The Study On The English Translation And Explanation Of New Words In TCFL Textbooks

In the current Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) textbooks, the elementary ones in particular, the new words are normally translated and explained in English. Such English translation is an important way for the students to understand the word's meaning and basic usage, especially for the beginners. Therefore the quality of the English translation would directly influence the effectiveness of words learning. However, this translation has been criticized by many students, teachers and scholars for its incorrectness, inaccuracy and insufficiency. Road to Success is a relatively influential TCFL textbook. However, its English translation and explanation of new words has many problems. Chapter 1 of the paper gives a brief account on the characteristics of Chinese words and English words, as well as the relations between Chinese words meanings and English words meanings. Chapter 2 gives a detailed analysis on the English translation and explanation of new words in the TCFL textbook Road to Success (Elementary Level). In this part, the paper does a questionnaire survey to understand the foreign students' views on the above textbook's new words translation, summarizes the good points of this translation, and then categorizes the new words according to translation problems, analyzes the reason and gives the suggested translation. Chapter 3 offers solutions to TCFL textbook new words translation from three aspects, namely, things to be aware of when doing the translation, methods other than translation, and suggestions to the textbook compilers, in the hope of providing some improvement suggestions for the above textbook, as well as some reference for future textbook compiling, words teaching and relevant research.