Chapter 24 Translator's Postscript
At 3:10 pm on March 11, 2000, this is a moment worth remembering.
It was at that moment that I completely killed Charlotte with my clumsy Chinese.After that, because of entering the translation into the computer and proofreading the translation, I read the chapter where Charlotte died at least four times.Every time I read this chapter and see Charlotte's death, I feel sour in my heart.
Of course - not ashamed to say - I only cried once for Charlotte.
Once is enough.This is one of the main reasons why I translated this book.From the night of February 25th when I received the gift from my friend Kiki until March 11th, I spent all my free time translating.I translated it for sixteen days, proofread it for two more days (March 12-13), and revised it for one day (March 14) before I finally finished it.During the working hours (from about 8:00 to 4:00 p.m.), including the lunch break, I was almost always typing my translations into the computer of the work unit. (Because I don’t even have a TV at home, let alone a computer.) So after writing the translation at home the night before, typing it into the computer at work the next day was very laborious, but I couldn’t help it.
In the past half month, I have been really tired.But I'm willing to work hard for it.Because I love this book so much, and I have worked so hard to have the chance to own it, so I must translate it into Chinese, although only for myself and some friends .
When I was a child, I had read this story. Last year, after reading a reading note of Yan Feng’s introduction in "Vientiane" last year, I wanted to find a complete Chinese translation of this book.However, I only bought a simple translation signed by Ling Yun. To put it simply, it is because the content in it is too small, almost half of the original book, and the remaining details have been ruthlessly deleted.So when I got the book from my friend Qiqi, I was really ecstatic.
During the translation process, the book compiled by Ling Yun still gave me a lot of help, at least it gave me a translation that I could refer to.Also, some of the translations in there are much more accurate than I first thought and helped me a lot, so I want to say thank you here.However, I think Xie Lingyun may not be the one to blame, because I feel that he may be just an ordinary editor, and he may not even have seen the original text.Otherwise, he would not have translated the English "514" into "540" in his compiled book, nor would he have added many strange sentences that were not in the original book.
Therefore, after a few days of translating against the translation compiled by Ling Yun, I became more determined to translate it all.However, as a friend pointed out, my English is very poor, very poor, and I don’t know anything about American scenery and other knowledge involved in the book, so I am actually very unworthy of translating this book.
It's just that although there are countless people who know English better than me and are worthy of translating it, they don't translate it, so I have to do it myself.Fortunately, this is for me, not to cheat money, not to bluff people, so I "selfishly" insist on translation.
In translation, I encountered many difficulties.In desperation, I had no choice but to copy down the translation that I didn't understand the most, and asked my friends, especially those from New Threads, to translate it for me.So, if you find a wonderful translation in my translation, it must have been made with the help of my friends; if you find an error in it, it must be my fault and has nothing to do with my friends.
In addition to the friends of Xinyusi, there is also Hong Li, who edited the "Daily News" in Suoyi (he was introduced to me by Suoyi's Where, so I also want to thank Where), and he also helped me a lot.
I am very touched by the help of these friends.Among these friends, except some old friends such as somersault cloud and mantis, the rest are either not familiar with me before, or I have never met before.They all took the initiative to come out and give me advice after seeing my childish questions-whether they were new friends or old friends.Because of a book that praises friendship, I have met so many friends, which really makes me feel great joy and happiness.Friendship is one of the most important things in life - and I totally agree with Wilbur.
Therefore, in order to express my gratitude to these friends, I will write their names below.they are--
Somersault Cloud, Mu Zi, Yi Ge, Brant, Ban Shan, Le Ping, Hu Zi, Man Mantis, Gu Ping, Sam, etc., Hong Li just mentioned, and many unknown friends.thank you all!
Among these people, Mu Zi, Yi Ge, Brant, Hu Zi, and Le Ping translated for me a part of the conversation between Wilbur and the lamb that I thought was difficult (some of which I received in my translation notes), thank you very much ;
Somersault Cloud has given me a lot of help on many translation issues, and Yige has also solved many problems for me, thank you too;
Mu Zi provided me with a historical story about Amber Popcorn (Cracker-Jack) and other help, Hong Li translated the difficult car names for me, and helped me with other issues , and thank you very much;
Of course, the help of other friends is also great, but I will not list them here, because I will explain them separately in my translation notes to show my gratitude.
Among the words that Charlotte said before his death, I almost copied the translation quoted by Yan Feng in his reading notes, and I would like to explain and thank you, even though I don’t know him (her?) at all.
White himself is very familiar with American farms, which can be seen from the details in this book.But I don’t understand these details at all, and encountered a lot of difficulties in translation, but with the help of my friends, I added few notes (any notes without the source are all found out in the data by myself) ,I am sorry.
Because there is a greedy mouse in this book, many food names are written in it, many of which cannot be found in my dictionary.Otherwise, it must be very interesting to annotate them separately.Only the comments on Cracker-Jack provided by Mu Zi are very detailed.Let me say thank you to him again.
I want to emphasize that although I have many friends to help me, I cannot copy all the original texts for my friends to review, so there are still many mistakes in my translations (those I translated independently).But at my level, I've done my best.I couldn't have done it better, so please forgive me.If anyone finds mistakes in the translation (there must be many), please point it out to me. If you are willing, I will be very grateful.
Alas, my translation may have tarnished this masterpiece, but what can I do?Although I think my Chinese is not very bad, but I know my English is really very bad.If I find a good translation in the future, I will recommend it to you, and I will also throw my translation into the trash.
However, one thing can be guaranteed, my translation is definitely many times better than the one compiled by Ling Yun.Because all the good translations there have been absorbed into my translations, and the shortcomings there are far more than mine.
There are two more points to make.One is that the punctuation of the original text is different from the Chinese habit. For some reason, I changed it to what we are used to, but in order to respect the relationship between the original text, I changed it back.So, it might look a little awkward.The second is that the animal pronouns in the book are almost always "she, he", etc., instead of "It", so I didn't change it, and translated it into "he, she", because I think they and humans should be the same equal.
Over the years, I have never been able to find the feeling of being alive. I just stood myself as a statue in the midst of the turbulent human affairs-but after watching it, I have the feeling of being alive and know what life is.Thanks White!
Again: if you have the original of this book and want to read it yourself, please go directly to the original text - because in this case my translation is not worth reading at all.
Finally, one more word.I would like to thank countless friends such as UFO, Blue Bird, Where, and some friends from New Threads who have found the Chinese translation for me. Although you have not found it for me, I am also grateful to you.It's nice to have friends, it makes all the difference in your life.I am so lucky to have so many friends.
Well, it's almost half past ten, I've been tired for so many days, it's time for me to rest.
Write at 10:22 on March 14, 2000; enter at 15:33 on March 15, 2000