我一直有读你这个系列,因为我对ABC参加国内暑期活动很有兴趣。看了你孩子的英文原文,觉得写得很不错(除第三段有漏了一个英文字外)。但是你的中文译文似乎没有将你孩子的原意表达出来。下面举些例子:
---but also to get in touch with my ethnic heritage and become more familiar with a culture and language that I feel I should have expended more effort to understand when I was younger.
此句最后一部分在英语里是用的虚拟语气,所以它表达的是你孩子现在感觉到他小时候应该多学中文(而实际上他小时候没有花太多功夫去学)。这是他此行后的感悟。所以正确的译文(供参考)可以是:
---目的不仅是去了解中国的传统医学(中医),而且也是借此接触中国的民族传统文化,进一步熟悉我觉得在小时候应该花更多努力去学习和掌握的中国文化和语言。
The four week stay in an unfamiliar foreign city really put my Chinese to the grind.
"To put something to the grind" 的意思是 to make something work really hard,所以并不是说把他的中文磨练出来,而是他在中国经常要用到中文。
试改译: ---在一个陌生的外国城市逗留四个星期真可以说让我的中文得到了磨练(派上了用场)。
This program, in a departure from the one prior, was more about exploration than familiarization of culture to me, as Taiwan’s culture could in many ways said to be polar opposites to that of China. To that end, certainly much exploration was done.
“departure” 在这里的意思不是“出发”, 而是“不同于 ”。
试改译: 这个学习活动与前一个不同,对我来说,与其说是熟悉台湾的文化不如说是去探索更多的东西。为此目的,我当然做了许多探索。
For those students seeking to explore a new or unfamiliar culture/country, programs like these will more than satiate that desire. The course in China did a better job at integrating the course material to corroborate that cultural exploration than did the Taiwanese course, but both are worthy experiences in their own right.
你的翻译主要是漏译了 "more than" "corroborate" and "in their own right."
试改译: 对于那些想探索新的或不熟悉的文化/国家的学生,这样的学习之旅不仅能满足他们的愿望,还有更多的收获。中国的课程在结合学习材料以印证文化探索方面比台湾的课程要好,但无论中国(浙大二医的见习)还是台湾(成大的学习)就其本身而言都是非常值得的体验。