| Nov-Dec 2011 |
Tips of the month Our interpreter asked a group of nearly twenty senior accountants from one of the largest banks in China what the Chinese term for ‘solvency’ was. Nobody knew. The concept didn’t exist in Chinese and by the sound of it, although the idea is understood in China, there isn’t yet a ready translation for the term. The closest one can find is a term that means ‘ability to pay’ (偿付能力). But an insolvent company may still be able to pay some of its bills. The ability to pay is not the same as the state of overall liability exceeding overall assets in the balance sheet. The concept of insolvency fares a bit better. There is the term for ‘bankruptcy’ (破产). Even then, it’s not an exact match. ‘Bankruptcy’ is the end stage of continued insolvency. A company can be temporarily insolvent but survive. It can also be insolvent but not yet bankrupt. For now, our interpreters will have to continue to use unsatisfactory proxies. --- Many terms in Chinese are politically coloured. Translation using a prevalent Chinese term can compromise the source term in English, carrying connotations in the Chinese that are not in the English. Here is one typical example: The event in Hong Kong in 1997 might be described as, ‘the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China’ in English. It has only one possible expression in Chinese: ‘the return of Hong Kong to the Motherland’ (回归祖国). A translator trained or employed in China would automatically translate into this term. However, in practice there are many circumstances where it is imperative to avoid giving an expression a distinctly Chinese political flavour, even if it is the most widely accepted Chinese phrase. --- Chinese cannot be spelled out. Chinese words are individual characters made up of strokes and dots. There are no links between how a word is said and how it is written. For example, in Chinese, London is pronounced as “lwen dwen” and written as 伦敦. But you cannot know how to pronounce Chinese just by looking at characters in Chinese, unless you have a good knowledge of the language and how it is written. |
Updates Our office will be closed for Christmas and the New Year between 23rd Dec and 3rd Jan and open again on 4th January 2012. We will continue to check our mail box regularly. If you have any urgent enquiries, please email us at our usual address mail@klcommunications.co.uk. --- The Cross Straight Interpreting Contest of China took place on 19th Nov at Xiamen University in Southern China. 20 finalists from regional and national semi-finals competed for an all–expense paid one-week study tour in London, sponsored by KL Communications. In the run up to this, more than 200 institutions of higher education participated in several rounds of eliminatory contests held across the width and breath of China and Taiwan. --- Kevin Lin gave a talk on cross-cultural communication to a packed lecture theatre at Xiamen University on the eve of the Interpreting Contest. Kevin said, “I proposed the idea to the organizers of a special prize for the final winner to spend a week in London. It has become a major attraction of the contest. We’re pleased to sponsor the prize a second time and have reached agreement with the organizers to be the sponsor for another three years”. --- Field Translation is on sale across China. This is a sequel to Field Interpreting by Kevin published in 2005. The latest textbook is as innovative as its predecessor not only in what goes into the book, but also in presentation. Unlike nearly all textbooks on translation in China that are text intensive, Field Translation is written and designed to be a workbook. It looks set to become a benchmark for textbooks on translation in China. |
UK-China events Events we have provided services for recently include:
|
If you have a thought to share or a question, please email us or tell us on the phone. |