Bananas or Rubber - Chinese translation in crisis
Slowly the issue of Chinese translation in crisis creeps into consciousness thanks to the media.
In yet another article the figures are repeated and some interesting examples are given. Some are funny:
Ambassador Shi Yanhua, […] executive vice-chairman of the Translators’ Association of China, gives examples of translation crises in the early days of the New China. In her words, or, more precisely, in the words of her simultaneous translator from Chinese to English, the early leaders’ Mandarin “was not so good”. In negotiations with Sri Lanka, it was unclear to the Chinese whether the contract under discussion was for bananas or rubber.
But there are other angles on this crisis:
As China seeks to spread its culture, not just its manufactured goods, to the world, Christensen said that the English-language hegemony impoverishes the world’s culture. In the United Kingdom, only 3 percent of all publications are translated from other languages and in the US it’s just 2.8 percent. Christensen invited China to join Norway in making translation a cultural priority.
She said: “We have a lot of literature we want to share with you, and you have a lot of literature you want to share with us.”
Check out http://english.people.com.cn/200704/12/eng20070412_365924.html for more details.