送交者: 李继宏 于 2006-3-04, 19:07:27:
所有例句均出自近日在翻译的the name of action一书。
A．We cannot fully grasp the meaning of anything－a man’s life, for example－without understanding where it came from and how it turns out. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, you need only live in the moment; you need only live for the moment. To find meaning, you must inhabit the past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus life dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.
除非我们得知事情来自哪里、将有什么后果，否则我们无法全然明了它——比如说某人的生活——的意义。前往幸福的道路和通向意义的旅途大相径庭。要找到幸福，你只需活在此刻，只需为此刻活着。而要找到意义，你必须寄居过去，无论它多么黑暗，还需为未来而活，不管它多么飘渺。因而对我们所有人来说，生活在幸福和意义之间摇摆不定，而它留给我们的，是非此即彼的选择。
真正的翻译，在翻译过程中是不会查英汉词典的。国内所有的英汉词典都很蠢，尤其是陆谷孙主编的《英汉大词典》。按照词典释义翻译的后果是，译文越来越千人一面，越来越乏味，越来越面目可憎，而汉语中原有的丰富多彩、变化万端统统都不见了。比如在这里，我们把蓝色句子的骨干提出来，就是the ways are not the same。按照字典的翻译，那就是“道路是不一样的”。然而在汉语里面，我们形容道路不一样既可以说“南辕北辙”，也可以说“大相径庭”，还有许许多多其他说法。总而言之，翻译不能靠英汉词典。
B. For myself, I have always chosen meaning. Which, I suppose, is how I came to be waiting in the swelter and mob of Hoboken Harbor on Sunday, August 29, 1909, along with Dr. Abraham Brill, for the arrival of the Norddeutsche Lloyd steamship George Washington, bound from Bremen, carrying to our shores the one man in the world I wanted most to meet.
于本人而言，我总是选择意义。我认为正是如此，我才会在1909年8月29日那个闷热的星期天来到乱糟糟的霍伯肯码头，跟着亚伯拉罕•布里尔博士，守候北德意志－劳埃德公司从不来梅启航的乔治•华盛顿号蒸汽船，等待它的驳岸将全世界我最想见到那个人带到我们的海岸线来。
在文言文和古代的半文言文中，没有任何句子会超过13个汉字而不做停顿。实际上，我坚持认为，好的汉语也应该如此，但这并非意味着汉语不能有长句子。在翻译的时候，我们经常会碰到这样的情况，它一气呵成，语意完整，如果强行将其断开，会破坏整个句群，所以还是得用长句子来表达。不过通常有人文字功底太浅，比如梅绍武、王家湘之流的，句子一长就错乱，变得不像汉语不说，还把意思搞混了。而真正牛比的人，句子再长也还是汉语，也还是清清楚楚。
C. The only comparison anyone could think of was Haussman’s transformation of Paris a half century earlier. The difference was that in New York, there was no single mind behind it, no unifying plan, no restraining authority. Capital and speculation drove everything, releasing fantastic energies, distinctly American and individualistic.
人们记忆中堪与比拟的，是半个世纪前豪斯曼 在巴黎大兴土木的景象。迥异之处在于，纽约这种盛况背后没有个人的想法，没有整齐的规划，没有令出必行的当局。资本和投机推动一切，释放出的能量匪夷所思，纯然是美国式的和个人主义的。
从蓝色的句子我们可以看出，只要处理得当，完全不用调整原文的语序，译文也能将所有的意思一滴不漏地再现出来。
D. The masculinity of it all was undeniable. On the ground, the implacable Manhattan grid, with its two hundred numbered east-west streets and twelve north-south avenues, gave the city a stamp of abstract, rectilinear order. Above this, in the immensity of the towering structures, with their peacock-like embellishment, it was all ambition, speculation, competition, domination, even lust－for height, size, and always money.
不容否认，这一切均雄心勃勃。地面上，两百条按数字编号的东西向街道和十二条南北向的大道构成了曼哈顿固若金汤的格局，赋予这座城市以抽象而井井有条的秩序。而在这之上，雕梁画栋的楼宇栉比鳞次，充塞其中的，无非是野心、投机、竞争、控制，甚至还有欲望——追求高度的欲望，追求规模的欲望，加上唯利是图的欲望。
按照英汉词典翻译不但蠢，而且多数时候行不通。比如这里的immensity of the towering structures，如果照词典，翻出来肯定惨不忍睹。
E. You could see that he and Brill were genuine friends. Physically, they made a nice contrast. Both were short, but Brill’s pumpkin-like head looked like someone had brought a mallet down on it in his tender years, whereas Ferenczi’s zucchini-shaped face might have been caught between a pair of crashing cymbals at the same age.
可以看出，他和布里尔私交甚笃。从身材上看，他们对比鲜明。两人都不高，但布里尔的脑袋像南瓜，彷佛小时候有人拿棒槌敲过它；而费伦齐那张西葫芦似的脸，就如在同一年被一对铙钹狠狠拍过。
英语有不少赘词，比如这个you，在翻译中要化掉，否则不但烦，而且突兀。类似的例子我们以后还会见到。