CATTI Level 1: English–Chinese written-translation foundations common mistakes
CATTI Level 1: English–Chinese written-translation foundations · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating a remembered official phrase as the only possible wording
Institutional usage depends on the actual issuer, document and translation brief.
What to do instead
Check the relevant authorized text and preserve the particular source meaning.
Adding an actor to make a sentence fluent without context
An invented subject can change who promises or performs the action.
What to do instead
Recover the actor from evidence or restructure without making an unsupported attribution.
Turning a permission into an obligation
A change in modality can reverse the legal meaning of a supplied clause.
What to do instead
Track the responsible party and distinguish rights, duties, prohibitions and conditions.
Adding year-on-year to a percentage without a stated baseline
The translation invents the comparison period and may change the financial information.
What to do instead
Preserve the given change and query the missing basis instead of guessing.
Using fluency as proof of accuracy
Natural target prose can still omit information or mistranslate a proposition.
What to do instead
Compare source and target bilingually before conducting a separate fluency read.
Accepting a stored segment without its current context
Definitions, actors and neighboring conditions may differ despite matching words.
What to do instead
Check the segment within the actual document and record unresolved inconsistencies.
Converting a general description into a specific facility name
The source may describe a category rather than identify a named installation.
What to do instead
Use the general term unless the source or reliable project reference establishes the proper name.
Strengthening association into causation
The translation changes the scientific inference and may mislead a reader about the evidence.
What to do instead
Preserve uncertainty and causal wording exactly, including stated study limitations.