1.5《读者文摘》

①The conversion from adjectives into verbs

Example (1): But Milcah was undeterred, and by the time their father walked through the door, a thick vegetable stew was bubbling atop the stove.

Translation: 但是密伽没有退却，父亲回家时，一锅浓稠的炖菜正在炉子上咕噜地冒着气泡。

In English, adjectives are used to express the attributes, characteristics or states of a person or thing, and to modify and qualify a noun or pronoun in a sentence. Moreover，many adjectives can be composed of verbs and affixes, such as “interested” and “considerate”, so they imply the meaning of a verb, and it is feasible to translate an adjective as a verb. The adjective “undeterred” in Example (1) is composed of a verb “deter” and two affixes “-un” and “-ed”. Although the word is an adjective, it implies the meaning of “deter”. Therefore, it is possible to translate it as a verb. Furthermore, the word “deter” means to discourage or to prevent from acting, so the writer chose Chinese verbs “退却”, and according to the affixes “-un”, added “没有” in front of it.

②The conversion from nouns into verbs

Example (2): You had to keep your wits about you, because there was so much activity.

Translation: 一定要保持警惕，因为现场太混杂了。

Whether in oral or written, Westerners like to use nouns, while Chinese like to use verbs because the verb can make language more vivid and graphic. Therefore, the writer will make parts of speech shift according to the context when translating. In Example (2), “activity” is a noun that evolved from a verb “act”, so it has the meaning of a verb. It is feasible to be translated as a verb. According to context, the author is describing a coal mine, where people are busy in carrying coal and machines are running all the time, so the writer translated it as “混杂”