Abstract

In college students’ Chinese to English translation, errors of various kinds can be found. After analysis, some errors are caused by deficient knowledge of syntax and semantics, some are caused by lack of background knowledge, and students’ poor awareness of cultural diversity also contributes to them.
Accordingly, this essay puts forth the reasons why college students make such translation errors, including objective and subjective reasons. The author gives some related strategies such as consolidating fundamental knowledge, learning translation skills and enriching knowledge of the world. All the effort made in this essay is to improve students’ ability of C-E translation to a higher level.

Key words: C-E translation, errors, translation strategies
 
摘要

在大学生汉译英翻译作业中能看到各种各样的错误，通过分析得知，有些错误是由英语句法及语义知识不足造成的，有些是背景知识不足导致的，有些则是大学生对中西文化差异的不够敏感造成的。为了说明这些问题，笔者从学生平常翻译作业中找出了典型例子予以说明。
于是，本论文提出了造成学生误译的客观及主观原因，并提出了相关策略，包括巩固英语基础知识、学习并掌握翻译技巧、丰富各方面的背景知识。该论文旨在提高大学生汉英翻译的总体水平。

关键词：汉英翻译；错误；策略

1. Introduction
1.1 Status quo of C-E translation of colleges’ learners
Due to the marginalization of translation teaching or even English teaching in some backward rural areas, the little attention paid to English learning would prevent students from laying a solid foundation of language knowledge. And a prevalent status quo is that they are giving far more prominence to theoretical knowledge rather than practical translation skills, in other words, students practise little and use little, so when translating, many improper expressions, especially syntactic and semantic errors can be found. Also, some college students appear indifferent to what is taking place on the globe, so their knowledge of the world tends to be rather limited; in this case, they fail to present some cultural-related elements when translating. In brief, due to subjective and objective reasons, errors of various kinds can be found in college students’ translation works.