"Bang!"
A thick dictionary fell on the sofa, bounced up, and fell.
Qiqi, who was sitting in the baby stroller, was so shocked that she nodded her head and looked at the culprit with her mouth wide open. Han Yan was now in high spirits. He jumped onto the sofa, waved his arms, and shouted, "Finally finished!" Qiqi didn't know that his impassioned voice and exaggerated actions seemed to be reprimanding her in Qiqi's eyes. She shrank back into the car and pursed her lips. Then, she burst into wails, and tears the size of beans rolled out of her eyes like a string of pearls.
Qiqi was usually very obedient and didn't cry much, but Han Yan wasn't naive enough to think that she wouldn't cry. Because once Qiqi cried, it would be earth-shattering and earth-shattering! It was hard to believe that such a huge amount of energy could erupt from her small body.
Han Yan's arms were still waving in the air when he was frightened by Qiqi's crying.
"Hey! My little princess, what's wrong?" He quickly picked up Qiqi from the baby stroller.
Han Yan softly coaxed her and rocked her in his arms. When he picked her up just now, Qiqi's loud crying almost broke his eardrums. Under her father's comforting, Qiqi's storm finally turned into a gentle breeze and drizzle. She just lay in her father's arms and sobbed slightly. Her little mouth was closed, and she looked very wronged.
"Dong dong dong!"
Han Yan opened the door. It was Fang Wenjing.
"Han Yan, what's wrong with Qiqi?" Fang Wenjing asked, "I just heard her crying next door, and I thought something happened."
"No, no, maybe I scared her just now and she cried." Han Yan smiled bitterly. Qiqi's voice was too penetrating. Fortunately, she wasn't like other children who treated crying as a daily task. Otherwise, the whole building wouldn't be peaceful.
"Sister Fang, aren't you in the store?" Han Yan asked curiously.
"Oh, I just came back to get something." Fang Wenjing smiled.
"If that's the case, then Sister Fang, I'll leave you to it. I'm really sorry for troubling you." Han Yan patted Qiqi's back. She had stopped crying, but her breathing was still a little rapid.
"Well, if there's anything you can't solve, remember to tell us!" After Fang Wenjing finished, she waved at Han Yan and went downstairs.
"Oh, okay, thank you! Take care, Sister Fang." Han Yan watched Fang Wenjing leave before returning.
"Qiqi, why did you suddenly cry?" Han Yan asked as he wiped the tears off Qiqi's face with a wet towel.
Qiqi naturally didn't understand, but she kept her mouth shut and looked at Han Yan with her big eyes. Her eyes were filled with hidden bitterness.
"Okay! It's daddy's fault, daddy's fault." Han Yan was stared at by Qiqi like this, and his forehead was covered in cold sweat. He reached out his hand to cover Qiqi's eyes, then put it down, covered it again, and put it down again.
When Qiqi's eyes were covered, she would be stunned for a moment. After a few times, she finally smiled, and her big eyes turned into two crescent moons.
"Baby, do you know? Daddy memorized a thick dictionary!" Han Yan said proudly, "Tens of thousands of words!"
After spending nearly 20 days, he finally finished reading the Oxford Advanced English-Chinese Dictionary. He didn't just read it, he really memorized it! The current Han Yan, as long as it wasn't some special industry jargon, it could be said that there were no words that could stump him!
One must know that if one wanted to read some English articles or reports, one's vocabulary would be about six thousand words. If one studied abroad, TOEFL and GRE would be eight thousand to ten thousand words. Nativespeakers were people whose mother tongue was English. For example, Americans, their vocabulary was usually in the range of twenty to thirty thousand words. Shakespeare, for example, had written so many works in his life that he had a vocabulary of over twenty thousand words. Of course, there were many old English words in his works, but that didn't stop us from counting.
The dictionary that Han Yan memorized actually contained more than one hundred and eighty thousand words and phrases. Although many of the words were not commonly used and were hard to come by, think about how Han Yan was sitting on one hundred and eighty thousand words. What kind of situation would it be if he had a vocabulary of one hundred and eighty thousand words? In terms of vocabulary, even Shakespeare would be left behind by him by a few streets!
Of course, vocabulary was only the foundation of learning English. If one's grammar was not up to standard and did not know how to use it, it would be useless.
China's English teaching had been developing towards Chinglish. Not to mention junior high and senior high school students, even university students' English articles did not conform to English logic! Chinese people would feel that their writing was brilliant, but foreigners who used English as their mother tongue would feel awkward when they read it.
The reason was that the grammar teaching was not up to standard. One generation would harm the next generation!
So, before this, Han Yan had been learning grammar again. He also carefully studied some American literature, reports, and technical documents to learn how to use their words.
If Han Yan's English was at the level of an undergraduate, then now, he was at the level of a professor! He only lacked practical experience now.
In the afternoon, Han Yan climbed out of bed, washed his face, and sat in front of the computer in the living room. He turned on the computer and clicked on Xinda Translation Company's website from his bookmarks. He logged into his registered translator account.
