The Best Approach for Chinese into English Translation!

By Yi Zhang

In choosing translators, a good guideline to follow would be to use translators whose mother language is the target language. For example, we only use a native French-speaking translator to perform translation from English into French, but never from French into English. The reason behind this is that people are usually more proficient in manipulating their own mother languages.

By managing large projects involving Chinese translation into English in the past two years, it has taught me that in handling this language pair, the ideal candidate is not native English-speakers, but native Chinese-speakers living abroad.

The challenge starts with qualifications. Only a limited pool [of native English-speaking translators] was available to choose from. For those who had passed our sample test, we found that the final translation was not satisfactory due to many misunderstandings of the original Chinese text.

Mistakes could be sorted into the following three categories:

1. Complicated or Loosely Organized Sentences in Chinese

Example:
A school principal plays an important role in leadership and policy decisions in every aspect of a school’s management, education and instruction.

Translated As:
Every aspect of a school principal’s management, education, and instruction plays an important role in leadership and policy decisions in a school.

2. Cultural References

Example:
The In-Depth Learning Method Fits the Needs of Environmental Education

Translated As:
The In-Depth Learning Method Calls Environmental Education to Mind

3. Specific Chinese Words or Phrases and Their Meanings

Example 1:
Environmental Education as a Project

Translated As:
Teaching Environmental Education as a Topic for Class Discussion

Example 2:
Hand-Written Poster

Translated As:
Prose

Despite their excellent English writing skills, many native English-speaking translators had a hard time making full sense of the source Chinese documents. A sentence of several clauses connected by internal logic was sometimes disrupted, leading to inaccurate or distorted meaning. On occasion, we also saw inaccurate understanding of the cultural references made in regards to specific Chinese words or phrases. Their work required careful editing and proofreading.

In today's age, there are large volumes of Chinese text to be translated where commerce between China and North America is still very active. There is way too much translation needed compared to the number of qualified translators available (the ones that are available are native English-speakers). After a few rounds of recruiting and evaluation, we have come to the conclusion that in handling the language pair of Chinese into English, native Chinese-speakers living abroad is our best choice. They are well-educated, possess excellent English writing skills and best of all, have a solid mastery of the Chinese language. Living overseas in an English-speaking environment makes peer support from native English-speakers easily accessible also.

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