[This ancient paper from a conference in 2000 is now a historical relic, but the teaching problems haven’t changed a whit.]

Introduction

I first taught “Introduction to Translation” in 1998 at Chaoyang University of Technology’s Department of Applied Foreign Languages. This is a required two-semester course taken in the junior year. Its purpose is to give students an extensive introduction to the pleasures and pains of English to Chinese and Chinese to English translation. It is an important class for all students, since most will regularly do short, business related translation in their future careers. It is also intended to serve as a beginning course for students interested in taking advanced translation courses in the senior year. Students are therefore highly motivated to do well in this course. It was not, however, an easy class to teach.
Continue reading →