Part one-4

木榕

In "Saying the Same Thing Twice", the author delves into the common but often overlooked problem of saying the same thing over and over again in English expression, revealing the key points for English learners and translators to improve the quality of English expression.
1. Different words express the same concept
In English writing and Chinglish expression, using different words to express the same concept is a common way of repetition. For example, "He returned back to his native hometown", "return" itself has the meaning of "return", "back" is redundant; "hometown" is clearly "hometown", and "native" is redundant here. "The reason why he was late is because he missed the bus", "the reason why... "is" and "because" are repetitive and should be replaced with "The reason he was late is that he missed the bus". This repetition not only makes the sentence wordy, it can also confuse the reader when trying to understand it.
2. Combinations of phrases with overlapping meanings
There is obvious semantic overlap in some phrase combinations. For example, "basic essentials", "basic" and "essentials" both emphasize the basics and necessity, just use "essentials"; In "past history", "history" itself contains the meaning of the past, and "past" is an unnecessary addition. And then there's free gift. gift is something that's given for free. Free is icing on the lily.
3. Unnecessary explanatory repetition
The authors also mention some unnecessary explanatory duplication. For example, "a consensus of people", "consensus" refers to the consensus reached by groups, has already included the concept of "people", there is no need to mention it separately. For example, "a majority of the students who are in the class", "majority" has been clearly defined in a certain group, "who are in the class" is redundant. a majority of the students in the class.

The root cause of repetition lies in the great differences between Chinese and English. Chinese sometimes use repetitive expressions to reinforce the tone or emphasize a point, and this habit easily transfers to English expressions. For example, the Chinese saying "I saw it with my own eyes" may be translated as "I saw it with my own eyes", but in English "saw" itself means to see through the eyes, and "with my own eyes" is unnecessary. It inspires me to accumulate the use context of vocabulary and improve the sensitivity of vocabulary. In this way, we can accurately choose the right words and avoid repetition.