more specific than big company (大型企业）， we must put "more specific"  modifier close to object.

Rules we get now -- put "more specific"  modifier close to object.

 

 

3. Omit Subject for ad translation and similar context

 

Original text (Ad words):

Do you know how to carve ham correctly? Do you know how to get the perfect slice, tell the difference between good ham and low-quality ham, or how to preserve it?

Good Translation:

想知道怎样正确地切火腿吗？ 怎样才能切下完美的火腿薄片？ 如何区分火腿质量的好坏？还有怎样保存火腿吗？

Poor Translation:

 

您知道怎样正确地切火腿吗？您知道怎样能切下完美的薄片，如何区分火腿质量的好坏，以及怎样保存它们吗？

 

Comments:

We should omit subject  - 您(you) in a good translation.