Translation skills of long English sentences in patent application

English is used to expressing complex concepts in long sentences, but Chinese is different. It is often described clearly in a few short sentences. Therefore, in English-Chinese translation, we should pay special attention to the differences between English and Chinese, and break long English sentences into short Chinese sentences. In the process of translating long English sentences, the following methods are generally adopted:) ~

(1) sequential method. When the narrative level of English long sentences is basically the same as that of Chinese, they can be translated into Chinese in the order of English original texts.

(2) Reverse order method. The expression order of some long sentences in English is different from that in Chinese, or even completely opposite. At this time, translation must start from the back of the original text.

3) grammar. Sometimes the subject or clause in long English sentences is not closely related to modifiers. In translation, we can turn clauses or phrases of long sentences into sentences and describe them separately according to the habit of using short sentences in Chinese. In order to make the meaning coherent, sometimes we need to add words appropriately. For example:

The number of illiterate young people in the United States is increasing, about a quarter.

If we follow the sentence structure of the original text, it may be translated into:

The number of young people in the United States who can't read is incredible, about 1/4. )

This translation is extremely unsmooth and does not conform to the expression habits of China people. It is unbelievable that about 65,438+0/4 young Americans can't read. )

(4) Comprehensive method. In fact, when translating a long English sentence, we don't just use one translation method, but require us to use various methods comprehensively, which is also reflected in the example we cited above. Especially in some cases, it is not convenient for some long English sentences to adopt any of the above methods, which requires us to analyze them carefully or comprehensively deal with the whole sentence in chronological or logical order, so as to translate the original English into fluent and faithful Chinese sentences.