I come across a very interesting article on BBC about a Twitter account run by Chinese immigrants in the US, called @Trump_Chinese. My relentless curiosity drives me to check out the account online. Aha, President Trump’s daily tweets are translated into Chinese. If you’re bilingual in Chinese and English, you’ll get a kick out of the Chinese translation.
Like this one: “I donate 100% of my President’s salary, $400,000, back to our Country, and feel very good about it!”
Chinese people would be happy to know how much the US president earns annually. On the contrary, Trump’s Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping regards his payroll as the country’s top secret.
Another one: “Great news! Tonight, we broke the all-time attendance record previously held by Elton John at #SNHUArena in Manchester, New Hampshire!”
It’s unlikely that any Chinese officials, regardless of their rank and file, will compare their supporters to the fans of a Chinese rock musician. They don’t need to, because they presume they’re loved by the people whom they serve.
In this tweet, Trump writes in English: “I will solve the China problem” as he refers to US-China trade war. But in Chinese, his tweet is translated as “I will solve the issue of Chinese Communist Party.”
Well, if you’re bilingual in Chinese and English, you’ll understand my point that accurate translation needs to be done within context. Trump’s tweets are widely read by the American public who are knowledgeable about the subject. But for foreign readers, additional background explanation will make a difference in understanding Trump’s exclamation-point-loaded litany of tweets. The meaning of a source language occasionally is not translatable to its target language. For example, Trump’s pejorative nicknames—such as, Pocahontas, Cryin’ Chuck, Sleepy Joe and so on—will lose their zing in the translation.
Another example, Chinese netizens coined the phrase “mi-tu”, literally rice bunny, to refer to the MeToo Movement after the English word “MeToo” was censored in China. The pronunciation of “mi-tu” sounds close to “MeToo” in English. So when you see the ideogram of “rice bunny”, you’ll understand its underlying meaning in the Chinese context.
Ten years ago when I first arrived in the US, I ordered from a menu chicken noodle. I had never had chicken noodle soup before. I thought it was a noodle dish like Vietnamese pho or Japanese lamen, which come in a big bowl of soup with noodles. But I was served with a tiny cup of soup accompanied with three or five small, spiral strands of pasta. I still haven’t learned the lesson not to visualize a dish by its name.
Just recently, I ordered brie French dip in a restaurant. Thanks to my pastime French study, I’m a Francophile. So when I saw brie cheese and the word “French” on the menu, I was elated. I paid little attention to the dish’s real ingredients. Voilà! Out came a plate with a sandwich consisting of thinly sliced roast beef and a thin slice of cheese on a baguette. So for non-English speakers, my advice for you about ordering food in America is not only to depend on Google Translate and the like on your phone, but also be smart to look around and ask about the menu. This bilingual has truly tasted the misunderstanding of a language.
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