Part 3

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As a sophomore English major diving into Part Three, I felt both challenged and enlightened. The chapter throws forty dense examples at us like a gauntlet, each one a knot of tangled syntax and noun-heavy awkwardness. It’s like being tossed into a pool of Chinglish and told to swim—sink or swim, you’ve got to untangle these sentences.

The first thing that hit me was how these examples aren’t neatly categorized. In real translation work, problems don’t come labeled like library books. They’re messy, overlapping, and stubborn. Take example 1: "It is an important political task of the Party..." The original is a noun graveyard. "Provide assistance to" becomes "help," and "self-reform" morphs into the verb "reform themselves." This noun plague is like kudzu—strangle it in one place, and it pops up somewhere else. The revision feels like a breath of fresh air, but catching those nouns requires laser focus.

Then there’s the issue of pronoun gymnastics in example 3. The original switches "they" and "their" like a magician swapping rabbits. By the end, I’m left wondering who’s doing what to whom. The revision anchors the pronouns to the KMT reactionaries, clearing up the fog. It’s a reminder that clarity isn’t just about word choice—it’s about keeping your reader from getting lost in a pronoun maze.

The most eye-opening moment was example 5. The original dangles "encouraging" like a limp noodle, leaving the people encouraging themselves. The fix? Turn that dangler into a proper clause and swap nouns for pronouns. Suddenly, the sentence snaps into focus. It’s these little tweaks that make all the difference—like tuning a violin string until it hits the right note.

What struck me hardest was the advice to revise like a detective. Read it once for clarity. Read it again for logic. Read it a third time for concision. Each pass reveals new sins: a misplaced modifier here, an abstract noun plague there. It’s exhausting but exhilarating—like solving a puzzle where every piece matters.

The three questions at the end are my new mantra: Is it clear? Is it logical? Is it tight? If I can answer "yes" to all three, I’ve turned Chinglish into English. But getting there? It’s a slog. You have to wrestle with every sentence, question every noun, and read it backward if you have to. No one said translation was a tea party.

These exercises aren’t just about fixing sentences—they’re about rewiring your brain. After wrestling with example 4’s policy shift, I caught myself questioning every "from X to Y" structure in my own writing. It’s like learning to spot weeds in a garden—you can’t unsee them once you know what to look for.