I love the sea not only because she has beautiful hues and many interesting objects hidden deep, but also because she is broad and liberal enough to turn the dirty into pure. The numerous small rivers that she accommodates(容纳） may be black and yellow in color, but once they flow into her bosom, they instantly take on the green color, a color representing peace and tranquility. A person with a terrifying hot temper will become, I believe, as meek as lamb after a long stay by the seashore. Likewise, a narrow-minded person will become straightforward and openhearted if he often keeps company with the sea.
What is life? What are the true nature, meaning and purpose of life? Since ancient times, scholars of religion and great philosophers have strained their energy and intellect to the limit for an answer to these crucial and central questions in life. But they are not alone. The best poets in the world have done the same by contemplating and pondering over the questions, delving into the depth of their souls. They envision Paradise through a flower and the meaning of life in a dewdrop. They, with their gifted words, picture a kaleidoscopic world and acts of the life drama. In the final analysis, their words serve no other purpose than revealing the truth and meaning of life.
Shanghai is a region, but it is far more than that. Shanghai is a mega city where you have to pay fare of two or three hundred Yuan if you take a taxi from Pudong airport to Hongqiao airport, or from Jiading F1 stadium to Nanhui Luchao port at the foot of Gonghai Bridge. You would have traveled across two cities of you were in other places and accents here are of great difference. In China, there actually will be no city like Shanghai in which accents vary so widely. This is about Shanghai’s soil. But it is Shanghai’s water that composes Shanghai’s rising and subsiding humanistic structure with various types and forms.
【难点分析】
1. 第一句中的“水土”可以理解为 a region，“上海又岂止是一方水土？”是一个设问句，表达的意思是“上海不仅仅是一方水土”，可用far more than ... 的句式表示。
2. “超级大城市”可以翻译为“super big city”，“megalopolis”, 或者“mega city”。
3. “出租车从……开到……，或者从……开到……，车费就要二三百”，可接上句“上海是一个大城市”处理为一个地点状语从句，以整合中文的零散句子。这句话是假设人们打车会产生很高的费用，可加you 为人称主语，增译处理为“ if you take a taxi from... to...”，以使得译文更加流畅。
5. “上海的水”可采用“it is that...”强调句式进行翻译。该句中出现了中文中较为常见的四字成语，翻译时要注意拆分整合，可将“此起彼伏”作为“上海人文结构”的定语，“千姿百态”可以用“ with various types and forms”的介词短语做修饰语后置，避免译文定语过长，句子冗长。
In the recent one hundred years, Chinese has gone through a great change and so far no other language has been innovated in people’s pursuit of modernization. Since the end of the 19th century, translation has always been or played an increasingly important role in innovating Chinese. Some special means of expressions, so called “translationese”, produced during the process of translating foreign language into Chinese, have remarkable impact on standard Chinese language. Tanslationese refers to an unnatural and unidiomatic language style in translation and has affected the development of Chinese language in many aspects.
【难点分析】
1. 第一句话叙述了汉语经历了发展变革，建议采用完成时态表达，如译为：Chinese has gone through a great change....。文章中多次提到“汉语”，可用Chinese 或 Chinese language 表达，避免重复。
2. “修葺”在这里是指“改革和创新”。
3. 第三句“翻译腔”的问题，该问题是在翻译过程中产生的，可对“翻译腔”做一定的解释，如处理为“some special means of expressions”， 译文表达更清晰。翻译整句话时，可将“翻译腔”提前做主语，“通过由外语到汉语的翻译产生的”处理为后置定语。“冲击”可用 have an impact on 表达。
Replying to letters is horrible, whereas not replying is by no means a matter of bliss. Normally a hundred or so letters are stacked on my bookshelf, with diverse maturity of debt, the longest being over a year. That kind of pressure is more than an ordinary sinner can bear. A stack of unanswered letters batters on me like a group of haunting ghosts and plays havoc with my smitten conscience. In principle, the letters are there for replaying to. I can swear in all honestly that I have never consciously determined not to answer letters.
The long process of constructing the landscape of West Lake, which lasts more or less one thousand years, begins with Bai Juyi, a literary giant in the Tang Dynasty who built Bai Causeway in the lake. Later in the Northern Song Dynasty, the dredging project by the famous poet Su shi also had a great scale. The poet not only built Su Causeway, but also left many wonderful poems for the West Lake, which turned out to be the very explanation why West Lake later became the spiritual homeland for scholars and scholar-bureaucrats. Years after years, generation after generation, after the stippling by all those wonderful pens, West Lake now has truly become a famous lake with the coexistence of cultural and natural landscapes. West Lake is illustrated as a “cube” with six clear facets, among which are natural landscape and cultural historical relics.
【难点分析】
1. 第一句以“白居易筑白堤”作起始引发事件，比较符合中国人的时间顺序的思维习惯，但在翻译时则应注意找到本段落所讨论的中心——西湖的建造，把它放在首句更符合英文文章开门见山的表达习惯。为达到以上的目的，可使定语从句，强调西湖建造之长，（如 which lasts... one thousand years）以及西湖白堤始建者白居易的重要身份（如 a literary giant... who built Bai Causeway in the lake)。“文豪”这个词也可以译作great writer, eminent writer 等。
2. 第二句的时间转移到北宋，句子较长，其实在概念上主语有两个，一个是苏轼的工程，另一个是苏轼本人，建议采用分译的方法，将该句译成两个独立的句子，以解释说明两个主语的性质和特点。在解释说明苏轼的工程时，可将译文重心放在“疏浚工程”，将dredging project 作为主语，其特点是“规模大”，可译作“had a large scale”。
3. 第二句对苏轼本人的说明中，“不仅建筑了苏堤，还留下了许多美妙诗篇”动作的主语是人，而非“工程”，所以分译时应补上主语the poet。另外后半句“日后西湖作为文人士大夫精神家园的源头”所指的是苏轼缩写的诗篇，而此处的“源头”较接近于“原因，理由”，可使用explanation进行翻译。“精神家园”可直译为spiritual homeland，文人士大夫可翻译成“scholars and scholar- bureaucrats”。
4. 在翻译“妙笔点画”时，可以原文的动词属性转变为名词属性，如“stippling of wonderful pen”。作定语的“文化与自然双重景观并存的”可用with 介词短语作为修饰语后置。
