31 August 2024
Article published by: wxie
Date of publication: 31 August 2024
Dear friends:
My name is Laoxie. I am from Shanghai Yu-Life Toastmasters club. I know this English corner for a long time, and I learned a lot of interesting things in our group. When Cicy asked me to share something offline, I felt that I must do it because I love people who love learning.
Thanks for offering me an opportunity to talk to you about some fun I had in my journey learning Chinese/English translation.
I am an amateur in translation. My major is physics and electrical engineering and I am doing software and system consulting for a living.
All my translation work is volunteering. So I think what I have done, you can do as well.
I will summarize some of my experience in English learning, especially in Chinese/English translation into the following categories:
Toastmasters
Daily life
Idioms
Proper noun
Literature and others
It will take about 20 minutes. Let’s have some fun.
Here are a few examples that I had during my English learning journey. You may think some are naive, while just have some fun.
Recently, I have read the Toastmasters Speech Contest Rule Book.
In 5.A.2, it says
At Area contests, there must be an equal number of voting judges from each club in the Area, or a minimum of five(5) voting judges, …
Question:
If your Area has 4 clubs, what is the minimum number of voting judges?
I think here we have ambiguity and this needs an official explanation. You see, reading is a good way to learn English if you are going to use the material.
Let’s see more examples.
Look at this picture. It is traffic sign that warns the cars to check the street. What is the English counterpart?
Do you need ketchup for your French Fries?
Look at this animal. It is used to label frightening women with strong opinions.
Maybe these examples are easy for you. We can see some idioms. Idioms are hard because you may know each words in the phrase, but you have trouble to understand what they are saying.
Guess the meaning?
This idiom originated from the era of vinyl records. When a record has scratches or other forms of damage, what will happen?
It is like someone who repeats the same thing again and again. She keeps talking about her little son. She’s like a broken record.
Guess the meaning?
It means to operate according to the rules.
He is still new to his job. He makes it a point to go by the book to make sure he doesn’t make any mistakes.
Of course, there are some proper nouns we have to look up because they have predefined meanings that we may not be familiar to.
Have you ever heard of this term - free software?
There is no counterpart in Chinese. It is an American institution established by the Constitution for electing the President and Vice President. Each state is allocated a number of electors equal to its total number of Congressional representatives. Voters cast ballots for their preferred candidates, but they’re technically selecting electors pledged to that candidate. The candidate who receives a majority of the electoral votes (270 out of 538) wins the presidency. This system can result in a winner different from the national popular vote.
Apart from the above, there are many other difficulties in translation. Literature is one of them. They often require much effort and sometimes inspiration and good luck.
This is the famous sentence by James Joyce.
This is the slogan for Toastmasters. Do you have a Chinese translation?
I have given a few examples about learning English. These are just the tip of the iceberg, while I hope you have some fun already. Learning is a life-long journey. Learning English has special meaning for all of us, so keep learning and have more fun.
If you want to find some resource to learn English. There are many projects that you can learn and practice your English, while some contribution to a better world. For example,
SUMO
CTT
Better Speaker Series
Thank you.
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