SIS Students Win Awards in 32nd Han Suyin International Translation Contest
On October 15th, 2020, the 32nd Han Suyin International Translation Contest announced the winners of awards, which included students from School of International Studies (SIS) of Sun Yat-sun University (SYSU).
Co-hosted by the Translators Association of China and Sichuan International Studies University (SISU), the contest had attracted many participants. They included excellent students from prestigious universities at home and abroad like Peking University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai International Studies University, Xiamen University, Zhejiang University, SYSU, University of Western Brittany in France and Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in Mexico, and social personnel from all walks of life including China Media Group, Confucius Institute Headquarters, China Today Magazine, etc.
In the contest, 18051 pieces of valid translation works were received in total and 385 winners were selected by the judging committee. Four outstanding students from SYSU, among which three are from SIS, were listed in the winners of awards.
Ye Changchang, the 2017 undergraduate of Department of Spanish
Winner of the third prize for Chinese to Spanish translation
Feng Meijuan, the 2018 postgraduate of English Translation
Winner of the honorable mention for Chinese to English translation
Li Yating, the 2019 postgraduate of English Translation
Winner of the third prize for Chinese to English translation
Experience shared by winners from SIS is as follows:
Han Suyin International Translation Contest is one of the famous translation contests in China. Since the contest started, Liao Yue, Chair of Department of Spanish, had been encouraging students of Department of Spanish to participate in it. Then I signed up for it just for a try and the result really surprised me. It’s my great honor to win the third prize for the Chinese to Spanish translation. I have learnt a lot when translating the text because to translate even a really simple word, I may still need to look up a large number of background materials and polish up my translation over and over again so that I can find the proper expressions. I hope that students of SIS can grasp opportunities and learn more about their majors so as to work on excellent performances in more translation contests.
–Ye Changchang
How to produce a high-quality translation is a question I always consider before I begin to translate. Frankly speaking, translating is a process in which I shape myself, criticize myself and reconstruct myself. If a translator holds a spirit of craftsman, he or she will definitely sit at the desk for hours to polish up the words and sentences carefully in the pursuit of accuracy. But I am still a beginner in translation. What I can do is to read the author’s narrative again and again, understand the article word by word, and try to get into the mood of the article. It is with these efforts that I luckily did well in the contest.
– Li Yating
I think most of the outstanding translations that seem to be ordinary and easily produced are actually extraordinary and with hardships behind its production. Translators are able to translate the source text accurately with concise and simple language to make the translations widely accepted among the target readers. However, to produce such “ordinary” translations, the translators often need to not only be proficient in the usage of two languages and well understand cultural differences, but also repeatedly revise and polish up the translations. Although this can be a pretty hard process, we should always believe that the journey to improvement of translation is never ending, and thus constantly strive for higher-quality translation.
– Feng Meijuan
The 32nd Han Suyin International Translation Contest was co-hosted by the Translators Association of China and Sichuan International Studies University, and co-organized by the Editorial Department of Chinese Translators Journal and College of Translation and Interpreting, SISU. The Han Suyin International Translation Contest was initiated under the sponsorship of Ms. Han Suyin when she visited China in 1989. As the oldest, largest and the most influential translation contest in China’s translation circle, it has encouraged more and more excellent young people to dedicate themselves to translation.
