  中国给了我 “天使般的行文” 汉译英   这里是 译海拾珍 我们将立足于 CATTI 考试 网罗各种翻译方法与学习资源 从英译汉、汉译英、笔译技巧、 强化训练四个部分 为您带来实用的笔译技巧讲解   原文概览 请先自己尝试翻译一下~ 我8岁那年的一个下午，随妈妈去食品店购物。妈妈指着街上一位骑自行车的男子说:“这个人是疯子，他居然能看懂中文。”我至今记得那中年男子一头爱因斯坦式的爆炸发型，更可怕的是他头发的颜色火红火红的。那一刻我的确相信自己撞见了一个传说中的魔鬼。 1966年我正读高中，学校的外语课是拉丁文和法文。我酷爱拉丁文、法文的诗歌。有一天在学校图书馆里，我像往常一样在诗歌书架旁徜徉。当我抽出来一本美国诗人庞德的诗歌集时，紧贴着的一本薄薄小册子掉了下来，这是庞德翻译的中国古典诗词集。我吓了一跳，没想到中国居然会有诗词。随手翻翻，我立即就被吸引住了，从未见过如此清新风格的诗词。 一星期后，我找到20世纪初英国汉学家阿瑟·韦利写的《鸦片战争》,对我来说这又是一个惊奇。因为英国历史教科书中只字未提过这场战争，普通英国人对此一无所知。在大英帝国的历史长河里，这段时间短暂、东亚局部发生的“小战役”微不足道，在鸦片战争那一年，英帝国东南亚、中亚、非洲、澳洲等地区的广袤海外属地，有许多比对华“贸易之争”更值得着墨的重大事件。我读完《鸦片战争》后仍然意犹未尽，马上又找来韦利翻译的中国古诗词。我感到意外和难以想象，中国人居然能创作出如此高雅、感人的诗歌。数月后报纸上登出一则消息，爱丁堡大学将新开设中文课。当晚我躺在床上辗转不眠地思量，干吗不上大学去系统地学习中文，这样我就有机会读中文原诗而不需借助译本了。 次日清早，我致电大学行政办公室，与主任约好了会面时间。3天后我坐了两小时火车如期赴约，主任却将有位怪异的小伙子想学汉语这档子事忘在了脑后，我扑了个空。回家后我继续联络该主任，再次表达期望学习中文的决心。直到开课前夕，中文系千辛万苦地总算从全英国招来了5名学生。当我告诉高中的拉丁文和法文教师将上大学中文系就读时，拉丁文老学究连连赞赏我超乎寻常的勇敢，那位法文女老师却一个劲地摇头耸肩，试图规劝我“不要浪费你的大学时光，还是去学点任何有用的东西吧”。 大学课堂上第一次从录音机里听到中国话，那感觉令我灰心极了。听上去所有的声音全是一个调调，怪不得西方人称中文为天书。第一个学期下来，我的口语四声仍旧一塌糊涂，磁带里的汉语对话始终只听得一阵哇啦哇啦。旁人看我们中文系的学生认为是一小撮“考古学者”。记得第一次我去大学图书馆借阅中文语法课本时，那位家庭妇女模样的中年馆员，眼睛从架到鼻子的眼镜上端详着我愣了一会儿问道:“中文语法？那个语言不是早废除了吗？” 中国文化如同围棋，游戏规则简单明了，几下子就可以解释清楚，但真正玩起来后才逐渐领略到其中的奥妙。中文也是如此，表面看来中文没有动词变化，也没有阴性、阳性词汇及单复数。讲述任何发生的事，只需冠上相应的时间副词即可，如刚才、昨天、明天等等。这让初学汉语的西方人兴奋，认为很幸运地躲过了如法文般难啃的动词时态变化。但当他们的汉语真正人门后，就会发现正因为游戏的规则太少，令外行更加无所适从。英语里有Chinese puzzle(中国迷宫)一词，就是用来比喻晦涩难解的问题，而 Chinese boxes是比喻事情太复杂。若西方人听不明白某人的谈话时会说:“你简直是在讲中文。” 大学毕业后由于我痴迷老庄、陶渊明的修身哲学，决意模仿中国古代圣贤的生活方式，隐居到苏格兰深山乡野里，自己辟了块荒地躬耕自食。我知道我所景仰的陶渊明曾如此这般地融入大自然。我一边务农，一边研读中国古代哲学、元曲及明清小说，并为报刊撰稿赚取生活费。编辑们对我的英文风格感到惊讶和新鲜，报社来信赞美我如“天使般的行文”。我深知那是因为“起承转合”的中文写作玄机启发了我的思维，璀璨的中国文化给了我享用不尽的灵感。直至今日，我仍坚持用中国文学的技巧、逻辑来写英文散文。 前言 本文选自《凤凰周刊》2002年第33期上的文章“中国给了我 '天使般的行文’ ”第二部分“中国是一盘围棋，奥妙深邃”，由克里斯(Chris,英国人)口述，郭莹(英国) 整理。 选文从一个外国人的角度谈论学习汉语的经历和对中国文化的赏识，除了有关学习的词汇外，还涉及许多汉语和中国文化的专有术语，如“四声”“元曲”“起承转合”等等。由于是根据口述整理，文章的口语化特点明显，有的措辞难免“词不达意”或拗口，在句子的衔接上也显得逻辑松散。 因此，翻译这样的文章，除了选词准确(尤其是文化词汇)，还要注意挖掘句子间的内在逻辑，并以恰当的连接词表述清楚。  逐段分析 No.1 中国给了我“天使般的行文” 我8岁那年的一个下午，随妈妈去食品店购物。妈妈指着街上一位骑自行车的男子说:“这个人是疯子，他居然能看懂中文。”我至今记得那中年男子一头爱因斯坦式的爆炸发型，更可怕的是他头发的颜色火红火红的。那一刻我的确相信自己撞见了一个传说中的魔鬼。 Studying Chinese Endows My Writing with an Angelic Glamour One afternoon, when I was eight years old, I was going to the grocer's with mom. Pointing at a man riding a bike on the street, mother said: “He must be a madman. He even knows Chinese.' Today I still remember what that man looked like: he had a head of blown-up hair like Einstein's, and what was more frightening was its fiery-red color. At that moment I believed I had seen a real devil. 1 ● “魔鬼”是源自基督教《圣经》的一个西方特有文化概念，应译为小写的devil(大写Devil则专指“魔鬼”撒旦Satan)，不能“归化”成中国人迷信传说中的“鬼”或“灵”(ghost)。 2 意译法 ● 标题原文主语为“中国”，但翻译时译为动名词短语'Studying Chinese'。这结合了下文作者学习中文的内容进行了意译，使译文读者对原文内容更清楚。 3 调整语序 ● 第一段首句的翻译将“一个下午”提到“我8岁那年”的前面。符合英语时间从小往大说的表达习惯。 No.2 1966年我正读高中，学校的外语课是拉丁文和法文。我酷爱拉丁文、法文的诗歌。有一天在学校图书馆里，我像往常一样在诗歌书架旁徜徉。