Improve Memory and Reading/Writing Speeds

One way that Chinese students studying abroad can improve their reading speeds is to make use of translations. On occasion, a noteworthy text may already have been professionally translated into Chinese, but, for the most part, you will have to rely on automated translation software, such as Google Translate. With this approach, you use the software to automatically translate the text you are reading into Chinese, and then you speed-read the translation in Chinese. When you come to a section that contains material relevant to your assignment, you read just that section carefully in English to pick up on any errors generated, or any nuances missed, during the automated translation.

The quality of the translation will depend on the complexity of the text. For example, here is a relatively simple paragraph taken from this website:

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• When you were learning to speak Mandarin or Cantonese as a child, your first task was to distinguish the different sounds that you heard, and your second was to move your tongue and facial muscles in such a way as to reproduce these sounds. You brain became “hardwired” to recognize and generate these sounds. So when you are introduced to a foreign language, such as English, your brain tends to map an English sound on to the closest matching sound in Mandarin or Cantonese.

Using Google translate, this text can be translated into Traditional Chinese:

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• 當你小時候學習普通話或廣東話時，你的第一個任務是區分你聽到的不同聲音，第二個任務是移動你的舌頭和麵部肌肉，以便重現這些聲音。你的大腦變得“硬連線”以識別並產生這些聲音。因此，當您學習英語等外語時，您的大腦傾向於將英語聲音映射到最接近的普通話或廣東話的匹配聲音。

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• Dāng nǐ xiǎoshíhòu xuéxí pǔtōnghuà huò guǎngdōng huà shí, nǐ de dì yī gè rènwù shì qūfēn nǐ tīngdào de bùtóng shēngyīn, dì èr gè rènwù shì yídòng nǐ de shétou huò miàn bù jīròu, yǐbiàn chóng xiàn zhèxiē shēngyīn. Nǐ de dànǎo biàn dé “yìng lián xiàn” yǐ shìbié bìng chǎnshēng zhèxiē shēngyīn. Yīncǐ, dāng nín xuéxí yīngyǔ děng wàiyǔ shí, nín de dànǎo qīngxiàng yú jiāng yīngyǔ shēngyīn yìngshè dào zuì jiējìn de pǔtōnghuà huò guǎngdōng huà de pǐpèi shēngyīn.

Using Google translate, the translated text can be retranslated from Traditional Chinese into English:

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• When you are learning Mandarin or Cantonese when you are young, your first task is to distinguish the different sounds you hear. The second task is to move your tongue and facial muscles to reproduce these sounds. Your brain becomes “hardwired” to recognize and produce these sounds. Therefore, when you learn a foreign language such as English, your brain tends to map English sounds to the closest Mandarin or Cantonese matching sounds.

It’s not a perfect translation by any means – the tense is incorrect, for example – but the essential meaning remains clear, even when translated twice. For many English language texts, you’ll find that automated translation into Chinese adequately preserves the meaning of the original.

Now let’s examine some more complex text (the opening paragraph from Bertrand Russell’s book The Problems of Philosophy):

 

• Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? This question, which at first sight might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can be asked. When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy – for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas.

Using Google translate, this text can be translated into Traditional Chinese:

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• 世界上有什麼知識是如此確定，以至於沒有合理的人可以懷疑它嗎？這個乍一看似乎並不困難的問題，實際上是最困難的問題之一。當我們在直覺和自信的答案中意識到障礙時，我們將在哲學研究中得到很好的啟發 - 因為哲學僅僅是試圖回答這些終極問題，而不是像平常生活中那樣粗心和教條地回答甚至在科學方面，但是在探索了所有讓這些問題困惑的問題之後，以及在意識到構成我們普通想法的所有模糊和混亂之後。

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• Shìjiè shàng yǒu shé me zhīshì shì rúcǐ quèdìng, yǐ zhìyú méiyǒu hélǐ de rén kěyǐ huáiyí tā ma? Zhège zhà yī kàn sìhū bìng bù kùnnán de wèntí, shíjì shang shì zuì kùnnán de wèntí zhī yī. Dāng wǒmen zài zhíjué hé zìxìn de dá'àn zhòng yìshí dào zhàng'ài shí, wǒmen jiàng zài zhéxué yánjiū zhōng dédào hěn hǎo de qǐfā - yīnwèi zhéxué jǐnjǐn shì shìtú huídá zhèxiē zhōngjí wèntí, ér bùshì xiàng píngcháng shēnghuó zhōng nàyàng cūxīn hé jiàotiáo dì huídá shènzhì zài kēxué fāngmiàn, dànshì zài tànsuǒle suǒyǒu ràng zhèxiē wèntí kùnhuò de wèntí zhīhòu, yǐjí zài yìshí dào gòuchéng wǒmen pǔtōng xiǎngfǎ de suǒyǒu móhú hé hǔnluàn zhīhòu.

Using Google translate, the translated text can be retranslated from Traditional Chinese into English:

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• What knowledge in the world is so certain that no reasonable person can doubt it? This problem, which seems to be not difficult at first glance, is actually one of the most difficult problems. When we realize the obstacles in the answers to intuition and self-confidence, we will be very inspired in the study of philosophy – because philosophy is only trying to answer these ultimate questions, rather than answering and even being as careless and dogmatic as in ordinary life. Scientifically, but after exploring all the problems that confuse these issues, and after realizing all the confusion and confusion that constitutes our ordinary ideas.

Here, a portion of the translation is meaningless – just an inchoate jumble of words. However, a lack of sense does not render the translation useless. Let’s suppose your assignment asked you to discuss Russell’s views on the issue of induction. It’s clear that this mistranslated paragraph is not dealing with induction, and so you can continue with your speed-reading until the translation suggests that induction has become the topic.

So, even though automated translation is far from perfect, it can provide an expedient means for quickly identifying sections of interest within a large volume of text. For a discussion of the relative merits of different translation software, you might find the following article of interest (zoom in to see the different translations):

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• Who Offers the Best Chinese-English Machine Translation? A Comparison of Google, Microsoft Bing, Baidu, Tencent, Sogou, and NetEase Youdao

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