Veteran translator: Translation is pleasure
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On Aug. 4, 2017, in an interview with China.org.cn and Beijing Chinese-Foreign Translation & Information Service Co., Ltd. (CTIS) at his home, Mr. Lin Wusun, now 89, talked about his career of translation and international communication. [Photo by Zhang Liying/ China.org.cn] |
Lin has never tried to translate what he does not understand. "I was asked to translate books on traditional Chinese medicine. Despite my wealth of experience in using it, I don't know the first thing about it for translation work," he said, with his usual sense of humor. According to him, the most important thing about translating is honesty: Don't pretend to know what you don't know, and don't introduce your own ideas that are not in the original text.
When talking about translating methods and requirements for translators, he said that a good translator must be knowledgeable about a wide variety of fields, must understand both languages and cultures, and must be well versed in at least a couple of areas of expertise. "Before we start to translate, we must first of all accurately understand the theme and thoughts of the original text. During translation, we must not deviate from the original work, but we must also imagine and express as much as a translator can. After translation, we should revisit and revisit, edit and edit. When the translation is finalized, we should take a look at the original text and the translation and summarize a few things to fill our own corpus with good translation."