Translation Means a Lot

I went to college in the late '80s in China. In addition to various textbooks, the university bookstore were full of translational "masterpieces" at that time. While I was reading college physics, chemistry, and biology textbooks, many students were "reading" those translational "masterpieces", e.g. "Entropy", "Post-Modernism", etc. etc. I tried several times to read a few, only to embarrass myself as I usually gave up before finishing the first chapter. I couldn't tell what went wrong. "The topics are too advanced for me?" I would utter to myself, after each failure.

Fifteen years later, finally I know why, thanks to some of the detailed investigations done by Dr. Fang at Xinyusi. It was the bad translation. What Dr. Fang showed was that, many Chinese versions of some of the most famous scholarly book were so poorly transtlated that they are simply incomprehensible by Chinese readers. The examples include, very unfortunately, "Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge" by Edward I. Wilson, "Evolution: the History of an Idea" by Peter J. Bowler, both "translated" by Tian Min. Most of the translators neither hold an advanced degree nor lived (for an extended period of time, not just visiting) in the western countries. Therefore, they have neither the language skill nor the technical background to fulfill the difficult job of translation.

Before finishing this post, I would like to give links to two of my recent translations, both of which were published in a Chinese on-line journal: Our Science.

• "Crick's Immodest Ambitions", a Nature Editorial: Original, Chinese
• "Science and the Nature of Awe", by Rudy Baum of C&EN: Original, Chinese