By Wu Qianwen

At 10:00 a.m., on March 29th, the School of Foreign Languages held a lecture entitledA Study of Chinese Translation of Academic Works in English: A Panorama in China. The lecture was given by Professor He Keyong from Minzu University of China in Liyun B408.

Professor He expounded on the situation and problems of Chinese translation of academic works in the last 30 years. He pointed out that with the increasing amount of translation, various errors and unsuitable translation versions emerged rampantly. “Mistranslations could be found in any subject, and it is a very terrible phenomenon,” Professor He said. Based on the data shown in the ppt slides, Professor He introduced 20 types of mistranslations with specific examples. For instance, when it comes to the mistranslation of names and places, one translator translated the French name “Vincent” into “万桑特”, and mistook “Tang’tai”(the Tang Dynasty) for a name of a person. Finally, Professor He discussed the reasons behind the mistranslations; he believed attitude was of paramount importance.