At Tomedes we have always maintained that a good translation involves accurately conveying ideas portrayed in the source language, into the target language. This process goes beyond the simple replacement of words in the original language with their equivalents in the target language or even rendering the target document grammatically correct. Good to great language translation is about conveying the essence of the words contained in the original document to its translated version.
This is probably what the folks at UBS Continuing Studies had in mind when they planned a new translation and interpretation course for English-Mandarin language pair. The course which begins on the 24th of September, 2009 will train students on both way Mandarin-English translation and interpretation with business environment as its focus. Cultural understanding will be an integral part of this course which will be taught by Jennifer Hsu who is a highly experienced translator and has worked on many high profile projects.
According to Hsu, both translation and interpretation require a mastery of cultural references, for example jokes are very tough to translate and the translation is more often than not lost upon the targeted audience. This happens because jokes are usually rooted in popular culture and one cannot appreciate a joke without having any idea of its context. Moreover, if a translator/interpreter does not have a deep understanding of culture he or she is likely to make errors. This is more so in the case of the Chinese language which is steeped in history and culture.
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