当我抽出来一本美国诗人庞德的诗歌集时，紧贴着的一本薄薄小册子掉了下来，这是庞德翻译的中国古典诗词集。我吓了一跳，没想到中国居然会有诗词。随手翻翻，我立即就被吸引住了，从未见过如此清新风格的诗词。 In 1966,I was at senior high school which offered Latin and French as foreign languages. I was very keen on Latin and French poetry. One day I was browsing through the poetry shelves at the school library. When I picked from the shelf an anthology of poems by the American poet Ezra Pound, a thin booklet next to it fell to the floor. It was a collection of Pound's translations of Chinese classical poetry. I was astonished that there had ever been poetry composed by Chinese. I thumbed through a few pages and was glued to it: never had I read poetry in such refreshing styles. 1 ● 庞德: 全名为埃兹拉·庞德(Ezra Pound, 1885-1972),美国诗人、翻译家、评论家, “意象派”诗歌代表人物。曾根据日文译本把中国的部分唐诗译成英文，取名Cathay (《华夏集》,1915),此外还出版了Confucius: The Great Digest & Unwobbling Pivot (《儒家: <大学>与<中庸>》, 1951)、Confucian Analects (《论语》, 1951)、The Classic Anthology Defined by Confiucius (《古典作品选集,1954) 三部中国作品的译作。翻译外国人名时，第一次出现要写出完整的名字。 2 合句法 ● 汉语重意合，英语重形合。汉译英时需要通过连接词等将有关联的意群连接起来。第一句翻译时就用从句把汉语原文的两个句子合并了。 No.3 一星期后，我找到20世纪初英国汉学家阿瑟·韦利写的《鸦片战争》,对我来说这又是一个惊奇。因为英国历史教科书中只字未提过这场战争，普通英国人对此一无所知。在大英帝国的历史长河里，这段时间短暂、东亚局部发生的“小战役”微不足道，在鸦片战争那一年，英帝国东南亚、中亚、非洲、澳洲等地区的广袤海外属地，有许多比对华“贸易之争”更值得着墨的重大事件。我读完《鸦片战争》后仍然意犹未尽，马上又找来韦利翻译的中国古诗词。我感到意外和难以想象，中国人居然能创作出如此高雅、感人的诗歌。数月后报纸上登出一则消息，爱丁堡大学将新开设中文课。当晚我躺在床上辗转不眠地思量，干吗不上大学去系统地学习中文，这样我就有机会读中文原诗而不需借助译本了。 ❖ One week later, I found The Opium War written by Arthur Waley, an English Sinologist of early 20th century, which surprised me again. In English textbooks of history not a single word about the war was mentioned and the average Englishmen simply did not know anything about it. It was but a small and short-lived battle or a trade conflict taking place locally in East Asia, so it deserved no mention at all when compared with the more important events happening then in the large number of British colonies in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa and Australia. However, after I had read The Opium War I felt like reading more about China, so I borrowed Waley's translation of Chinese poetry. It was beyond my imagination indeed that Chinese poets could have produced poetry so moving and writen in such an elegant language. A couple of months later, newspapers carried the news that Edinburgh University was going to offer a course of the Chinese language. That night I lay in bed and, unable to go to sleep, thought to myself: why not take the course and learn the Chinese language in a systematic way, so that I would be able to appreciate Chinese poetry in the original. 1 ●阿瑟·韦利: Arthur Waley(1889-1966)，英国汉学家、汉语和日语翻译家，译作有A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (《汉诗170首》，1918)、The Book of Songs (《诗经》，1937)、The Analects of Confiucius (《论语》，1938)、Monkey (《猴子》，节译自《西游记》, 1942)等。《鸦片战争》是他的一部英文著作，名为The Opium War， 注意书名要写成斜体。