《偉斯泊奇探臺灣》：12/16與作者/譯者對話

《偉斯泊奇探臺灣》(Kat Vespucci Takes Taiwan)一書的作者茵茵·安德斯 (Ingrid Anders)及譯者金大俠將於12/16(週二)晚上七時在華府的西端圖書 館(West End Library)舉行與作者/譯者對話的文化交流活動。

《偉斯泊奇探臺灣》中英合訂本於十一月二日在台北市金石堂書店/金石生活講堂舉行新書發表會，大獲臺灣書市的好評！該書描寫一位年輕美國女孩在毫無準備下的臺灣之旅，書中有東西文化的衝擊互動、有離經叛道的尋尋覓覓、有一見鐘情的異族戀情、有外人眼裡的臺灣：神秘與美麗，身份與定位。作者以巧思妙喻的架構寫旅遊小說、以輕鬆幽默的筆觸看文化異同，譯者以精雕細琢的中文做文化等效翻譯。這是本「了解臺灣、代表文化、傳播書香，送給外國友人、ABC、大陸同胞的最佳伴手禮！」

12/16(週二)晚上與作者/譯者對話的交流活動中，作者/譯者將朗讀小說中的精彩章節，並與聽眾分享旅遊文化、寫作譯作的過程與趣事。

時間：12/16(週二)晚上七時至九時

地點：West End Library(西端圖書館)

地址：2522 Virginia Ave. NW Washington, DC 20037

電話：（202）724-870

網址:     http://dclibrary.org/node/45682 

Author Talk with Ingrid Anders

Ingrid Anders, a DC Public Library employee and author of the Kat Vespucci series, and translator Ching-sung Chin will be speaking at West End Library about their joint work, Kat Vespucci Takes Taiwan (English-Chinese Bilingual Edition). The novel is unique in that it is written in both English and Mandarin, with English on the left page and Mandarin on the right page. The author and translator will read an excerpt from the novel and follow with a discussion on culture, the writing process, and the art and science of translation.

Place:                  West End Neighborhood Library

Address:              2522 Virginia Ave. NW  Washington, DC 20037

Phone:                 (202) 724-870

Website:                  http://dclibrary.org/node/45682 

Agenda

7:00 - Guests arrive and enjoy the food (20 minutes)

7:20 - Ingrid and Mr. Chin do a reading (20 minutes)

7:40 - Ingrid speaks on culture and how the book came to be (15 minutes)

7:55 - Mr. Chin speaks on culture and the challenges and fun of translating the book (15 minutes)

8:10 - Q&A (10 minutes)

8:20 - book sales, signing, mingling (20 minutes)

8:40 - event ends, clean-up 

9:00 - library closed!

今天在公司的演講分會(Tower Oaks Toastmasters Club) 上，做了以下的 演講，內容與12/16晚上所要說的有關，算是暖身潤喉好了。。。也擱放於此。

這演講稿，我得加些補充：12/16的演講將是用power point，所以12/10在公司TM club 的演講我也要求用power point,負責人工作忙，面有難色（因為他得借投影機、laptop、連接、試機），我只好臨時由power point式的演講（較容易些、不需演講稿），改為發handouts、寫黑板式的演講，這篇演講稿也是快速寫出，算是個大綱式的講稿，再稍微寫齊些，卻不像文章一樣的嚴謹（某些𨍭折處、細節點就懶得寫出了）。

An Illogical language

Have you ever wondered the language we use daily is weird… yes, I mean English, not Java, not Chinese J.  For example, ‘Go ahead’ is to go ahead, is to “do it”. However, why the phrase “Let it go” is let it go, is “not to do it”? how about … ‘Let it go ahead’?

Mr. TMOD (Toastmasters of the Day), fellow TMs (Toastmasters), do you consider English easy, difficult, or stupid? To me, English is illogical, funny … and CRAZY as described by Dr. Richard Lederer (see handout please). Even though I have been learning English for the past 30+ years, I still believe English is tougher to learn than COBOL, Java or C++. 

“English is most illogical” as Mr. Spock would have said.  It is not phonetic.  The rules of grammar seem to have more exceptions than examples.  Pronunciation even varies in different parts of the US.  The problem is that modern English is still a new language (only about 500 year young), and it constantly evolving.  This hasn’t stopped yet.  How scary is that?

Let me give you some more examples: why ‘sweetmeat’ is not a meat? Why ‘winter sweet’ in not sweet but a plant? ‘Eggplant’ is a plant but … with egg? ‘Pineapple’ has nothing to do with pine or apple.  ‘Tomboy’ is neither Tom or a boy, Tomboy is a girl.  ‘Lazy Susan’ is not a female, not even a human being as well. Why we drive on a parkway, but park on a driveway? Why nose runs while feet smell? Take and Give are opposite.  But, why caretaker and caregiver are synonym. Look and see are the same, how about overlook and oversee?

The list can go on and on to … infinity, I think.

Recently, I translated a novel “Kat Vespucci Takes Taiwan” (哈，置入性行銷) from English to Chinese, so I do some comparisons with these 2 languages during the translation process. In terms of the number (yes, we like the matrix to do the measurement).  As you can see from pages 2 and 3 of the handout, there are more than 1 million English words while number of the commonly-used English word is about 70,000. For Chinese, there are about 85,000 Chinese words in total while the number of commonly-used ones is about 6,000. In short, it’s more than 10 times of differences in terms of the number. I know Chinese is tough to learn or understand. It’s illogical in some way too. But, English to me is 10 times illogical than Chinese.

To illustrate some basic differences of these 2 languages, let me give you some examples:

To describe the Date: Dec 10^th, 2014… month day followed by year.  But, in Chinese, we say Year first, followed by month, then day.

About our address “2800 Tower Oaks Blvd, Rockville, MD, USA” that starts from ‘small to big’.  However, in Chinese, we say it and write it in totally reversed way. … from ‘big to small’

To address a person, David Stahl.  In Chinese, we address a person in a reversed way. Yes, last name first followed by first name.  But don’t get me wrong on this… Actually, in Chinese there is no ‘first name’, or ‘last name’ as defined in English.  Chinese calls it ‘family name’ and ‘given name’. We say ‘family name’ first, followed by the ‘given name’.

There is no correct way or better way, it’s just the way they are … developed and evolved with their own specific culture!

I think I just go ahead to learn English every day, every moment.  Mr. TMOD.