On the Translation of Idioms in A Dream of Red Mansions

Chinese is a highly -developed language . Thus it has abundantidioms that consist of colloquialisms , proverbs , slang expressions ,vulgar sayings ,etc .Idioms ,a kind of highly -refined language ,arethe consequences of a lasting selection through eli mination in theprocess of people's usingthem.Idioms are usuallyforceful ,vivid ,andeven someti mes rude and vulgar . But ,at the same ti me ,they havestrong cultural and national flavor . The history ,culture and customof a nation are usually co…

On the Translation of Idioms in A Dream of Red Mansions

A Dream of Red Mansions is a famous Chinese classical novel written by Cao Xueqin. In this book, there are many Chinese idioms, which concentratedly reflect the cultural and national characteristics of the Chinese nation and form an important part of the art of this novel. Therefore the translation of these idioms is hard work. From the birth of it, there appear a lot of translated editions, of which the most famous two are A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, and The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes. In both of their editions, they make great effort to translate the idioms in a faithful and graceful way. On the basis of contrast and analysis of different idiom translation methods, a conclusion is drawn that a translator should try his best to preserve the rhetoric in order to make the translated text as vivid as the original one, and to preserve the cultural information in order to introduce the unique Chinese culture to the world.