SYZ and CY Readers' Forum

这里又冷清起来啦~
为什么没有人讨论呢(⊙o⊙)？

大家好！ 對不起我過了這麼久才來寫回應。


Chenbao, thank you so much again! 我作爸爸給我的功課時好像常常不專心。。。 可是只有你發現！媽媽爸爸都沒有看到這些錯誤哈哈。 還好我在學校不會這麼粗心。

I often intentionally leave out some details when I translate if I feel that those details would subtract from the essence of the story in English form. English is clearly much wordier than Chinese, so sometimes reading too many details would cause the reader's attention to stray from the meaning or purpose of the passage as a whole.
For example, the co-workers are not important characters in the story. It's easy to give a colorful description of them in a few Chinese words, but English adjectives are so long that I think they would mislead the reader into believing the co-workers matter. How the manager describes Stinky Head is what we need to focus on. Therefore, I chose the shortest way to introduce the quote. One anonymous new co-worker is enough for the purpose of the sentence. The neighbor Mrs. Zhang is not an important character either.

I also choose not to translate certain words literally when I think a different word would sound more artistic while conveying the same point. For example, "the next life" has such a positive and glorious connotation! I like to blame myths on society, instead of on Americans.
"To wring one's hands" means "to clasp and twist one's hands together as a gesture of great distress, especially when one is powerless to change the situation." It was the best action I could think of for Stinky Head's emotions and confusion. Shaking or waving sound like happy actions. This might be a cultural difference.
Pale-skinned was my mistake. Fair-skinned would work.

Basically, I strive to make the story flow and remain entertaining in English, and I frequently wouldn't be able to do that if I translated word for word.

Yeah I really thought they were hats made of melon peel... hilarious.


Thank you, NELSON1207! You are correct about lotus flower. I guess I need to work on my flower names. Good luck with post-grad life! Thank you for all your compliments!

小帆，我是一个新手！虽然已经是大三的学生了~但是从小到大一直没有读过什么文学作品，就连中国的四大名著都没看过，自从08年无意中在新华书店看了刘老师的书籍！渐渐的沉浸里面了，喜欢刘老师的生活态度！喜欢他的人生及价值观。看到好多对你的描写，从你小时候到现在，注入了他所有的爱，也让他为爱一直漂泊~刘老师在《艺术人生》的节目我都看了，经典的语言透露出他对生活的热爱~~热爱你们一家！祝福你们一家~~愿刘老师身体安康，合家欢乐~祝伴随刘老师作品长大的小帆快快乐乐的成长~~生活中的美让我们一起品味~~
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