"Sorry everyone, I'm late."
Jiang Yulou wiped the sweat from his forehead and panted.
He ran here, and the classroom was not close to the dormitory. He was in a hurry and lacked exercise, which made him out of breath.
"It's Jiang Yulou!"
"Ah, it's finally here."
"The event is almost over, why are you here?"
"Tch, would it be interesting to find someone from outside?"
There were whispers in the classroom. Some people welcomed his arrival, while others were angry.
Xu Xiangdong hurried to Jiang Yulou's side, lowered his voice and whispered: "What's going on? Didn't I agree? You didn't look at the time!"
"I'm sorry, I was busy writing the script and I suddenly became obsessed." Jiang Yulou apologized sincerely.
Xu Xiangdong said helplessly: "Forget it, I won't do it next time."
Then, he said loudly: "Students, let us welcome Jiang Yulou to our reading club with warm applause."
After finishing speaking, he took the lead in applauding, and soon the classroom burst into warm applause.
"Hello everyone, I am Jiang Yulou. Do I sincerely apologize to everyone again? Please forgive me." Jiang Yulou stood on the podium and bowed.
No matter what, it was too unpunctual, and an apology was due.
Applause rang out again. Everyone did not expect that Jiang Yulou was so sincere. Shouldn't a writer like him care about face very much?
Ever since, everyone's impression of him has changed a lot.
No one is wrong. If you know your mistakes, you can correct them.
Jiang Yulou wanted to sit next to Xu Xiangdong, but he found a very beautiful girl sitting next to Xu Xiangdong.
After thinking about it carefully, he thought of a possibility, that is, Lao Xu was also in love.
"No wonder he actively asked me to come to this reading group. Maybe it was his girlfriend who requested it." Jiang Yulou cursed.
Don't bother Lao Xu anymore.
Jiang Yulou moved to sit next to Yu Min and asked:
"Well, what book are you reading today?"
"I am reading the novel "Jane Eyre" written by the British female writer Charlotte Bronte." Yu Min did not answer. The person behind Yu Min answered his question, and then the classmate said quietly: "But , today’s reading session has ended.”
"Ah, is that so?" Jiang Yulou scratched his head in embarrassment.
After a while, he commented: "This is a very good novel."
The theme of this novel is that through the rough life experience of an orphan girl, it has successfully created an image of a woman who is unsatisfied with the status quo, unwilling to be humiliated, and dares to fight. It reflects the candid outpouring and censure of an ordinary soul. A person with a lower case becomes A capital human longing.
At this time, someone asked: "Classmate Jiang, can you understand the original English version of "Jane Eyre"?"
Immediately, someone else complained: "Yeah, I think when reading foreign novels, you still have to read the original works. How about the translations? It feels... very awkward."
Jiang Yulou smiled and answered the first person's question: "My English may be average, but there is no obstacle to ordinary reading."
He continued: "Some students think that when reading foreign novels, one must read the original works instead of the translated versions. I think this is because the translators of the novels were not honest and elegant."
"Xindaya?" Many students asked in confusion.
Jiang Yulou did not answer his classmates' doubts, but looked at his roommate, "Xu Xiangdong should know, right?"
Xu Xiangdong nodded. His family has been translators for generations, so he naturally understood the rules of the translation industry, so he explained: "Ahem, "faithfulness", "expression" and "elegance" were proposed by Yan Fu, an emerging enlightenment thinker in the late Qing Dynasty in my country. The "Examples of Translation" in "Tianyan Lun" mentioned: "There are three difficulties in translation: faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. It’s very difficult to ask for his trust! Gu Xin, if you don't reach it, even if you translate it, but if you don't translate it, it will not be reached. "
In layman's terms, the translation should conform to the characteristics of the Chinese language and focus on the integrity of a sentence, that is, the content, structure, and literary talent, that is, the accuracy of the content, the smoothness of the grammatical structure, and the literariness of the language carrier. "
Everyone was a little confused. For them, the realm of being honest and elegant was too advanced.
As far as the level of freshmen like them is concerned, being able to read original English books and speak fluently is something worth bragging about.
Jiang Yulou smiled and said: "Classmate Xu Xiangdong is right. I can share a few stories with you about interesting things about translation."
Telling stories, but also about English translation?
Everyone immediately became interested, and even Xu Xiangdong became serious.
"What I want to read now is the English translation of "The Political History of China in the Past Hundred Years (1840-1926)" by Mr. Li Jiannong." He then read in English: ""The Political History of China, 1840-1928" although the title The time is wrong, but the book is fine."
Everyone was in awe, Jiang Yulou had even read professional literary treatises, and they were translated into English, which was amazing.
"Ahem, there is a sentence in this book that says this." Jiang Yulou walked up to the podium and read out the original English text while writing it with chalk: "Mencius's motto: There is only one sun in the world. There is only one emperor above the people,' which can be applied to all realms established by large empires."
After that, he didn’t explain anything and just looked at the classmates quietly under the podium.
"Hey, Mencius, which country is this philosopher from?"
"It's so strange, but this motto makes sense."
"Even Mr. Li Jiannong quoted his motto, so he must be very famous. Unfortunately, I am ignorant and have never heard of it."
"I feel that he is better than the philosophers in our country. Maybe he is a philosopher or thinker from the UK or the United States."
This sentence written by Jiang Yulou is not difficult to translate, but the students in the audience only translated it literally and did not do it faithfully and expressively.
Yu Minmeng was intrigued and felt that this translation was already very good.
Xu Xiangdong frowned. As a top student in the English department who aspired to be a translator, he thought for a long time and still couldn't translate better.
He was a little unwilling. Could Jiang Yulou do better?
Jiang Yulou looked at everyone and said with a smile: "Do you want to hear the Xinyada translation of this motto?"
"Think!" everyone said in unison.
Jiang Yulou said with a bad smile: "That's good for you. This sentence should be translated like this, Mencius said: There are no two days in the sky, and there are no two kings in the people!"
"What?!"
"It's actually a motto of Mencius?"
"Mencius is Mencius? I am XXX!"
Even Xu Xiangdong was stunned. He translated and translated, but he didn't think of this sentence!
Jiang Yulou continued: "Of course, there is still a problem with the English translation. Do you know?"
"this……"
Everyone fell silent. They had already lost face once. If they were not careful again, they would lose face.
"'There are no two days in the sky, and there are no two kings in the people' was actually said by Confucius, which means that the English translation has made another mistake." Jiang Yulou winked.
Everyone: "..."
