Lau Wai Ki s197524 TRA4221-L02 Assignment 1

1. “義氣” has cultural gaps as there is no specific word in English that can completely
explain the whole meaning of “義氣”. “義氣” means “為情誼而甘願替別人承擔風險或作
自我犧牲的氣度” in Chinese. If you translated “義氣” into “righteousness” which means the
behavior that is morally right or good, it is not suitable enough as someone can be ruthless
and does not care about the bonding between himself and others in order to act morally right
such as “大義滅親”, and it also does not has the meaning of the spirit of sacrifice and bearing
risks for others. Besides, if you translated “義氣” into “brotherhood” which means the
friendship and understanding between people, it is also not suitable enough since someone
can have deep friendship with others, but do not have the spirit of sacrifice and bearing risks
for others.

2. No matter a Chinese see a sheep or a goat, they will accustom to call them “羊”, but a
foreigner will call a sheep “a sheep” and call a goat “a goat”. This is because “羊” is the basic
level word of a Chinese, and “a sheep” or “a goat” is the basic level word of a foreigner. “羊”
is a more broader word, which includes “a sheep” and a “a goat”, so “羊” cannot be
translated as either “a sheep” or “a goat” if a translator does not know the context of the
source text. Notably, “a goat” and “a sheep” also cannot be simply translated as “綿羊” and
“山羊” as it is not the basic level word that a Chinese were taught at his early ages and
frequently used in his daily life.

4. Some languages such as German uses three-form system; early modern English uses four-
form system while modern English uses two-form system. Regarding the three-form system
of German, it uses “Ja” to say “Yes” and “Nein” to say “No” in positive questions, but in
negative questions, it does not use the same word “Ja” to say Yes. Oppositely is that it uses a
new word “Doch” to say Yes, which does not look as if the language of English (both
positive and negative questions use “Yes” and “No” to answer).
Besides, some languages such as Cantonese uses echo response to answer questions. For
example, if A said, “你食蔥嗎？”, B will not answer, “係” or “唔係”, but will uses the verb
of the questions to answer, i.e., “食” or “唔食”.
The above examples all shows that it is difficult to translate simply simple words such as
‘yes’ and ‘no’ if the translators do not know which types of system the target language are
using.