Ataraxia
A misunderstanding caused by literal translation Recently I read an article in Chinese Quora, which revealed a big misunderstanding on a sentence said by Hegel: What is rational is real; and what is real is rational. But many Chinese people take it as‘ It is always reasonable if one thing exits in the real world’. And before reading this article I thought so. But soon I was convinced by an example illustrated in the essay: If your neighbor made noises all night and thus you found it hard to fall asleep. Will you still believe those disturbing noises were reasonable? Until now, I cannot figure out the essential meaning of the whole sentence, but I am sure I will never misuse those words again. Here I want to talk about something related to literal translation, which causes the ridiculous understanding above to happen. If you translate something literally and fail to catch the point, chances are that you make a foolish figure.
Apr 19, 2015 8:04 AM