Reading the Xinhua-News, it becomes…let’s say, obvious…that this is a official press agency. What I’d like to comment on are the funny expressions sometimes used, especially when translated into English. Let me emphasise that I am talking about linguistic aspects, do not falsely read anything political into it.
The following extract if from an “Opinion”-article about the Olympics:
“It is always a great pleasure to meet friends from faraway places. Even if they hold misgivings or bias against China’s development, or are very critical of China, we will warmly welcome them as long as they are willing to come to China to take a look. As to those who do not want to come, we of course will not force them to.” I almost fell of my chair laughing when I read the last sentence. It’s a bit redundant. I’d daresay even suggesting that someone had the power to coerce people into coming to China… would be diametral to the Olympic spirit.
“China’s press circles and so many websites across the nation are still cherishing their fond, sweat memories of June 20th, a joyous day. In the morning of that day, Party General Secretary Hu Jintao came to inspect the office of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) mouthpiece, and had an online chat with netizens.” I reckon it’s no surprise that the English of the majority of Chinese is weird at best, especially when seeing that even the People’s Daily writes stuff like this (I’m not referring to the political part, of course). It sounds very moving, a usual. But…Sweet! I have noticed that most of my students get the registers wrong, writing in too formal a style, or sometimes, if their English is not that fluent, very informally. It is very difficult to teach how to “juggle” with the levels of formality properly.
“only when we attach closer importance to global invents”, “This is where lies the motive force for the continuous, forward advance of the People’s Daily, which has traversed a six-decade course of development .”
I mean, at least to me, the writing style in these articles doesn’t sound natural (even apart from the spelling mistakes), not like authentic English. I’d like to hear the opinions of native speakers.
“This represents the requirement of zeitgeist the CPC Central Committee has set forth for Chinese journalists.” Now we’re bringing German words into the game. Are there other commonly used German words in English? So far, I have only ever seen zeitgeist, blitz, kindergarten and schadenfreude.
I pay so much attention to these articles because once I was in charge of translating Chinese articles into English and Spanish as well, but I must admit that I failed. I never managed to infuse the texts with such a staggering amount of pathos, and to think that I, with my feeble English and even more deplorable Spanish, could be assigned the responsibility to create a naturally flowing article, is quite ludicrous.
“only when we attach closer importance to global invents”, “This is where lies the motive force for the continuous, forward advance of the People’s Daily, which has traversed a six-decade course of development .”
The first sentence does not really make sense. I have no idea what it means for “importance” to be “closer”.
The second sentence sounds natural, with one caveat. Is the People’s Daily a newspaper? The language used sounds overly dramatic to describe the growth of a newspaper.
Your written English is not feeble, in fact you write like a well-educated, native speaker. It’s really not necessary to demean your abilities.
“Is the People’s Daily a newspaper? The language used sounds overly dramatic to describe the growth of a newspaper.” 呵呵 The English language media outlets in China that are not informal (sports commentary etc) per definitionem always use this kind of highly pretentious, dramatic language. That’s what I meant by unnatural, not being written in an appropriate style, incorrect usage of registers etc. . Many political Chinese texts sound this way as well.
““only when we attach closer importance to global invents”
I suppose what the writer meant was the following: “Only if we pay more attention to global events” or perhaps “emphasise” them, right? I think his mother tongue interfered subconsciously, because in Chinese this sentence might be expressed using 把, which could explain the odd object-construction.
By the way, thanks a lot! On a sidenote, even professors, spokespeople and political leaders employ self-depreciating phrases, although I guess most of them actually aren’t too serious about that