First, accumulate over time, study hard and practice hard.
Learning a foreign language and Chinese well is the most basic condition for a good translation. Many people have a misconception that foreign language proficiency will naturally improve without studying hard abroad. In fact, the foreign language environment in foreign countries is much better than that in China, but if you do not consciously study and accumulate, your foreign language level will not be greatly improved. I often see two young diplomats who have also worked in the French embassy for three or four years. When they first arrived in France, their French level was almost the same. However, because one was diligent and eager to learn, the other was complacent, and their foreign language level was greatly widened in a few years. Many people's experiences have fully proved that even if they work abroad, they can't give up foreign language learning and be satisfied with meeting their daily needs. On the contrary, they should make full use of the good foreign language environment and strive to improve their comprehensive foreign language application ability faster.
Reading newspapers, watching TV and listening to the radio should be compulsory courses for translators every day. If you find some vivid and vivid expressions, you should immediately record them with a pen. When you are free, you often take out these accumulated materials to read and recite. When translating, if you happen to encounter similar scenes, it can often play the role of finishing touch.
Those who are determined to be a qualified translator should take learning foreign languages and Chinese as a way of life, never leave their fists and mouths, never tire of learning, and never tire of it; Not satisfied with being able to basically cope with the average level of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation, we should strive to raise our level of Chinese and foreign languages to a higher level and have the ability to express our thoughts freely in concise, fluent and accurate language.
Second, understand and master the background information extensively and deeply.
If you know nothing or very little about the conversation between the two sides, it is difficult to translate it accurately. If you don't understand yourself, how can you make others understand? For example, I know nothing about chemistry myself. If I have to translate for an international chemistry seminar, I can't do it well anyway. Therefore, mastering background information is very important for translation. It can be said that the more extensive and in-depth the translation of the relevant background information of the topics discussed by both sides, the more handy and handy it will be.
As the old saying goes, kung fu is beyond poetry. Applying this sentence, we can say that translation is beyond translation, and knowing and being familiar with a large number of background materials is the basic skill of a good translation. The author has translated many times for special investigation teams of domestic authoritative organizations, involving financial management, taxation, customs, economic statistics, state-owned enterprise management, economic forecasting and so on. Before receiving the task, I will try to find some professional books in Chinese and foreign languages to learn some basic concepts, technical terms and major schools in the world, so as to know fairly well. For another example, in order to help large French enterprises compete in the China market, senior officials of the French government will talk about how France's nuclear power technology and high-speed railway technology are world-class. In order to have more professional knowledge in these areas, our embassy invited experts from Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station to introduce us to the basic knowledge of nuclear power, and invited experts from the Ministry of Railways to introduce the high-speed railway ABC, focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of the three existing high-speed railway systems in the world, and how to adopt them on the Beijing-Shanghai line. After mastering the most basic ABC of nuclear power and high-speed rail, nuclear power and high-speed rail are no longer general and empty concepts for me; When the two sides talked about nuclear power and high-speed rail projects in translation, I had food in my hand and my heart was not panic.
Third, pay attention to collect and be familiar with some commonly used abbreviations and abbreviations.
People often talk about many abbreviations and abbreviations in conversation, such as the National People's Congress, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, three benefits, three benefits, grasping the big and letting go of the small. There are many similar abbreviations and abbreviations in French, such as OGM, TVA, NININI, ... These abbreviations and abbreviations can easily become obstacles to translation if they are not careful.
In addition, when French people refer to our ministries, important institutions and large enterprises in conversation, they are used to using their English abbreviations, such as SDPC, Democratic Republic of Congo, CCPIT, CASC, CAAC, CNOOC and China Unicom. Although these abbreviations are enough, they often get stuck in translation. For a French translator, it seems a bit reluctant to remember many abbreviations above, but it does not decrease. The author once had such an experience: business counselor, manager of the international department of a big French company, told us that he had just returned from a visit to China and met a Mr. Zhang from the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense in Beijing ... because he didn't know what COSTIND meant, he asked the other party, who didn't know the full English name of COSTIND or how to say it in French. Later, he returned to the office and faxed me a copy of Mr. Zhang's Chinese business card. It suddenly dawned on me that COSTIND is the abbreviation of the Committee of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. After this incident, I consciously collected and became familiar with some commonly used abbreviations and abbreviations, which benefited a lot in my later translation work and often came in handy. Fourthly, the translation of recipes, jokes and some metaphorical puns.
Foreign affairs activities cannot be separated from banquets, and the translation of recipes at banquets is a headache, especially some seasonings used in French dishes and some deep-sea fish that French people like to eat. We don't have the names of some deep-sea fish in the Atlantic Ocean in Chinese food, and we haven't heard of them. Even after I said the Chinese names of these fish from the dictionary, the Chinese people were still at a loss and had to describe the general shapes of these fish by hand.
Most westerners are humorous and like to tell jokes of 1 and 2 at the dinner table to enliven the atmosphere and relax. However, this often leads to a difficult problem in translation: due to the cultural differences between the East and the West, the jokes of the West may not sound ridiculous to us in the East, but if the host of the joke laughs his head off while our guests are indifferent, it will make the host feel very embarrassed; How to make our people laugh has become a severe challenge for translation.
Fifth, pay attention to the French with high social status and good education.
French people with high social status and good education like to chew over words, and they like to use metaphors and metaphors to make their expressions elegant and subtle. They often talk in twists and turns, adding a lot of decorative rhetoric around many twists and turns, and don't forget to use subjunctive tense or conditional tense when expressing their personal views, so as to show that these views belong to personal subjective views and may not represent the real situation. Many domestic translators who are not familiar with this artificial expression peculiar to French upper class will soon get wet.