5 Common Challenges for English-Chinese Translations

Langt det sprog, der tales af de fleste mennesker i verden, er kinesisk. Over 1,3 milliarder mennesker taler en eller anden form af sproget i dag - 16% af hele verdens befolkning. Det er markant mere end spansk (460 millioner) eller engelsk (380 millioner).

It’s also one of the six official languages of the United Nations, along with English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Russian.

Kinesisktalende bor over hele verden, inklusive i Singapore, Hong Kong, USA, Sydafrika, Storbritannien og mere. Så hvis du overvejer at udvide din virksomhed internationalt, vil du gå glip af et stort publikum, hvis du ikke oversætter til kinesisk.

Fem almindelige udfordringer for engelsk-kinesiske oversættelser (og hvad man skal gøre ved dem)

Since China is one of the birthplaces of civilization, you may already know some Chinese words adapted to English, like feng shui, ginseng, monsoon, or ketchup.

Men det er svært at tænke på to sprog, der er mere forskellige fra hinanden end engelsk og kinesisk. Så vi talte med en af vores eksperter til kinesiske oversættere for at finde ud af de vigtigste forskelle og udfordringer, du har brug for at kende.

1. There isn’t one “Chinese” language

When we refer to Chinese, we’re actually referring to a few different versions of the Chinese language based on region: Mandarin, Wu, Gan, Xiang, Min, Cantonese, Hakka, Jin, Hui, and Pinghua. In fact, some of the seven different varieties of Chinese are so different that even native speakers won’t understand one another.

Mandarin Chinese is the official language of mainland China, while Cantonese is more often spoken in Hong Kong. This is why it’s so important to be specific about your audience. The more you know about their needs, dialects, and location, the more you’ll be able to engage the right translation team.

2. Skriftlig kinesisk bruger tegn

While there may be many different varieties of Chinese, they all use the same written characters for Chinese text, similar to languages like Japanese and Korean.

“English uses pinyin writing, while Chinese uses ideographic writing. The most basic unit of English is a word, which makes up sentences, but in Chinese, the most basic unit is a character. Each character represents one symbol with its own meaning.” — George L.

Chinese doesn’t have an alphabet in the way that English speakers think of one. Today, China has adopted a phonetic system using Latin letters, which can help children learn to write and speak. However, it’s not widely used.

While Latin languages make up words using combinations of 26 different letters, Chinese has thousands of characters that create words and phrases. Each character takes up one syllable.

There are two main styles of writing Chinese characters: Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Simplified Chinese is more modern, coming into use in the 1950s and 1960s. The main differences with Simplified Chinese are in the number of characters and a simpler style. Simplified Chinese also uses Western-style punctuation.

3. Formality is important (but looks slightly different)

Formality within grammatical structures and addresses is just as important in Chinese as it is in Latin languages. While there isn’t a formal “you” like there is in Spanish or French, Chinese does designate formality through place names and surnames, which are written differently.

“Place names and organization names are written in Chinese from largest to smallest. For example, in XX County, XX City, XX Province, China, it is customary to put high-level ones in the front and low-level ones in the back, while English is just the opposite.” — George L.

This designation also holds true for surnames, which come first before personal names.

“Chinese believe that surnames are passed down from ancestors and are, of course, more important than personal names. Therefore, surnames should be placed first, and first names should be placed behind. English is the opposite.” — George L.

4. Kinesisk er et tonalt sprog

Pronunciation is one of the most essential aspects of spoken Chinese. There are four major tones that will completely change the meaning of the word based on how it’s spoken:

Tones dramatically change the meaning of Chinese words and are just as complex to learn as tenses, agreements, or word order of grammatical structures of Latin languages.

5. Chinese uses simpler grammatical structures

Engelsk er et af de mest udfordrende sprog at lære på grund af de grammatiske regler. (Glem ikke alle disse undtagelser! Husk "I før E "?)

Chinese grammar is much more straightforward without tenses or plurality.

"Kinesiske navneord har ikke flertal, og verber har ingen ændringer i tider, stemmer, det subjektive og så videre. Det vil sige, at kinesiske ord kun har én unik form i brug, og der vil ikke være nogen ændringer på grund af grammatiske krav. Forskellige tider, stemmer, subjekt-objekt, ental og plural grammatiske betydninger vil blive afspejlet gennem indholdet af sætningen ovenfor. Den eneste reelle forskel er, at kinesisk ofte sætter adverbialer, der angiver tid, sted og vej foran sætningen, mens engelsk normalt sætter det bagerst." - George L.

Kinesisk bruger andre måder at skelne objekter, fortid og navneord fra hinanden på. Men generelt behøver du kun at lære et ord og et udsagnsord i stedet for at huske en hel tabel med verbumstider og stedord, som du ville gøre på fransk eller spansk:

The basic word order for Chinese is also the same as it is in English: subject - verb - object.

Because of these structural differences, it’s important to work with translators who can understand Chinese-English cultural and linguistic differences and make recommendations on how to approach your web pages and content, so it feels like it was written for your Chinese audience.

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