translation exercises I found an article on 有道 that I wanted to translate in order to analyzed the Chinese vs English sentence pattern. I hope people find this interesting. 现在很多中国人，尤其是年轻人，都有英文名字。一方面是为了赶时髦，另一方面为了方便和外国人交流。不幸的是，在母语是英语的人看来，他们为自己取的名字很多都很好笑，有时候很滑稽。一些英国人列出了他们在中国遇到的有趣的名字。 Now I will translate and analyze each sentence and determine what grammatical differences exist between Chinese and English. 现在很多中国人，尤其是年轻人，都有英文名字。(Translation: Now a lot of Chinese people, especially young people, all have English names.) Comment: This sentence has the exact same word order and sentence structure as English.) 一方面是为了赶时髦，另一方面为了方便和外国人交流。(Translation: On the one hand is for fashionable, on the other hand for convenience and foreign communication.) Comment: This sentence also has the same sentence pattern as English except the sentence does not sound natural. (In English we might say: "On the one hand, it's fashionable to take an English name, but on the other hand, it makes things easy for foreign communication.) 不幸的是，在母语是英语的人看来，他们为自己取的名字很多都很好笑，有时候很滑稽。(Translation: Unfortunately, In mother language is English person it seems, they for themselves take name very much all very laughable, sometimes very comical.) Comment: In English, we could keep the same sentence order even though we would need to rearrange the word order within the phrases. Moreover, we should translate 母语 to Chinese, and not "mother language." 是 can be translated to "is" or "to be" and 看来 can be translated to "apparently" or "It seems that." Example: Unfortunately, in Chinese, it seems to be an English person. Now this translation sounds strange because in Chinese, the subject is not repeated the way it would be in English. Translation2(with subject repeated): In Chinese, Chinese people apparently are English people; they take for themselves very laughable, very comical names.) 一些英国人列出了他们在中国遇到的有趣的名字。 Translation: Some British people make a list they in China come across interesting names. Comment:他们在中国遇到的 is an adjective in Chinese but in English, this is a noun phrase with the connecting word "that" in front of the phrase. Therefore, the correct translation would be ... Some British people make a list of interesting names that they come across in China.