With different aims and audiences, the site translation shall comply with different stands and apply different methods accordingly. Let’s take the site translation of poems for example.

The site translation of poems should first obey the rules of faithfulness，but then it should produce an effect with strong appeal to the audiences, which means the translation shall be “rhythm-amusing” and “eyes-pleasing”, not only has the similarity in form but also in the spirits with the original poems. Only by achieving that can the site translation of poems be satisfying and have a preferable quality.

Chairman Mao has said, the poetry should be “concise, generally neat, and rhyme”, and this principle can also be applied into the translation of poems.
The appealing effect is particularly important to the site translation for it goes direct to the audiences.

And the site translation, with its unique features different from the literature translation, pays more attention to the orality and musicality in order to capture the attention of the audience and at the same time to convey the denotation and connotation of the original poems.

Let me cite the poem of Ezra Pound’s famous poem for example:

In a station of metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd

Petals on a wet black bough.

We all know that this poem is well-known for its juxtaposition and superposition of images which create a weird, illusory yet profound artistic conception. And for this poem, there are various translations. But I’d like to translate it as follow:

魑魅幻影众中显

黝黑湿枝残花挂
Because in my mind, this translation is concise and neat, though it may not be the best, but on the site, it conveys the meaning of the poems appropriately.
And for Su Dongpo’s poem:

水光潋滟晴方好，山色空蒙雨亦奇；欲把西湖比西子，浓妆淡抹总相宜。

Professor Chen Gang has translated it to the audience from Hawaii as follow:

The shimmering ripples delight the eye on sunny days;

The dimming hills present a rare view in rainy haze.

West Lake may be compared to Beauty Xi Zi at her best,

It becomes her to be richly adorned or plainly dressed.

And this translation has won the appraisal and applauds from the foreign friends, because they have taste the beauty of the poem and the traditional Chinese arts, and thus the translation has a success “on-site effect”.
All in all, the site translation should be concise, easy-understanding, and appealing.

Read Also: Translation Principle – Accuracy