Translation in Practice

This course offers you basic but valuable techniques used by a good translator in the translation between English and Chinese. We’ll discuss what is translation, what is good translation, and learn about how to produce good translations. All the examples used in this course are taken from the course instructor's own translations of various genres and topics of writing. These examples are elaborated on to show you how to understand the idea, style and tone of the writer, the historical and cultural context of the writing, as well as the explicit and implied meanings of words, the grammatical structures of sentences, and the logic of sentences and paragraphs in order to achieve faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance in the translation. After completing this course, you will know what makes a qualified professional translator and acquire the abilities and skills that such a translator needs

• Discuss concepts of translation and criteria for quality translations
• Learn how to produce effective and accurate translations
• Understand ideas, style, and tone of the original text
• Analyze historical and cultural contexts influencing translation
• Comprehend explicit and implied meanings of words
• Examine grammatical structures and sentence logic

• No deep prior experience is required, but basic computer and internet skills are helpful
• Ability to read course instructions in English and complete short practice activities