A Report On The Translation Internship In The Verbatim Reporting Service Of The United Nations

The author served as an intern in the Verbatim Reporting Service of the United Nations from 5 July to 1 September,2017.Placed in the Chinese Section,the author translated verbatim reports of the United Nations General Assembly,Security Council,and Disarmament Commission from English into Chinese.This report summarises the mistakes and problems in the translation encountered by the author during the internship,in the hope of providing lessons and advice.Specifically,the problems are categorised into three groups,namely 1)comprehending the words,phrases and structures of the source text and background knowledge related to the source text;2)expressing in a way that is faithful to the source text,authentic in Chinese,and free from ambiguity;and 3)adapting to the target language convention by utilising idioms correctly and processing information critically.The report is in five parts.The first part introduces the background of the internship and the layout of the report.The second section provides basic information about the Verbatim Reporting Service,the characteristics of the source and translated texts,and the operational process of the author 's translation.The third part is case study.Translation mistakes are grouped into three categories,namely comprehension,expression,and adaptation.Conclusions drawn from the analysis are in part four,with numerous solutions proposed to address the issues discussed.The final section summarises the paper and suggests what translators can work on to better translate UN verbatim reports.