I majored in minor languages and English as a second language, and worked abroad for two years after graduation. Since I have lived in a multilingual environment for a long time and like to read original and translated works in foreign languages, I have my own comparison of the quality of translation.
Now that I think about it, the origin of my standard of good translation may have been influenced by my university teachers.
When I was in college, my English teacher, who had worked as a diplomatic translator, often asked us to read the original English and compare the versions of different translators. After doing too much of this kind of training, I will form a certain translation likes and dislikes.
My favorite translator is Mr. Xu Yuanchong, and when I read Mr. Xu's works, I feel like I have a mouthful of mouth. A good translation is like that, and the more you read it, the more you want to read it.
And if you read a bad translated work, it is simply like a fish in your throat and a man's back, because it may only translate the meaning of the language, and the emotion behind the article and the fluency of the text will be greatly reduced.
Recently, I read a book of translations that "the more I read, the more I want to read", and I can't wait to share my reading experience.
This collection of translations that made me "the more I read, the more I want to read" is called "Shocking and Bad Dreams Are Nowhere to Be Found", and the author is Feng Zikai.
Feng Zikai is known as the "originator of modern Chinese comics", which is what I have always known about him, and his paintings can often hit people's hearts with just a few strokes.
As everyone knows, his translation level is not far behind, when I read this book "Shocking and Bad Dreams Are Nowhere to Find", I only feel that the text does not have the difficult feeling of foreign language translation, the writing is smooth, the brushstrokes are delicate, the rhetoric is rich, and it is very beautiful.
Mr. Feng Zikai's translation covers a wide range, as far as this book is concerned, the book not only includes his translation of "First Love" - "First Love" and "Selected Hunter's Notes" written by the great writer Turgenev, but also includes the novella **"It's better to go home" by the Japanese writer Tokufu Luhua, the novella ** "Stay" by Natsume Soseki, and the **"No Ears" and "Horse of Happy Mountain" by Mongolian writers who are not very common in China.
The reason why Mr. Feng Zikai was able to translate such a large number of translations with different themes and styles has a lot to do with his personal pursuit and academic attitude.
In 1921, Mr. Feng Zikai went to Japan to study, and studied very hard, "studying art at the Kawabata School of Foreign Painting during the day, and studying Japanese and English at night".
His first translation, First Love, was Turgenev's translation from Russian to English. Already proficient in English and Japanese, he began to learn Russian at the age of 53, and within a few months he was able to read Tolstoy's original Russian book "War and Peace", and later translated his favorite Turgenev's "Hunter's Notes" into Chinese.
This insistence on translation would not have been possible without love.
Of course, translating foreign language works is only a part of Mr. Feng Zikai's many skills, you know, he published more than 160 works on painting, education, literature, and translation in his lifetime, which can be described as a work.
Shocking and Bad Dreams Are Nowhere to Be Found: Selected Readings of Translations" is a volume included in "Happy World: Feng Zikai's Life Collection", a total of three volumes, and the remaining two volumes are "Good Flower Season is Not Idle: Feng Zikai's Comic Preface Collection" and "Cat's Cry at Night: Feng Zikai Tells Stories", interested friends may wish to find a look, in the cold winter night, reading around the fireplace night is a kind of fun.