【英語島封面故事】Reading Lab -- 「為什麼我要一直翻譯川普的推特？」

'Why I translate all of Trump's tweets into Chinese'

美國總統川普引爆美中貿易戰，徹底激怒了北京政府的同時，也成功抓住一批華人移民的支持，這群粉絲每天忠實翻譯川普推特，甚至不惜翻牆將推特內容散佈到中國互聯網，這背後藏有什麼原因呢？

Pro-Trump

For at least four hours each day, Jeff Ding, 45, pays close attention to the Twitter account of @realDonaldTrump. Ding says his main motivation to maintain @Trump_Chinese is a strong belief that Trump is the most supportive president in American history for China's human rights. The Twitter account has translated all Trump's tweets for more than 100,000 followers. However, not all Chinese dissidents see Trump as a fighter for human rights.

Anti-Trump

"Trump started the trade war not aiming to promote freedom and democracy in China," says Teng Biao, a New York-based exiled human rights lawyer. Teng enjoys a large following on Twitter, but he thinks that he and those who are anti-Trump are in a minority among Chinese dissidents.

中國和中共是兩個翻譯，不能混為一談

There's one thing that almost all of them agree on - when interpreting Trump's views on China, lines should be drawn between China the country, its people and the Communist government.

On @Trump_Chinese, "China" is often translated as "the Chinese Communist Party", especially in tweets where Trump is aggressively targeting Beijing. This reflects the dissidents' political thinking. "We're sons and daughters of China, not of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin," says Ding, calling it his guiding principle.

原文出處：BBC News
閱讀時間：6min

關鍵單字

aim 打算、計畫

當 aim 的意思是「打算、計畫」，常見文法為「aim to +動詞」或是 「aim for + 名詞」，為本選文語意；但當aim後方接的介意詞是at，則意思略有不同，「aim at 」的意思為瞄準、鎖定、針對。

例句比較：
We are aiming for a 50 percent share of the German market.
我們意圖獲取德國市場50%的份額。
There are hundreds of nuclear missiles aimed at the main cities.
數百枚核飛彈瞄準了各主要城市。

draw lines 劃清界線

英文新聞中常會見到 draw lines between A and B ，字面上的意思為在A和B之間畫線，背後想表達的意思其實是將兩者畫清界線(create boundaries)，A和B是截然不同的事物。

*本文收錄於英語島English Island 2019年9月號