六级翻译练习参考译文

六级翻译练习参考译文
1. Chinese cuisine has a number of different genres, but the most influential and typical known by the public are the “Eight Categories of Chinese Cuisine”. There are as follows: Shangdong Cuisine, Sichuan Cuisine, Guangdong Cuisine, Fujian Cuisine, Jiangsu Cuisine, Zhejiang Cuisine, Hunan Cuisine, and Anhui Cuisine. The essential factors that establish the form of a genre are complex and include history, cooking features, geography, climate, resources and lifestyle. Cuisines from different regions are so distinctive that sometimes despite the fact that two areas are geographical neighbors, their styles are completely alien.
2. Wherever the Chinese go, the custom of drinking tea follows. Tea was first discovered by the Chinese and it is an indispensable part of the life of the Chinese. A Chinese saying identifies the basic daily necessities as fuel, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. The custom of drinking tea has been ingrained in the Chinese for over a thousand years. In Tang Dynasty, a man named Lu Yu created the first compendium in the world on tea, Book of Tea. This work helped to popularize the art of tea drinking all across China.
3. Sichuan Opera (Chuan Ju), like hot-pot and other famous Sichuan dishes, is exciting and rich. Face Changing is the highlight of Sichuan Opera. It is said that ancient people painted their faces to drive away wild animals. Sichuan Opera absorbs this ancient skill and perfects it into an art. Face Changing is a magical art. Actors change more than 10 masks in less than 20 seconds. By raising the hand, swinging a sleeve or tossing the head, an actor uses different masks to show different emotions, expressing invisible and intangible feelings through visible and tangible masks.
4. Embroidery, a folk art with a long tradition, occupies an important position in the history of Chinese arts and crafts. It is, in its long development, inseparable from silkworm-raising and silk-reeling and weaving. China is the first country in the world that discovered the use of silk. Silkworms were domesticated as early as 5000 years ago. The Production of silk thread and fabrics gave rise to the art of embroidery. Today, silk embroidery is practiced nearly all over China. It is generally agreed that the best commercial products come from four provinces: Jiangsu (notably Suzhou), Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong, each with its distinctive features.
5.China is well known for its introduction of ways and means to help ease the life of mankind. Among the inventions of Ancient China, four emerged as great contributions to developments and changes not only to the country, but also to the world’s economy and culture. The Four Great Inventions of ancient China were papermaking, commercial printing, gunpowder, and the compass. China’s four great ancient inventions made tremendous contributions to the world’s economy and the culture of mankind. They were also important symbols of China’s role as a great world civilization.
6.China is the largest developing country in the world and its population accounts for about 22percent of the world’s total. For a long period of its history, China has been plagued by poverty for various reasons. In the mid-1980s, the economy of an overwhelming majority of the rural areas in China grew dramatically by virtue of their own advantages, but a small number of areas still lagged behind because of the constraints of their economic, social, historical, and natural conditions. The Chinese government, while working on all-round economic and social development, has nationwide implemented a large-scale program for development-oriented poverty relief in a planned and organized way. With the main objective of helping poverty-stricken people solve the food and clothing problems, this program has gone a long way toward alleviating poverty.
7. Siheyuan is the most important form of Chinese traditional residential house. It is great in number and wide in distribution, popular among the Han, Manchu, Bai, and some of other minority groups. Most of the houses are of wood framework. The principal room is built on the south-north axis, and two wing rooms are located on both sides of it. The family elders live in the principal room and wings are the bedrooms for the younger generations. Women live in the inner yard. Guests and male servants live in the outer yard. This distribution is in accordance with the
feudal regulations. Siheyuan spreads over town and villages throughout China, but each developed its own characteristics as a result of respective natural conditions and different way of life. Siheyuan in Beijing is the most representative.
8.Feng Shui, a special Chinese tradition in architecture, is the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve coexistence in harmony with the environment. Feng Shui literally translates as “wind-water”. Feng Shui usually links the whole process from site selection, designing, construction and interior and exterior decoration in ancient times. It combines the trinity of the Heaven, the Earth and humans, and seeks harmony between selected site, natural doctrine and human fate. It repulses human destruction of nature and stresses cohabitation with the environment, which is regarded as perfect and occult.
9. Dragon dance is a form of traditional dance and performance in Chinese culture. It originated during the Han Dynasty and was started by the Chinese who had shown great belief and respect towards the dragon. It is believed to have begun as part of the farming and harvest culture, also with origins as a method of healing and preventing sickness. The dragon dance was already a popular event during the Song Dynasty. Dragon dance is an important part of the Chinese culture and tradition. It has spread throughout China and to the whole world and become a special performance of arts in the Chinese physical activities. It symbolizes good luck and prosperity in the year to come for all the human beings on earth.
10. A modern Chinese usually has a surname (family name) or xing and a given name (first name), or ming, always in that order. Thus Wang Xiaoping is Mr. Wang with the personal name Xiaoping. In ancient China, however, naming was very complicated and one person usually had several names, and naming involved xing, shi, ming, and zi. Each of these four words meant a different thing. Xing and shi together formed today’s surname, and ming and zi today’s given name. Today, people use xingshi to refer to a person’s surname, mingzi to refer to one’s given name. Study of ancient Chinese documents shows that xing originally referred to the names of different matriarchal tribes. It also had something to do with the place where people lived. Researches show that xing came into being during the matrilineal society period, around four to five thousand years ago.
