Chapters 7–8

张兵

Chapter 7 introduced a concept I had never thought of before: the “noun plague.” In Chinese academic writing, we often string many nouns together to sound serious or professional. But in English, this creates long, unclear noun chains. I realized I had done this many times, especially when translating official or academic texts.
The chapter gave examples like “urban transportation management system reform project.” It looks impressive at first, but it’s very hard to understand. The book taught me to break these into smaller parts, or use verbs and prepositions to improve clarity. This will help me a lot in writing reports and essays in the future.
Chapter 8 discussed pronouns and their antecedents. I used to think pronouns were simple, but this chapter showed me how easily they can cause confusion. In Chinese, we can often skip the subject or use vague references, and people still understand. But in English, every pronoun should clearly point back to a specific noun.
I also learned that placing the pronoun too early, before the reader knows what it refers to, can make the sentence hard to follow. This happens a lot in translations. I’ll be more careful now, especially in longer sentences, to make sure every pronoun has a clear and recent noun it connects to.