Chinese people worship a book named Tao Te Ching which is an outstanding representative of Chinese classics and a philosophical text. Recently some students who are learning Mandarin found that many translations of Tao Te Ching appear in market, among which some editions are not good.
During the period of learning Chinese in China, these students who are interested in the translation of Tao Te Ching analyzed one of the editions and pointed out some shortages of the translation under the guidance of their Chinese teacher.
Example one: Chapter 10 in Tao Te Ching: “戴营魄抱一，能毋离乎？抟气致柔，能婴儿乎？涤除玄览，能无疵乎？爱民治国，能毋以知乎？天门启阖，能为雌乎？明白四达，能毋以为乎？”The translation that the students of learning Mandarin analyzed is: When carrying on your head your perplexed bodily soul can you hold in your arms the One And not let go? In concentrating your breath can you become as supple As a babe? Can you polish your dark mirror And leave no blemish? In loving the people and bringing life to the state Are you capable of not resorting to knowledge? When the gates of heaven open and shut Are you capable of keeping to the role of the female? When your discernment penetrates the four quarters Are you capable of not resorting to knowledge?
Form itself can express a certain meaning. That is to say, form and content are tied closely; in many situations, abandoning form equals abandoning meaning. The original text is fluent, for the structure of “以……，能……乎？”runs through the entire text and creates a beauty of balance. However these students who have learnt mandarin for a long time thought that this translation is not unified from the beginning to the end and lack of the relevant poet form to produce a feeling of music so that it doesn’t present the spirit essence and artistic mien.
Example two: Chapter 36 in Tao Te Ching: “将欲翕之，必固张之；将欲弱之，必固强之；将欲去之，必固与之；将欲夺之，必固予之.” In order to study whether the translation is good or not, these students who are learning Mandarin looked up many materials and references. Linguists Li and Thompson classify language into four types and English is considered as the language that focuses on subjects, while Chinese is the one that focuses on topics. To comprehend an English sentence, especially long sentence, you should start with analyzing subject and predicate. If you have learnt mandarin for a certain period, you will find that the form of Chinese sentence is not as complete as English. There are many sentences without subject. To comprehend Chinese, you should analyze from the general to the specific. English and Chinese belong to different two language families. Compared with Chinese, English use joint means in writing more frequently. The relationship between Chinese sentences is presented through the direct organization of characters and context, not shown by joint means.
If the decisive strength of form is considered as significance, the ignorance of form in the process of translation will produce problems. The alternative forms that translator uses will be totally different from the function of original forms when it is translated into target language. The original text actually is a sentence with four compound subject clauses. However, after learning Mandarin for a long time, some of the students in high level found that this translation is spread into a sentence with adverbial clauses and the momentum is weaker than the original text.
In fact, this translation edition is not that bad. Most parts of the translation are quite wonderful and shining outstanding light. These students and teacher are really made many efforts on studying the translation. Through this process, they really learnt a lot. This is a really a good way to learn Chinese language and Chinese culture.