Abstract

     Chinese dish has boasted a high reputation around the world. Many dish names have been translated into English to facilitate foreigners to enjoy the delicious food. However, it’s a common phenomenon that westerners normally focus on the nutrition of food, such as protein and vitamin. In contrast, Chinese diners are more concerned about the color, aroma, and taste of food, which together make the food perfect. Chinese food can serve as hunger killer, disease treatment, health promotion, relationship building and family value enhancement. The cultural differences sometimes may cause improper translation of Chinese cuisines, which often causes confusion, misunderstanding and even absurdity among foreign diners，which will do damage to China’s image. In this essay, some mistakes are listed at first, which include over transliteration without further explanation, over-literal translation and loss of the function of menu. Then some principles of translation are introduced based on the theory of the functional equivalence, such as metaphrase, free translation, omission and transliteration.

Key words: common mistake; translation solution; functional equivalence

摘要

     众所周知，中式美食在全球广享盛誉。为了让外国友人更好的享受中式美食，许多中式菜肴均有相应的英译名。但是，通常，外国人更关注食物的营养，如所含蛋白质，维他命等。而中国人更关注事物的色香味。除了能扫除饥饿，中餐还有其他功能，诸如食疗，保健，建立友谊，增强家庭观念等。由于中英文化方面存在的种种差异，有些英译菜名并不恰当，部分菜名会引起外国食客的困惑，误解甚至荒谬的感觉，不利于维护中国的良好形象。本论文讨论中式菜肴常见英译错误，例如完全用拼音翻译菜名而没有加以解释；过度直译；忽视菜单功能等。本文给出一定的修改意见，指出常用的翻译原则，针对一些具体中式菜肴提出直译，意译，省略，音译等方法，以供参考。

关键词：常见错误；翻译方法；功能对等