11. Known as China’s national opera, Beijing Opera, which originated in the late 18th century, is a synthesis of music, dance, art and acrobatics. It is the most influential and representative of all operas in China. Beijing Opera is a national treasure with a history of more than 200 years. Owing to its richness of repertoire, great number of artists of performance and of audiences, Beijing Opera has profound influence, which no other opera in China can rival. The repertoire of Beijing Opera is mainly engaged in fairy tales of preceding dynasties, important historical events, emperors, ministers and generals, geniuses and great beauties, from Yao, Shun, Yu, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period to the dynasties of Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Y uan, Ming, and Qing.
12. Chinese Kung Fu, with a history of a few thousand years and a number of fighting styles, is an important part of Chinese traditional culture. Its birth was attributed to the need for self-defense, hunting techniques and military training in ancient times. Historically, the influence of Chinese Kung Fu could be found in books and in the performing arts specific to Asia. Recently, those influences have extended to the movies and television that target a much wider audience. As a result, Chinese Kung Fu has spread beyond its ethnic roots and has a global appeal.
13. Jiaozi are one of the major foods eaten during the Chinese New Year and year round in the northern provinces. The pronunciation of Jiaozi sounds like the name for the earliest paper money, so eating them is believed to bring good fortune. Many families eat Jiaozi on Chinese New Year’s Eve. Some cooks will hide a clean coin for the lucky to find. The common meat fillings of Jiaozi include pork, beef, chicken and fish, which are usually mixed with chipped vegetables. Jiaozi are eaten with a soy sauce-based dipping sauce that may include viegar, garlic or hot sauce.
14. The high-speed rail network in China is operated by China Railway Corporation. The network consists of all
commercial train servi ces, and the trains have an average speed of 200 km/h or higher. China has the world’s longest high-speed rail network with about 9,300 km of routes in service at present. The world’s longest line opened in China on 25 December 2012. It runs 2,298 kilometers from Beijing to Guangzhou. High-speed rail service in China was introduced in 2007. With generous funding from the government, the network is rapidly expanding.
15. The Forbidden City, grand and magnificent, represents the highest peak of ancient Chinese architecture and enjoys worldwide fame for its scale and unique style. Preserved here are a large number of rare and precious antiques, which are of great significance to the study of Ming and Qing history and the arts of past dynasties. In 1925, the Forbidden City was renamed Palace Museum and became one of the largest museums in the world. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the national government has spent large sums on the protection and maintenance of the Forbidden City. At present it is one of the most popular tourism sites in Beijing.
16. Duanwu Festival, also known as Dragon Boat Festival and the Double Fifth, is a traditional festival originating in China. The festival occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar. This is the origin of its alternative name, Double Fifth. Three of the most widespread activities for Duanwu Festival are eating zongzi, drinking realgar wine, and racing dragon boats. Other common activities include hanging up icons of Zhong Kui, writing spells and wearing perfumed medicine bags. All of these activities, together with the drinking of realgar wine, were regarded by the ancients as effective in preventing disease and evil, and promoting health and well-being.
17. Traditional Chinese holiday meals are indispensable on some festivals. For example, the Dragon Boat Festival is a day established in memory of the ancient poet Qu Yuan and people usually hold dragon boat races and eat zongzi, or rice dumpling on that day. The Mid-autumn Festival is an occasion for viewing the full moon. The round moon is a symbol for completeness and family reunion. The special food of the day is yuebing, a round cake known as the mooncake. The Spring Festival is the Chinese lunar New Year’s holiday. Besides the p opular poultry and meat, people cook traditional food according to regional customs, for example, jiaozi, or boiled dumplings, and niangao, or the “new year cake”.
18.In the past seven years, China’s real estate industry has developed in a record high spe ed. For those who earn less but are eager to own a decent and comfortable place of their own in a big city, the high housing price is a heavy burden that they cannot afford. For this reason, the government has taken a series of measures to prevent the housing price from rising too fast, including raising interest rates and increasing taxes on real estate etc. Presently, these measures have achieved initial effects in some cities.
19. Used by the Han people in China, the Chinese language has a long history, having established a fairly mature written language more than 3000 years ago. The Chinese language has more than 1.2 billion users and can be regarded as the one spoken by the greatest number of persons. In addition to China, some people in Singapore and Malaysia also use Chinese, and millions of overseas Chinese and foreign citizens of Chinese origin distributed around the world use various Chinese dialects as native language. The Chinese language is the main language used by Chinese, also one of the working languages of the United Nations.
20. The Silk Road refers to a transport route connecting ancient China with Central Asia, West Asia, Africa, and the European continent. It appeared as early as the second century and was traveled mainly by silk merchants, hence the name. The Silk Road began in Chang’an, passing through Gansu and Xinjiang to Central Asia, West Asia, and to lands by the Mediterranean. The Silk Road functioned not only as a trade route, but also as a bridge that linked the ancient civilizations of China, India, Egypt, Greece and the Mesopotamian plains. It also helped to promote the exchange of cultures and science and technology between east and west.。