介绍这个人物时需要加译“汉学家”(Sinologist)。 2 ● “在大英帝国……重大事件。”这句话比较长，有三层主要意思，逻辑还算清楚。翻译时注意在逻辑上做出协调。 3 ● 翻译“居然”，可以使用“虚拟语气”传达“难以置信”的口吻。 No.4 次日清早，我致电大学行政办公室，与主任约好了会面时间。3天后我坐了两小时火车如期赴约，主任却将有位怪异的小伙子想学汉语这档子事忘在了脑后，我扑了个空。回家后我继续联络该主任，再次表达期望学习中文的决心。直到开课前夕，中文系千辛万苦地总算从全英国招来了5名学生。当我告诉高中的拉丁文和法文教师将上大学中文系就读时，拉丁文老学究连连赞赏我超乎寻常的勇敢，那位法文女老师却一个劲地摇头耸肩，试图规劝我“不要浪费你的大学时光，还是去学点任何有用的东西吧”。 大学课堂上第一次从录音机里听到中国话，那感觉令我灰心极了。听上去所有的声音全是一个调调，怪不得西方人称中文为天书。第一个学期下来，我的口语四声仍旧一塌糊涂，磁带里的汉语对话始终只听得一阵哇啦哇啦。旁人看我们中文系的学生认为是一小撮“考古学者”。记得第一次我去大学图书馆借阅中文语法课本时，那位家庭妇女模样的中年馆员，眼睛从架到鼻子的眼镜上端详着我愣了一会儿问道:“中文语法？那个语言不是早废除了吗？” The next morning I called the administration office of the university and made an appointment to see the Chairman of the Chinese Department. Three days later I went to see him, taking a train that lasted two hours, but he forgot that he had made an appointment with a strange young man who wanted to learn the Chinese language. Back home I contacted the Chairman again, trying to convince him of my resolve to learn Chinese. The Chinese Department managed to enroll only five students from across the country just before the course got started. When I told my high school Latin and French teachers that I was going to study Chinese, the Latin teacher, a pedantic old gentleman, kept extolling me for my courage while the French teacher, a madam, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders, tried to talk me out of it. 'Do not waste your time at the university, better take something, or anything that is useful.' When I first heard the language spoken from a recorder in class I was really disappointed. It sounded as if all the sounds had one tone. Little wonder that Westerners said Chinese was a mysterious language. By the end of the first semester, I was still terribly confused about the four tones of spoken Chinese, and the voices from the tape were simply a din. We Chinese majors were looked upon as “archaeological scholars”. I still remember, when I first went to the library for a book on Chinese grammar, what the housewife-like librarian said to me. She looked at me over her spectacles and said: 'Chinese grammar? That language has long been out of use, hasn't it?' 1 ●说中文是“天书”，但不能译成“书”，应该是a mysterious language。 2 ● “四声”指古汉语平、上、去、人四个声调，或普通话的阴平(第一声)、阳平(第二声)、上声(第三声)、去声(第四声)四个声调，译为 the four tones of spoken Chinese。 3 ● “哇啦哇啦”译为din(嘈杂的声响)。 2 ● “中文系的学生”准确译法是Chinese majors。 2 分句法 ● 第二段最后一句翻译时将汉语原文中的一个长句拆分为两个句子，使译文更易懂。 No.5 中国文化如同围棋，游戏规则简单明了，几下子就可以解释清楚，但真正玩起来后才逐渐领略到其中的奥妙。中文也是如此，表面看来中文没有动词变化，也没有阴性、阳性词汇及单复数。讲述任何发生的事，只需冠上相应的时间副词即可，如刚才、昨天、明天等等。这让初学汉语的西方人兴奋，认为很幸运地躲过了如法文般难啃的动词时态变化。但当他们的汉语真正人门后，就会发现正因为游戏的规则太少，令外行更加无所适从。英语里有Chinese puzzle (中国迷宫)一词，就是用来比喻晦涩难解的问题，而Chinese boxes是比喻事情太复杂。