例：青山绿水 译：green hills and clear waters
例：扬长避短
译：play up strengths and avoid weaknesses
例：名山大川 译：famous mountains and great riveacter structure before and after the two words in the semantics are the same as if the two words are translated back and forth constitute semantic article from repeated 例：路遥知马力，日久见人心 译：Time will tell. 例：广袤无垠的中华大地
例：结党营私
译：form cliques for private gain
例：扭亏为盈 译：turn a loss-making enterprise into a profitable one
例：退耕还林 译：return cultivated land to forest or pastures
Division
To translate such kind of consecutive four-character Chinese structure well,translator has to use a method called division to divide those fourcharacter Chinese structures into two parts;those which are able to be logic center and those which are not. 例:作为世界第一大洲，亚洲幅员辽阔，人口众多，资源丰富，有着巨大 的发展潜力. 译：Asia,the largest continent in the world,is a vast land with a huge population, abundant natural resources and enormous potential or development. 幅员辽阔is a four-character Chinese structure meaning a vast land.人口众多 and 资源丰富describe the land in terms of population and resources.As can be seen clearly,the three four-character Chinese structures in the sentence are not equal in logic and do not exist separately.The subsequent two are attached to the first one in order to introduce two aspects of the peculiarities of the land mentioned in the first one.Obviously,the first one is the logic center and it must be taken good care of in translation.As a result the sentence of English version can be arranged and organized as one with a logic center,namely subordinative compound.
途径方式
You can use throuth, according to, with prepositional phrases, such as the appropriate way to express adverbial. 例：因材施教 译：teach students according to their aptitude 例：按劳分配 译：distribution according to performance
译：the boundless expanse of the Chinese territory 例：高瞻远瞩的决策 译：a visionary/far-sighted decision
目的关系 For the purposes of the relationship can be used to express prepositional infinitive or purpose adverbial
Transfer
Each of the four consecutive Chinese structures in the sentence describes one aspect of the product introduced in the advertisement,and each of the aspects does not influence each other in logic,as a result the sentence of English version can be arranged and organized as one without a logic center,namely a parallel sentence in form..
例：廉洁奉公 译：honestly perform one’s official duties 例：以强凌弱 译：the strong domineering over the weak 例：环境绿化 译：environmental greening
动宾关系
例：优势互补 译：complement each other’s advantages 例：自主经营，自负盈亏 译：make one’s own management decisions, take full responsibility for one’s own profits and losses
The Translation of Four-character Chinese Structure
Operational Research and Cybernetics School of Science 程林鹏 2014210047
Content
Fou-character Chinese structure
Subtraction
Chinese is a language which especially more emphasizes its form than its content.This lingual phenomenon can be clearly observed in four-character Chinese structure.Sometimes part of the consecutive four-character Chinese structures has repetition in meaning in order to gain effect of expression or purely for the making of language beauty.Quite the opposite,English is a language which emphasizes more its content.It does not allow repetitive words of the same meaning to describe only one matter.
并列关系 语意重复 目的关系 途径方式
偏正词组
动宾关系 条件关系 省略意象
Methods of Translating Consecutive Fou-character Chinese
Division(拆分法)
Transfer(转换法) Subtraction(缩减法) Metaphrase(顺应法)
例：本品味道鲜美，营养丰富，物美价廉，可供现货。
译：Delicious,nutritious and a good buy.Available from stock. Adjective phrase or other kind of English phrase is known to be concise in nature; as a result using English phrase to translate four-character Chinese structure is the best choice under the circumstances.That is also a process transferring fourcharacter Chinese structure into English phrase,so the method is called transfer which applies specifically for the kind of consecutive four-character Chinese structures being concise without sequential logic.
We can separate the two words before and after the fourcharacter format in many cases to deal with, first determite what part of the structural parts of speech, and then analyze the logical relationship between the two terms before, with the corresponding word or expression processing.