Xinda Translation Company's account registration required one to provide real personal information. But the company would help the translator to keep this information confidential. This way, it would be easier for them to verify the translator's identity and ensure that the translator's information would not be leaked. Of course, the most important thing was that other translation companies could not find out if their employees were working part-time in the company. Most of the time, the translators used their own nicknames. Han Yan still used his nickname, "Condor Hero."
This account was the lowest level of apprentice translator. But Han Yan did not mind. This was because he could skip the Gold, Silver, and Bronze examinations. He did not need to work so hard to become a translator and go through so much trouble. As long as he had the ability, he could take the higher examinations anytime.
Han Yan clicked on "Participate in the Gold Medal Translator Assessment" and saw a new page appear on the webpage. The new page was very simple. There was a bar that separated the page into two levels. The top level was the article they had given, and the bottom was a text box to enter the translation. There was also a red countdown timer on the top right corner.
There were two questions in the assessment. Translate a 500-word Chinese article and a 500-word English article. The total time limit was 2 hours. The assessment did not prohibit the translator from doing anything else. That meant the translator was allowed to use a dictionary or Google Translate. But it was impossible to use Google Translate to reach the level of a Gold Medal Translator!
The Chinese article was a technical document for the chemical industry. There were no special technical terms. The basic inorganic compounds could be found in the Oxford Dictionary. This was too easy for Han Yan!
There was nothing much to say about the technical document translation. It could be said that it was a word-for-word translation. It ensured that there were no mistakes in the translation process, and it was easy to read. Han Yan translated this technical document. Basically, after reading it, he memorized it in his heart. His hands kept tapping on the keyboard. He didn't need any drafts. Very quickly, he finished reading it. It didn't even take 15 minutes.
The English article was a literary document. Han Yan was much more cautious when reading it. Most of the time, the meaning of a literary work would not just stop at the surface. There would be many hidden meanings between the lines. Some were figurative meanings, while others were rhetorical meanings similar to irony. Han Yan read it once, and then tried to figure it out twice in his mind. Only then did he truly understand the meaning of this document.
As expected, the test to become a gold medal interpreter was not that simple. There was an untranslatable sentence trap.
Untranslatability is generally divided into linguistic and cultural untranslatability.
The former is like Chinese poetry. The changes in our tone cannot be translated, and others can feel it through another language. For another example, there is a couplet in China: "Eight kings of the pipa, qin and se, the king is above; Four little demons, ghosts, and ghosts invade the borders." Such a wonderful correspondence obtained through disassembling words could not be reflected in other words at all.
The latter is reflected in the culture-loaded words. Culture-loaded words refer to "words that contain rich social and cultural meanings beyond the original meaning or conceptual meaning." Concepts may seem abstract and difficult to understand, but it is easy to understand with a few examples. For example, the archway is a traditional ancient building unique to China. There is no similar building in other countries, let alone the corresponding English word. Therefore, this caused an untranslatable phenomenon in culture. Therefore, its English translation is the Chinese Pinyin "Pailou Building." For example, in Chinese, the status of a dog was very low. For example, "bad friends," "adulterous couple," and so on, the meanings of dogs were relatively lowly. However, in English, dogs were considered to have a positive connotation. Therefore, this caused an impossible phenomenon.
There was a sentence in the article that said, "You can't make a Mercuryofeverylog." This sentence could be translated as, "You can't just carve a Wind God out of any random wood." However, such a translation is inexplicable. Mercury is the God of Wind in Greek myths and legends. It has a deeper meaning here. The statue of the God of Wind can only be carved out of boxwood.
Generally speaking, translators who do not fully understand this allusion will reluctantly translate it. Translators who understand this allusion will be helpless when faced with such an untranslatable phenomenon. The simplest and most crude way is to choose the method of adding notes in brackets to explain it.
Han Yan smiled slightly. This kind of question is challenging! Only now did he feel that the blood in his heart had been stimulated. Untranslatability is an insurmountable mountain, but Han Yan likes to face difficulties head-on!
After searching in his mind, Han Yan found an allusion to an immortal in Chinese myths and legends. The meaning was very similar, so he used this allusion to replace the metaphor in the original text. Although the content of the metaphor had been changed, the meaning of Yu Yi's words remained intact.
This method is called borrowing translation. It uses the Functional Equivalence Theory of the American translator Eugene Nida. There is no need to pursue formal consistency, but the goal is to allow the reader to obtain an equivalent feeling from the original text. Of course, this theory is also mixed, and it is not easy to grasp. Han Yan agrees with this theory. Using the most appropriate and natural language to reproduce the information of the original text, as long as one has a deep enough understanding of the cultural background of the two languages, one can make a commendable translation.
In his opinion, this theory pursues the highest level of translation that Yan Fu said, "Sincerity, Expressiveness, and Elegance."
With a draft in mind, Han Yan typed out the translation. This time, the English-Chinese literary translation took about thirty minutes.
After reading it twice and checking that there were no errors, Han Yan chose to submit it. An hour early!