Babel And Babel Fish

Although I am not a professional translator, I have been engaged in translation for nearly 20 years, and millions of characters have been translated into English, French, Japanese, German and Russian. Translation is hard, but it can also learn a lot. It is very necessary for non professional translators to understand some translation skills and knowledge. Do you have any fish in your ears? The title of translation and the meaning of everything is very attractive. The author is a famous translator who studies comparative linguistics, and the translator is also a senior translator. The content of the book is rich and not boring. From translation strategy to Machine Translation, it covers all aspects of translation, and can be regarded as a "non orthodox textbook" of translation major.

Translation is inseparable from listening and speaking, or reading and writing. In fact, listening and reading are all about understanding foreign languages, and speaking and writing refer to communication and feedback based on understanding. There is a legend in language: at first, people all over the world used a language. They talked about building a city and an all sky tower. Ye Hehua knew that in order to prevent human being too powerful, he destroyed people's language and made it difficult for them to communicate and cooperate. This tower is called Babel. Translation has become indispensable since the emergence of nearly 7000 languages. But translation is not an easy task, so people wonder if there is a tool that can understand all kinds of languages. In his novel the guide to the galaxy, Douglas Adams mentioned a magical creature called Babel fish, which is small in size and relies on brain waves. People can carry it. It absorbs the mental frequency from the brain wave energy and transforms it into nutrition, and then launches a telepathic signal to the carrier's mind. If everyone has a Babel in his ear, he can make you understand any foreign language. Now, this intelligent tool for listening and translating has already appeared.

If AI can act as a translator, is translation really unnecessary? For this question, if we look at it from a broader cultural perspective, the answer is naturally negative. Translation itself promotes the spread of culture. One of the natural and traditional practices is called transliteration. Sometimes, it is impossible to find a more close argument between the target language and the target language. At this time, we use spelling as the usual way of borrowing, which is what we often call "borrowed words". These "foreign words" not only bring into the foreign culture, but also enrich the vocabulary of the target language. All the countries that created the peak civilization in history all had the process of absorbing external culture through translation. For example, English and old English existed in the middle of the fifth Century. After 700 years, they were still far from the English we use now. It was not until fifteenth Century that after the introduction of French and other Latin languages, English was still not formed. Modern English does not really come out until around 1750. It has gained popularity and has become the most popular language. (more than forty percent of the entries in all large English dictionaries are derived from other languages). Until now, English globalization has been completed. English not only absorbs a large number of words in Indo European languages, but also borrows some words in Arabic and Chinese. I have roughly estimated that 40% of the 8000 commonly used words in Spanish can find English words that correspond to or correspond closely to words. This is a highly integrated process of politics, economy, culture and society, and it is difficult to accomplish it through a cold machine.

Translation has also served the national goal. A relatively poor language can be improved through translation and borrowing from foreign languages. For example, Germany in nineteenth Century tried to build a unified country by independence. German translators have consciously introduced some words from Greek, French and English. They are committed to enabling German users to read European classics and further improve the language. Translation is an essential part of human civilization. Let's take the word "civilization" as an example. Many people know that this word comes from modern Japanese, and that "civilization" in Japanese is a free translation of English civilization. In fact, there are two words of "civilization" in ancient books in the pre Qin period. Japanese civilization is more likely to come from the Han Dynasty. In translation, it is believed that it can express the connotation of civilization better. Incidentally, the word has similar spelling and pronunciation in many languages, such as civiliza o, Portuguese, civi lizaci, n (Spanish), Civilisation (French), Zivilisation (German), Portuguese (Russian):civilizzazione (Italian), and in several other languages, such as Norwegian, polish, Swedish, Romania, Finnish, and Danish. The same is true. In ancient China, the term "humanities" refers to human invention. Now, the term "literature, history and philosophy" is collectively referred to as "humanities". This is not an isolated case. In fact, in fact, all cultures and civilizations have internal relations, and translation is a great achievement.