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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
WANG Yichen
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8080/2026.08.005
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
Through the Chinese-Japanese translation practice of the first chapter of “New Interpretation of Huashu,” this paper attempts to summarize the difficulties in the Japanese translation of Chinese classical ancient books, and finds that the translation obstacles mainly focus on the three levels of the interwoven text structure and corresponding sentence pattern transformation of classical Chinese and vernacular, the profound culture-loaded words, and the unique Taoist philosophical concept system. In view of these difficulties, the translator must go deep into the philosophical core and rhetorical texture of the text and flexibly use the strategies of “semantic translation” and “communicative translation.” That is to say, semantic translation is used to anchor the spirit and strength of the text, and communicative translation is used to give new life and vitality to the translation. Only by achieving a delicate balance between the two can we achieve the leap from “text translation” to “cultural transmission.”
Chinese translation of Japanese, Taoist ancient books, translation difficulties, philosophical concepts, Cultural transmission
WANG Yichen. Difficulties and Countermeasures in Japanese Translation of Traditional Chinese Ancient Books: A Case Study of A New Interpretation of The Book of Transformation. US-China Foreign Language, August 2026, Vol. 24, No. 8, 304-312 10.17265/1539-8080/2026.08.005
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