Long sentences generally refer to sentences with 20 words or so, but there are also sentences more than 100 words or nearly 200 words. It is so common in English, which make it hard to figure out the structures, that is to say, The Suject + The Predicate + The Object, etc., and sort out the logic relation between various modifications.

There are four common methods to translate long sentences.

Detaching

  1. The president said at a press conference dominated by questions on yesterday’s election results that he could not explain why the republicans had suffered such a widespread defeat, which in the end would deprive the Republican Party of long-held superiority in the House.

Translation: 在一次记者招待会上,问题集中于头一天的选举结果,总统就此发了言。他说他不能够解释为什么共和党遭到了这样大的失败。这种情况最终会使共和党失去在众议院中长期享有的优势。

  1. Well, the brothers, chatting along, happen to get wondering what might be the fate of a perfectly honest and intelligent stranger who should be turned adrift in London without a friend, and with no money but that million pound bank-note, and no way to account for his being in possession of it.

Translation: 就这样,两兄弟在闲聊时忽然想到,如果有一个非常诚实和聪明的外方人漂泊到伦敦,举目无亲,手头上除了那张一百万英镑的支票之外,分文没有,而且又无法证明他自己是这张钞票的主人,那么他的命运会是怎样呢?

3 “I didn’t mean any particular harm, but so long as rebukes are going, I might say it wasn’t quite your affair to jump to the conclusion that we couldn’t change any note that you might happen to be carrying around. On the contrary, we can.”

Translation: “我并不见得有多少恶意,可是你要开口教训人的话,那我倒要告诉你,像你这样凭空武断,认为我们换不开你身边可能带着的什么大钞票,那未免是瞎操心。恰恰相反,我们换得开!”

4. Well, you can imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been taken notice of before, and now all of a sudden couldn’t say a thing that wasn’t taken up and repeated everywhere; couldn’t stir abroad without constantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, “There he goes; that’s him!” couldn’t take his breakfast without a crowd to look on; couldn’t appear in an opera box without concentrating there the fire of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long—that is the amount of it.

Translation: 哈,你可以想象得到那是个什么滋味;一个年轻小伙子,从来没有被人注意过,现在忽然之间,随便说句什么话,马上就会有人把它记住,到处传播出去;随便到哪儿走动一下,总不免经常听见人家一个个辗转相告:“那儿走着的就是他,就是他!”吃早餐的时候,也老是有一大堆人围着看;一到歌剧院的包厢,就要使得无数观众的望远镜的火力都集中到我身上。哎,我简直就一天到晚在荣耀中过日子—-十足是那个味道。

5. That is why we think that even the independent African countries are already qualified to have international relations.

Translation: 我们认为即使是非洲的独立国家也已经有资格同国际发生关系,道理就在于此。

6 One hundred years after Napoleon’s brief stay in Egypt in 1789-1799, which opened Egypt’s eyes to the world, the Egyptian political leader Mustapha Kamel struggled against the British occupiers.

Translation: 1789-1799 年间,拿破仑曾短期进驻埃及,从而打开了埃及面向世界的眼界。 100 年后,埃及的政治领袖穆斯塔法.卡迈勒就为反对英国占领者而进行了斗争。

Change orders

  1. It is good to theorize, that is to say, to analyse the problems confronting us as a nation and elaborate an ideal solution for each of them.

Translation: 把我们作为一个民族所面临的问题提到理论上来加以分析并为每个问题制定一个理想的方案,这是对的。

  1. It is extraordinary that in all the years the British spent in Egypt they never got to know the real people of Egypt.

Translation: 英国人在埃及消磨的岁月这么长久,而对真正的埃及人民却一无所知,这是颇不寻常的。

  1. That we need more equipment is quite obvious.

Translation: 我们需要更多设备,这是很明显的。

  1. That she is still alive is a consolation.

Translation: 她还活着,这是使人感到宽慰的。

  1. That those who hard learned from us now excelled us was a real challenge.

Translation: 向我们学的人反倒超过了我们,这确实对我们是一个促进。

6 That she was chosen made a tremendous stir in her village.

Translation: 她被挑选上了,这在村子力引起很大的轰动。

7. No longer are “separate but equal” schools regarded as being permitted under the “equal protection of the laws” provision of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Translation: 根据宪法修正案第十四条关于“法律上受公平保护”的条款,所谓“分隔而平等”的学校,已不再视为合法。

8. Such is human nature in the West that a great many people are often willing to sacrifice higher pay for the privilege of becoming white collar workers.

Translation: 许多人常常宁愿牺牲比较高的工资以换取成为白领工人的社会地位,这在西方倒是人之常情。

Read Also: Pay attention to Slang and Idioms during translation