Chinese text

Chinese and English are languages that are not only influenced by completely different cultures but also differ on a major spectrum linguistically. For this reason, translating from Chinese to English may not be the easiest task because of the former's inability to express the message as accurately conveyed in the latter. Chinese boasts of the kind of conciseness that does not exist in English. What the Chinese language expresses in several characters may only require one word or a simple phrase in English. You are likely to get confused and probably over translate from Chinese to English.

However, not to worry because, in this article, we guide you on the right steps to take to translate from Chinese to English correctly.

Start with the words you know

It is generally difficult to translate Chinese to other languages because it has over three thousand characters that confuse even the most proficient speakers. When translating a text from Chinese, you may notice that you are unfamiliar with some of the characters. For this reason, you have to start with the ones you know. This way, you will get a general feel of the text and identify the context. You can also note numerals and repetitive characters that will help you place the text in its right tense since the Chinese language does not have tenses. 

1. Identify unknown words

After identifying the words you know, all you have to do is start working on the words whose meaning you do not know. Visit TheWordPoint site to search for the meanings of the words. To get the most accurate translation, form sentences combining the known and unknown words, whose meaning you just discovered, and attempt to make sense of the sentence you have formed. Generally, translation websites will give you accurate translations from Chinese to English, and thus you will not be lost trying to figure out the implied meaning of the completed sentence. You can also use the dictionary as a supplementary resource to guide your translation.

1. Rearrange the words.

Once you have made sense of all the words in the text, you have to reorganize them to make sense of the sentences you have formed. Remember that you were doing literal translation when finding the English meanings of the Chinese words in the text. You will notice that some sentences do not make sense in English until you move words around to make grammatically correct sentences. You may also need to add, subtract, or even substitute some words in the text that you have. The dictionary will help a lot in such an instance and helps you identify the meaning of the sentence. You will then easily identify the words to use and which ones to leave out.

Chinese to English translation may not be easy, but it is not impossible. Using the right resources and digital tools and basic knowledge of Chinese will go a long way toward translating into English successfully.