LSAT-1-3-3

some thoughts about reading:

We Chinese seem to have no problem with English grammar. We even have a upper hand in analying sentence structure than native speakers. Yet when come to such abstract and complex sentence, we are stuck.

I rencently picked up a book on legal theories in one American university library. The book is targeting American undergraduates. it was such a frustrating experience for me because i really had a tough time reading it. It was totally different from reading Time, New York Time or the Wall Street Journal (which obviously gave me illusory confidence). I have been learning English for over 10 years and i am still less than an American under in terms of reading? (I would not mention writing or speaking, as a matter of fact).

I started pondering, seriously.

My answer is that we tend to comprehend English in Chinese. We subconsciously translate every sentence we read and hear to Chinese. We are desperate to find a kind of certain equivalency between English and Chinese. And we lose our sense of safety when such certainty is unavailable.

I will try to forget Chinese for a while before i finally find a sense of safety in English.

It is simply because most of Chinese just read , but do not "think"--a spontaneously continuous process of connecting previous information with ongoing context in order to abstract a general idea for what a structural developement of the whole story can manifest.

While staying idle in mind, people tend to surrender themselves to the exact meaning of each specific word by resorting translation. As result, they stray their minds in endless details without a clear vision upon the bigger picture.

Months ago, I read a book by a Chinese girl who has ever worked as interpreter for White House. In her opinion, most of people will all have to experience a process from the stage of translating english into mother language to the stage of converting idea to idea. To me, it is a shifting focus from how it said to what it said. When people really get involved in the reading content, a few unknown words or intriguing phrases will not hinder their step to follow the major line and waven a methodical comprehension fabric of the whole story.

Just personal view.

when  read famous legal works, especially legal philosophy, I experience the same problem. In my opinion, the problem stems from two aspects. First, We accustom ourself to understanding English expressions in Chinese, which means the real meaning of these expressions we understand are Chinese, not English. In fact, English expressions can not mirror its meaning in Chinese. Because they actually do not have same extension. Second, we have different culture background and knowledge. we understand English from Chinese culture perspective.So it is difficult for us to catch the subtle different connotation. Therefore, I recommend to use English-English dictionary to understand English expressions. Also do my best to read as more as possible articles in English

Some great linguists are firmly convinced that every expression in one language can meet an exact corresponding translation in another lanuguage. I basically agree with this view.

However, most of us are not doing interpretation or translation. So, what we'd better to do is just try to substantialize tangible concept from obscure expression.

I bascially disagree that there is always exact equivalency across languages, especially between two languages of distinct cultures.  For example, in the translation of the Bible, God's "message" or" words of God"  are usually construed as "道”in Chinese. For a non-Christian culture like ours, any Chinese term is not able to communicate such information overloaded with a foreign culture. In the process of translation, loss and adding of meaning is inevitable in some occasions.

I believe most translation theorists as well as linguists agree on this point.

well, actually this has nothing to do with English learning, i guess.

there is a theory on Englis learning that i think useful. it is suggested that we should take  English reading as a means of acquiring information, so that you can merge inot the text. A blind area for many Chinese is that they tend to have their eys on new words and expressions. Remember that we never read Chinese in order to learn Chinese words and expressions (probalby exept when we were kids), rather, we read in order to ger information. it is in such a process that we master Chinese.  

译得真好啊。谢谢。

总算有点明白了，

我觉得这一段话要讲的重点就是logic，就如最后一句说得In effect it is the logic of inanimate facts.