Hello everyone, I am Wenhua～
Today I want to discuss a major issue commonly encountered in English-Chinese translation: The translation often does not sound natural.
Recently, while grading assignments, I found that many students fall into this trap. They can understand English without any problem, but once it comes to Chinese, it tends to become awkward and stiff, making it feel unnatural to read.
This sense of awkwardness often appears when students have already crossed the threshold of grammar and vocabulary but are still struggling to break through the bottleneck. Ultimately, it is because they overlook the most fundamental differences between Chinese and English. The result is that they are led by the original text during translation, copying it word for word without truly breaking free from constraints, failing to convey the information smoothly.
The following student translations exemplify the most typical four types of translation style issues. Let’s take a look at how unnatural translations are formed and how we can avoid them.
Issue One:
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Long sentences lacking pauses and a sense of breath
Original:The scholars found that those who spoke with strangers communicated more clearly than with close associates, believing—incorrectly—that the latter would understand ambiguous phrases by virtue of their intimate affiliation.
Student Translation:Scholars found that those who communicated with strangers did so more clearly than with acquaintances, mistakenly believing that the latter would understand these ambiguous expressions based on their close relationship.
The biggest problem with this sentence is that it is too long, with no breaks, lacking pauses and a sense of breath. From the reader’s perspective, such a translation has almost no readability.
In fact, the original English text also has “cut points.” For example:
Participial structure (believing…)
Prepositional phrases (by virtue of…)
Logical relationship transitions or contrasts (with strangers / with close associates)
These are all points where the translation can be broken up. We can completely split the sentence:
[Wenhua’s Translation]
Researchers found that people express themselves more clearly when talking to strangers than when communicating with acquaintances; they mistakenly believe that the other party, due to their familiarity, can naturally understand those ambiguous expressions.
Many students’ issues stem from a blind pursuit of “complete sentences,” resulting in cramming all the information from the original text into one long Chinese sentence.
In fact, in most cases, we do not need to replicate the original sentence structure; learning to break and reorganize will allow the translation to truly “speak naturally.”
Issue Two:
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Improper sentence segmentation, showing traces of English apposition
Original:The philosopher Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, who died in 1951, probably would have told me I was barking up the wrong tree.
Student Translation:The philosopher Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, who died in 1951, might have told me that I was going the wrong way.
The second issue is improper sentence segmentation, which shows obvious English traces in Chinese.
This student first translated “the philosopher Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein” and then directly separated “who died in 1951.” However, in Chinese, we generally do not awkwardly split a person’s name and related information into two segments.
A more natural way to handle this is to remove the comma and flow the information together. For example, it can be translated as:
[Wenhua’s Translation]
The philosopher Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, who died in 1951, would probably have said that I was going the wrong way.
Issues Three & Four:
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Excessive use of “的”
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Long closed structures
Original:But in so doing, he offered a path to getting beyond words and to apprehend, after all, the ineffable essence of what we seek.
Student Translation:However, through this method, he ultimately opened a path for humanity to break through the limits of language and understand the ineffable essence of what humanity seeks.
The third example is a type of situation I often see when grading assignments. The information is basically correct, but the language quality is not high, with issues mainly in two areas:
First, excessive use of “的” makes it verbose, which is a typical manifestation of Europeanized Chinese. Mr. Yu Guangzhong also mentioned this in his book. In fact, we can completely delete some “的” or adjust the structure to make the sentence more concise.
Second, long closed structures / remote control failure The translation uses a long closed structure: “opened a path for humanity…” This structure itself is not wrong, but when the middle components are too long or even separated by commas, the preceding “for” cannot naturally correspond to the subsequent action, which in Chinese is called “remote control failure,” a typical translation style issue.
The solution is to break down the bulky middle components and bring the key action forward. For example, it can be revised as:
[Wenhua’s Translation]
But it is precisely in this way that he provided a path beyond words, allowing people to ultimately grasp the ineffable essence of what they seek.
After this adjustment, “opened a path” is brought forward, making the main structure of the sentence clearer; at the same time, redundant “的” is deleted, and the entire sentence becomes concise and smooth. It no longer feels stiff or carries a translation style, and the information is conveyed more smoothly and naturally.
I hope that through today’s examples, everyone can become aware of the four pitfalls in English-Chinese translation and avoid the Europeanized tone in English-Chinese translation. You can also summarize based on your own practice materials.
May we grow together through our encounters～
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