Abstract:

As everyone knows, each nation has its own culture, which is different from others. Due to the close relationship between language and culture, words often have deep cultural connotations. If people don’t know about the cultural differences between the source and target languages, it may be difficult for them to choose an almost equal word to replace the original one when they’re translating. As a result, not only should people well master the two languages, but also fully understand the two cultures, especially the differences between them. This paper represents the influences of differences between Chinese and Western culture on translation. It analyses the differences in religious beliefs, modes of thinking, historical culture, and social customs and so on. Some methods are introduced in order to achieve the purpose of cross-cultural communication. In fact, the translation of language is the communication of culture.

Keywords: Translation; Cultural Differences; Cultural Communication; Language; Methods of Translation

摘  要：

众所周知，每个国家都有其独特的文化。由于文化和语言息息相关，文字都含有深刻的文化内涵。如果人们不了解两种语言的文化差异，在翻译时，他们就很难选择合适的可替代的词汇。因此，人们不仅要熟练掌握这两种语言，更要理解两种语言的文化，特别是文化差异。本文论述了中西方文化差异对翻译的影响，分析了中西方在宗教信仰，思维方式，历史文化，社会习俗等方面的差异，介绍了在翻译时可运用的技巧，以此达到跨文化交流的目的。事实上，语言的翻译即文化的交流。

关键词：翻译；文化差异；文化交流；语言；翻译技巧

1 Introduction
With the increasing cultural exchanges between Chinese people and foreigners, people want to have better translations. People have a higher demand for translation, which puts translators into the dilemma that they “can not have both bear’s paw and the fish at the same time” The language is inherited and shared by the whole nation. It plays a crucial role in spreading and developing cultures. Lotman says that no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have the structure of natural language.
Translation is a significant part of language activities，which also helps people from different cultural backgrounds communicate with each other. At the same time, people learn from each through translation. Whether people can communicate well or not depends on their understandings of cultural connotations carried by languages. The only way to solve problems during translation is a deep comprehension of  the two completely different cultures.