若西方人听不明白某人的谈话时会说: “你简直是在讲中文。” Chinese culture is like the go game, the rules of which are clear and simple and easy to follow, but until you begin to play it you do not see the mystery and complexity involved in it. The same is true of the Chinese language. It has no formal conjugation of verbs or inflections in gender and number. When you describe any event all you need to do is to provide the necessary adverbs indicating the time at which the event occurs, such as 'just now', 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'. These grammatical phenomena made the beginner excited at first, thinking that he was lucky enough not to have to bother about such irregularities of verbs as in French. But it is not until he has gone far enough into it that he realizes that just because the Chinese language has too few rules the beginner often finds himself at a loss what to do. 'Chinese puzzle' in English is a synonym of a difficult problem, and 'Chinese boxes' refers to a problem that is too complex to solve. When a Westermer does not understand what you are talking about, he would say, 'You are speaking Chinese.' 1 ● “动词变化”译为formal conjugation of verbs; “阴性、阳性词汇及单复数” 译为inflections in gender and number。 2 ● “外行”在这里指学习英语的beginners。 2 词性转换 ● 因为英语不喜重复。原文倒数第二句中有两个动词“比喻”，翻译时第一个“比喻”译为了名词'synonym'，第二个“比喻”则译为了动词'refer'。 No.6 大学毕业后由于我痴迷老庄、陶渊明的修身哲学，决意模仿中国古代圣贤的生活方式，隐居到苏格兰深山乡野里，自己辟了块荒地躬耕自食。我知道我所景仰的陶渊明曾如此这般地融入大自然。我一边务农，一边研读中国古代哲学、元曲及明清小说，并为报刊撰稿赚取生活费。编辑们对我的英文风格感到惊讶和新鲜，报社来信赞美我如“天使般的行文”。我深知那是因为“起承转合”的中文写作玄机启发了我的思维，璀璨的中国文化给了我享用不尽的灵感。直至今日，我仍坚持用中国文学的技巧、逻辑来写英文散文。 After graduating from university, I retreated to a remote rural area and earned a living by farming on a piece of land I cultivated from wilderness, modeling on the philosophy of Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi and Tao Yuanming whose life style I admired. I knew that Tao Yuanming had integrated himself with Nature. While farming, I studied ancient Chinese philosophies, Yuanqu, and novels and stories of the Ming and Qing dynasties. I also wrote articles for newspapers and journals, to make some extra money. The editors thought highly of the style, saying that the style of the discourse was like an angel flying.I know that I had benefited from the techniques of classical Chinese writing, i.e. the four steps: introduction, elucidation, transition and conclusion, and the brilliant Chinese culture had enlightened me with inexhaustible inspirations. Even today I keep writing English prose, drawing on the writing techniques and logic of Chinese literature. 1 ●“融入大自然”译为had integrated himself with Nature,注意Nature的首字母大写。 2 ● “元曲”“明清小说”的固定译法分别是Yuanqu 和novels and stories of the Ming and Qing dynasties。 3 ● “天使般的行文”的内涵是“像天使一般自如飞舞”，译为 the style of the discourse was like an angel flying。 4 ● “起承转合”指旧时写文章常用的行文顺序。“起”是开始；“承”是承接上文，加以申述；“转”是转折，从正面、反面立论；“合”是全文的结尾。译为'introduction, elucidation, transition and conclusion'。 文字分析、图文排版：韩怡 校对：孟繁荟 负责人：王桉 指导老师：陈淑仪 译海拾珍 |
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