Chinese: Second Language Learner 7–10 Sequence / Levels 7 and 8 / Communicating / Translating
Content description
Translate simple texts from Chinese to English and vice versa, identifying words and phrases in Chinese that do not readily translate into English, using contextual cues, action and gesture to assist translation
Elaborations
translating English texts into Chinese, focusing on overall meaning, and identifying how best to interpret key words, for example, the use of 是 after first-, second- and third-person pronouns; numbers with measure words; possessives with 的; plurals
identifying Chinese symbols in print and digital texts (for example, the longevity symbol), and developing ways to include the culturally attached value when expressing the meaning of these symbols in English
learning how to look up unfamiliar characters and words in bilingual dictionaries, and experimenting with different online dictionaries and translation tools to investigate how specific meanings are rendered into English
translating public texts in Chinese (for example, signs in shops and restaurants) into English and explaining their possible meaning and purpose, for example, translating the sign 休息中 on an unlit shop window to mean ‘closed’ instead of its literal translation, ‘resting’
using etiquette phrases within appropriate contexts and discussing whether the translation of 对不起 is the same across contexts, for example comparing its meaning in 对不起，让一让 and 对不起，我错了
