《中式英语之鉴》短评

会飞的大象

The first part of this book talks about the clutter of vocabulary, mainly discussing the redundancy and repetition of nouns, verbs, modifiers, and the repetition of speech and over-explanation of things. The second part discusses the use of words and sentence construction in English, focusing mainly on the use of abstract nouns, pronouns and antecedents, connectors, and the internal structure of sentences. What impressed me most was the author's discussion of the evolution of the English language. In English, some adjectives, adverbs, and phrases are overused (as listed by the author, such as "conscientiously," "diligently," "make a great effort to," "do a good job in"), causing these words to gradually lose their intended strength. Yet, these words are often the most basic and easiest to use. So, when translators translate from Chinese to English or write in English, the words and phrases they choose, which are correct in meaning and grammar, often lack their original power in the English language. Therefore, using them does not truly and powerfully convey the force of the original text, and thus fails to achieve the purpose of translation. I think the best way to overcome this rigidity is not to learn English in a bookish way, but to fully immerse oneself in the English world, constantly understanding the latest trends in English, rather than just following textbooks. However, it seems that our education does not focus on cultivating us in this aspect. Most of what we learn is English from textbooks, and even if the grammar is correct, there is still an insurmountable gap between it and current, authentic English. Of course, the author also provides corresponding strategies for the above situations.

Another important issue is the problem of "logical connectives." Comparing Chinese and English, it is not difficult to find that English indeed relies more on the use of logical connectors, which are the main means of expressing logical order in English. The author's words are: "they contribute a great deal to its meaning. They show how the thought or action expressed in the given sentence is related to the thought or action in the preceding one." Because I am currently interning in South Korea, my very direct feeling about the Korean language is that it heavily relies on the connector "그렇게" (geuraek-e), which means "so." In everyday conversation, the frequency of using this word is extremely high, to the point of one per two sentences or even one per sentence. However, when we need to translate Korean into Chinese, obviously we do not need to use so many "so's." If we directly translate Korean and include many "so's" in the translated Chinese, it would be quite ridiculous. Similarly, when translating from Chinese to English, we must follow the rules of English and use logical connectors fully to make the meaning clearer.