My OperaNative Writing - It's a whole different concept
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 2:50:40 PM
This afternoon came the most jarring writing lesson ever since I ungainingly stepped into the world of the English language. Everything went smoothly, which meant the lecture was not boring enough to drag me home, at first. But when it came to pass that the teacher provided feedback on my writing, which was merely a short introduction of an essay, you could have knocked me down with a feather regarding all the academic faults picked out from these few lines of hand-writing.
"The modern world is seeing more and more people who suffer from stress. But why is stress still commonplace now that means of entertainment do not fall short of man's expectations? The clue lies in the excessive amount of everyday work, the fierce scrambling within the business world and the adverse working conditions in certain places."
According to the teacher, every sentence contained bugs. Let's take each one of them into careful consideration.
...
"The modern world is seeing more and more..." What is this? The modern world cannot see anything. It is we who see. So don't gravitate toward translating from our Asian language into the Western. The Vietnamese people enjoy winged words, but English writers tend to get straight to the point with simple structure and vocabulary. Therefore, you should have written it this way: "In the modern world, more and more people are suffering from stress."
"But why is stress so commonplace..." Why has stress been so commonplace should do a better job. You are attempting to raise a question, aren't you? But what meaning does the rest of the sentence hold? "...now that means of entertainment do not fall short of man's expectations?" Well, so the point is that even though there is a variety of types of entertainment, people still have stress, right? I can see it now. But why fall short of man's expectations? Again, don't try to translate. The Vietnamese language is tremendously influenced by Chinese. It may sound quite impressive, but it is not English.
"The clue..." So you mean the reasons, don't you? But you'd better put down a ":" next time. Just put it simply, such as the reasons for this are: ... The way I see it, people have stress for these 3 reasons: work, materialism, and complicated social relationships. Do you agree with me on these?
Alright, you should try to write more simple, and don't translate.
...
Well, I was somewhat baffled throughout this conversation with her. Since this piece of writing was crafted within only 2 minutes, there are certain errors in it. However, the bad points which she spotted did take me aback. I was struck dumb, barely able to nod and "yes" to her explanation. How do you translate fall short of from a Vietnamese phrase? It is a phrasal verb. A phrasal verb cannot be invented by non-natives. To tell the truth, I am at a loss to know how to please her. The best bet for me is probably to reduce my style to the dull and simple. It took me good years to acquire a good feeling for the language, and now, in order to pull through this semester, I am to have things reversed.
The complexity of sentence structures, with a fine deployment of various idiomatic expressions, and the authentically academic vocabulary applied now fall under the category of "translation errors".
Meanwhile, the simple way of writing, with no semantic and syntactic variety and a poor range of vocabulary, which in actually is labelled "farmers' language", has now made its way into the type of "academic and native English".
What an exotic food for thought!
"The modern world is seeing more and more people who suffer from stress. But why is stress still commonplace now that means of entertainment do not fall short of man's expectations? The clue lies in the excessive amount of everyday work, the fierce scrambling within the business world and the adverse working conditions in certain places."
According to the teacher, every sentence contained bugs. Let's take each one of them into careful consideration.
...
"The modern world is seeing more and more..." What is this? The modern world cannot see anything. It is we who see. So don't gravitate toward translating from our Asian language into the Western. The Vietnamese people enjoy winged words, but English writers tend to get straight to the point with simple structure and vocabulary. Therefore, you should have written it this way: "In the modern world, more and more people are suffering from stress."
"But why is stress so commonplace..." Why has stress been so commonplace should do a better job. You are attempting to raise a question, aren't you? But what meaning does the rest of the sentence hold? "...now that means of entertainment do not fall short of man's expectations?" Well, so the point is that even though there is a variety of types of entertainment, people still have stress, right? I can see it now. But why fall short of man's expectations? Again, don't try to translate. The Vietnamese language is tremendously influenced by Chinese. It may sound quite impressive, but it is not English.
"The clue..." So you mean the reasons, don't you? But you'd better put down a ":" next time. Just put it simply, such as the reasons for this are: ... The way I see it, people have stress for these 3 reasons: work, materialism, and complicated social relationships. Do you agree with me on these?
Alright, you should try to write more simple, and don't translate.
...
Well, I was somewhat baffled throughout this conversation with her. Since this piece of writing was crafted within only 2 minutes, there are certain errors in it. However, the bad points which she spotted did take me aback. I was struck dumb, barely able to nod and "yes" to her explanation. How do you translate fall short of from a Vietnamese phrase? It is a phrasal verb. A phrasal verb cannot be invented by non-natives. To tell the truth, I am at a loss to know how to please her. The best bet for me is probably to reduce my style to the dull and simple. It took me good years to acquire a good feeling for the language, and now, in order to pull through this semester, I am to have things reversed.
The complexity of sentence structures, with a fine deployment of various idiomatic expressions, and the authentically academic vocabulary applied now fall under the category of "translation errors".
Meanwhile, the simple way of writing, with no semantic and syntactic variety and a poor range of vocabulary, which in actually is labelled "farmers' language", has now made its way into the type of "academic and native English".
What an exotic food for thought!
