As a translator, it is very important to learn how to translate sentences fluently. Now, I would like to introduce several skills for Chinese-English translation.

1. Combination Method

Combination method means that several short sentences are combined into one sentence, which is generally used in Chinese-English translation. As we all know, Chinese emphasizes meaning accordance, and the structure is relatively loose, so there are many simple sentences. However, English stresses figuration accordance, and its structure is rigorous, so there are many long sentences. When we do translation from Chinese to English, we often make several short sentences be one long English sentence by taking use of conjunction, relative pronoun, preposition etc.

For example:

长期同 CCJK 公司合作,符合贵公司的利益。

Cooperation with CCJK Company for long time is the interests of your company.

Here, two sentences are combined to be one. The first short sentence becomes the subjection with two preposition phrases.

2. Inversion Method

Inversion method means the inversion of word order in translating word-groups or phrases. Now, several simple examples:

Right and left (左右);iron and steel industry(钢铁业);loss and gain(得失)

“这种新药的效力大约是当前杀死肿瘤细胞临床试验及激活免疫细胞以杀死肿瘤细胞的临床试验中采用药物的 200 倍,”奥德菲尔德 (Oldfield) 说,“相比当前使用的二磷酸分子,新药能更好地控制肿瘤发展。”

“The new drugs are about 200 times more effective than the drugs used in recent clinical trials at killing tumor cells and in activating gamma delta Town,-cells to kill tumor cells,” Oldfield Said, “They also prevent tumor progression in mice much better than do existing bisphosphonate molecules.”

Read Also: On the Translation of Chinese Culture-loaded Words from the Perspective of Domestication and Foreignization

3. Insertion method

Insertion method means to insert difficult part of sentence which mainly is explanation part by hyphen, bracket, colon or comma. This method is often used in written translation, sometimes in interpretation.

For example:

“奇怪的是,涉及该领域的重大研究还没有开展起来,或许是以为地球从存在至今几百万年间氧含量一直在减少吧。”

Translation can be:

Surprisingly, no significant research has been done in this field, perhaps on the following presumption that the decline in oxygen levels has taken place over millions of years of our planet’s existence.

We also can deal with it as following (take good use of colon):

Surprisingly, no significant research has been done in this field, perhaps on the following presumption: the decline in oxygen levels has taken place over millions of years of our planet’s existence.

The above three methods (combination, inversion and insertion) are only small part of translation skills. Welcome to discuss this topic with us. You can directly visit our company website www.ccjk.com. Also welcome to send me email (my email address is [email protected]). I am Hana. Looking forward to the discussion with you.

Take a look at how we helped our client by localizing their project for Chinese language. Click here to read the complete case study