Chinese Translation Services
One of the biggest obstacles in English to Chinese translation
is the lack of exposure to the English world of many Chinese
translators. Our Chinese translators can work at the level of
English that our customers require so you can be sure you'll get
the best quality Chinese translation from us.
Our Project Account Managers are among the most experienced in
the translation industry and will work with you to ensure you get
the highest quality Simplified Chinese translation, most suitable
for your readers.
English to Chinese Translation
There are many differences between the Chinese and English
languages. Firstly, Chinese doesn't spell phonetically - there are
no links between how a word is read and how it is written.
Understatement, indirect requests, double negatives ("I can't
dissuade him"), long sentences, the use of "the", the plural form,
expressions like "…whichever the greater" and "given that…" are
just some of the very long list of things that are regularly
mistranslated.
Another problem surrounds new words that have no Chinese
equivalent. This is coupled by lack of a national authority to
adjudicate translation of new terms, lack of contemporary theories
on translation into Chinese and vast differences in ideology and
culture. "Responsibility", "Accountability" and "Liability" are
often translated with the same phrase for example. There are still
two versions for "internet" both in equal use. Few translators ever
tell you that most brand names in English are simply not
translatable. Creative use of English such as in advertising is
regularly mishandled, evidence of this can be seen almost
everywhere in China.
Chinese Translation - Things to Consider
Due to the intricate relations between language and culture, how
to properly convert source text to target language is always a
problem in English to Chinese translation. Generally speaking,
there are six issues that should be taken into consideration when
translating a document which can help ensure you get the best
quality translation:
- Literal translation vs. free translation
- Functional equivalence vs. formal correspondence
- Form vs. content
- Source-oriented vs. target oriented
- Author-centered vs. reader-centered
- The purpose of the author vs. the purpose of the
translator
When preparing documents for translating, the customers should
always make sure the purpose of the translation and the target
audience, help translators understand culture in terms of basic
value and drives, so that the translator can be adequately prepared
to handle figures of speech.