I. Customer groups of English-Chinese translation service
The clients demanding English-Chinese translation service not only come from Chinese enterprises, organs and individuals, etc., but also come from worldwide foreign companies, government bodies and individuals, etc. Chinese enterprises require translating advanced scientific and technological materials into Chinese for studying. Chinese presses require translating foreign excellent works from English to Chinese and then publish and distribute them in China. Chinese information departments require collecting English information and translating it into Chinese and then submitting it to leaders for reference. Chinese research and development institutes and university teachers require learning from English academic materials, which also needs English-Chinese translation service. The Chinese overseas students require translating foreign English academic certificates into Chinese versions when they complete their studies and return home to obtain employment so as to obtain the approval of personnel departments of China. All foreign companies want to develop Chinese market; therefore, they will actively translate their various product and service introduction materials from English to Chinese so as to provide Chinese versions of product instruction manual and other commercial and technical materials for potential Chinese clients. Many foreign companies also translate their websites into Chinese versions so as to be browsed by potential Chinese clients. For example, in order to obtain more Chinese clients, foreign specialist physicians translate their medical level introduction information websites into Chinese so as to be read by Chinese patients. Chinese versions are added at foreign tourist attraction websites so as to attract Chinese tourists to visit. Many foreigners work or live in China and they need to translate their individual materials, such as English academic certificates and resumes, etc. into Chinese so as to be read and used by Chinese employing units. The purposes of English-Chinese translation services are diverse and too numerous to mention one by one.
II. Constitution of English-Chinese translators
The proportion of English-Chinese translation is the highest in total translation amount of all language pairs worldwide, which is determined by the status of China in the world currently and number of people using Chinese and English. The number of employees of English-Chinese translation is the largest too.
Personnel undertaking the task of English-Chinese translation are mainly from Chinese mainland and there are also some overseas Chinese translators distributed in various countries in the world, and several foreign friends whose Chinese is very good. However, comparing with the number of Chinese people whose English is very good, the number of translators (with English as their native languages) whose Chinese is very good and can accurately translate English into Chinese can be ignored.
III. Quality requirements for excellent English-Chinese translators
Although there are millions of people dealing with English-Chinese translation, there are few translators who can do remarkably well in English-Chinese translation. Do not think that you can be a translator after learning English for several years or when coming back from abroad. The difficulty of English-Chinese translation is no less than that of Chinese-English translation. To do well in English-Chinese translation, translators shall have several main qualities. Firstly, translators should have very high English level, strong English reading ability, be able to deeply understand meanings of original English text and understand very long English sentences, which requires they have very large amounts of vocabularies, have read lots of complex English articles and are proficient in English grammar; secondly, translators should have very high Chinese level and Chinese expression ability and be capable of handling Chinese skillfully. The language of Chinese translated text shall conform to the reading habits of Chinese people and sentences shall be smooth, where long English sentences shall be divided into several Chinese sentences. The process of English-Chinese translation is to segment English sentences and to re-organize language in Chinese, namely re-organize divided sentence constituents in accordance with Chinese grammar; thirdly, translators should have rigorous logical thinking ability. A good article has internal logic relations between sentences; therefore, translators must judge accurate meanings expressed in English through logic thinking ability; fourthly, translators must understand professional background knowledge involved in original English text and common vocabularies of corresponding majors and should not coin vocabularies.
IV. Problem on price of English-Chinese translation
The price of English-Chinese translation is widely different. In general, the price of translation companies in Chinese mainland and English-Chinese translators is much lower than that abroad, which is determined by the supply-demand relationship in market competition. The translation industry in Chinese mainland has cutthroat competition, which undoubtedly affects the translation quality and sound development of the whole translation industry. We pursue the business policy of high quality and high price and all of our English-Chinese translators are excellent translators through severe training and hammering. Most of our clients are also high-quality customers who accept the quality of our English-Chinese translation.
