Chinese translator talks English fever in China

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“What I am trying to do is to open up a window to let Chinese people see that the real Western world is not as good as you thought and also not as bad as you thought,” said Gu Da Bai Hua, a popular translator in China with over eight million followers on social media platform, Weibo.

Gu is well known for his accurate and interesting Chinese translations of American talk shows, TV programs and films.

Talking on CGTN's The Point, he said, “I really want to open up a little bit of a window to give them a taste of Western culture, because I believe that listening, reading, writing, speaking, these abilities are just utensils... but the ultimate goal is the culture.”

Gu Da Bai Hua translated American talk shows including 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' into Chinese./ABC Photo

Gu Da Bai Hua said the most difficult part of his work is to get over the language barrier to convey the authentic humor and meaning of puns and jokes.

For example, when asked to translate the British idiom "to spend a penny" – which means to use the bathroom – his result was ‘qu fang yi bian’.

In Chinese, "qu fang bian" means "go to the bathroom" while "yi bian" is a penny. Combining the two creates a composite phrase.

For a number of years, China has been a major English-learning country, with the number of people studying the language around 400 million at the start of this century.

Chinese people are spending more time than ever before learning English, but many still fail to achieve real proficiency.

Gu however is not one of them. Even though he studied Traditional Chinese Medicine for his major rather than English, driven by personal interest, he has now translated hundreds of episodes of American TV shows.

“Simply watching them is not good enough,” said Gu, who emphasized the importance of studying other than entertainment.

“Back in the days when we had very few choices, it was easier to make the decision which TV shows we liked to follow, but right now there are thousands of choices so they don’t have the time to really begin to study it,” he said.

However, Gu Da Bai Hua has a word of warning for those wishing to study English abroad – not to lose their own Chinese cultural identity.

"Don’t downplay that to fit in. You should be proud to be a Chinese," he said.

The Point with Liu Xin is a 30-minute current affairs program on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 9:30 p.m. BJT (1330GMT), with rebroadcasts at 5:30 a.m. (2130GMT) and 10:30 a.m. (0230GMT).