Abstract: With the increasing frequency of transnational business activities such as international trade and international marketing, business English translation plays a vital role as a means of communication and media. At the same time, business English is a special kind of English, which has formed its own stylistic features. It requires proper and accurate words, good manners and clear meanings. Therefore, business English translation must have certain translation skills in order to reflect its actual effect in business communication.

Business English is English for Special Purpose (ESP) that serves the specific professional disciplines of international business activities. It involves a wide range of majors, unique language phenomenon and complex content and style. Business English translation requires translators to have rich knowledge of business theory and business practice. In order to improve the quality of translation, translators must have certain conditions.

First of all, the translator has a good knowledge of Chinese. Many people often ignore this point, thinking that Chinese is their mother tongue, and it is more than enough to deal with translation problems with their own original foundation. But in the real translation process, I have been thinking hard for a long time for a word or a sentence pattern, and I can't get a satisfactory result. Sometimes when I finally figure it out, I feel that it is not ideal. It can be seen that the ability to express and understand Chinese directly affects the quality of translation. It is very important for translation to learn Chinese well and lay a good foundation for Chinese.

Second, English language ability is strong. A comprehensive knowledge of grammar and a large vocabulary are indispensable. If you only have a large vocabulary and don't have a good knowledge of English grammar. In the process of translation, the translator's understanding must be full of mistakes. Therefore, we should improve the accuracy of understanding English sentences and expressing English in Chinese-English translation.

Third, we should have a wide range of knowledge. To do this well in business English translation, we must master the theoretical knowledge and practical experience of business theory and trade practice. At the same time, translators should have rich encyclopedic knowledge, not only familiar with astronomy and geography, ancient and modern China and foreign countries, but also have some basic knowledge. Without some common sense, even if the translator's language level is high, it is impossible to do a good job in translation.

First of all, the word is ambiguous.

Due to different contexts, the meaning of the same word may be very different. Try the following example:

1. They can't get credit in the transaction at all. Their business reputation is gone.

2. They have opened the relevant letter of credit with China Bank in London.

They have opened the relevant letter of credit with China Bank in London.

The above two sentences have different meanings of credit.

Second, the translation of parts of speech

Part of speech translation is a common translation skill in international business translation. Common examples are the translation of nouns and verbs, prepositions and verbs.

1. Mutual translation of nouns and verbs, such as:

Before paying these duties, the imported goods will be supervised by the customs.

Before paying customs duties, imported goods are kept by the customs. (Due to grammatical restrictions, only nouns are used, but when translated into Chinese, "payment" is translated into "payment")

2. Translation between prepositions and verbs

On many occasions, the translation of prepositions into verbs needs to be extended according to the context and translated concretely. For example:

We suggest that you contact them about your needs.

I suggest you contact them to buy the goods you need.

Third, meaning extension.

In business English translation, it is sometimes difficult to find the proper contextual meaning of some words in the dictionary, such as copying mechanically, the translation is often vague and even leads to misunderstanding. In this case, it is necessary to further extend the word from its inherent basic meaning according to the context and logical relationship. For example:

The arrival is not in conformity with the sample.

If the meaning of the word arrival is directly put into the translation, it is obviously impossible to correctly express the meaning of the original text and needs further extension.

Fourth, the number of words increases or decreases.

In the practice of business English translation, the addition and subtraction of words is also an important translation skill. In the process of translation, according to the contextual meaning and logical relationship of the original text, as well as the syntactic characteristics and expression habits of the target language, sometimes words that are not in the original text but are included in the actual content are added or words that are not needed for the expression of the target language are subtracted. 1. Add

According to the specific context, verbs, adjectives, nouns or other parts of speech can be added, but when to add the right words without exceeding a certain limit needs to be practiced and accumulated in the long-term translation process. For example, all cash dividends are subject to income tax. All cash dividends are subject to income tax. (Add verbs according to Chinese writing habits)

Reduce words

Subtraction translation can make the translation concise and change the phenomenon that word-for-word translation is tedious, procrastinating, inconsistent with writing habits and even ambiguous. If you sign this receipt, I will pay.

You sign the receipt and I'll pay.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) Translation of Common Terms in Business English

Business English translation contains a large number of words, so the accurate use of common words is very important in translation. As a business English translator, we should master a lot of common words, compounds and abbreviations with business meanings.

For example, FOB, CIF and other terms commonly used in prices, CIF has its specific professional content, such as C.W.O order payment; Bill of lading; Letter of credit; Cash on delivery; W. p. a. insurance; Blue chip blue chip and blue chip; Bad debts and so on. In a word, business English translation can't stick to form. On the premise of ensuring the maximum transmission of the original information to the target language, the translator can use the target language flexibly, and achieve the maximum equivalence of semantic information, stylistic information and style information. Business English translation should follow business terminology. Therefore, business English translators need to master a lot of professional vocabulary and translation skills.

References:

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[7] Zeng Huilan: Practical English for Import and Export [M]. foreign languages press, 2003

[8] Feng Qinghua: Practical Translation Course [M]. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2003