Translation practice – Chinese to English


People unburdened by the curse of knowledge have revealed that they’re free from worry about coronavirus, climate change, and the existence of nuclear weapons.

Simpleton Stephen Malley said: “At school I realised that education was a one-way ticket to misery. Since then I’ve sacked off learning entirely and I haven’t looked back.

“I drift through life without a care in the world. I can’t even spell ‘global pandemic’, let alone get my head around the terrifying implications of what one could be.”

Imbecile Donna Sheridan added: “Smart people like Einstein and Danny Dyer always seem miserable. Even that statue of the man having a think looks down in the dumps.

“They want to cheer up by putting down boring old books and scroll mindlessly through social media instead.

“That’s what I do, as well as sharing tweets from that harmless funny man Donald Trump just to put a smile on everyone’s face.”

Through the process of translating it back to English, I realized a couple of problems in my translation.
1. I need to use the precise words in the first round so that I will be able to find the matching words when I atemp to reverse it back to English.
2. It’s very difficult to translate the nuances of satire from one culture to the other without explaining it. It loses the humor if I do. I used Chinese set phrases for those part, then I couldn’t recall the matching ones in English.
Overall, I still have plenty to learn in order to become a good translator.
Here are some words I should have used more precise translation:
unburden 无牵累
simpleton 愚昧
onewayticket 单程票
misery 苦难
driftthroughlife 虚度年华
downinthedumps 垂头丧气