Item Detail
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7326
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2
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3
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English
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Some Problems in Translating Mormon Thought into Chinese
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BYU Studies
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Winter 1970
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10
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173-85
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"It was Gordon B. Hinckley who once told a group of missionaries in Taiwan never to forget their Chinese, for the Church would need at least twenty mission presidents when it finally spreads across the China mainland. Hopefully, the future will see the Gospel going to all of China, after its period of tutelage in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It is essential that we lay a good foundation now, and one of the most significant challenges of that future is the translation of Mormon thought into Chinese. Since one of the greatest missionary tools anywhere is the Book of Mormon, I would like to examine some of the translation problems in relation to it and suggest some possible solutions. The ideas and opinions that follow are my own, and they are more or less a thought workbook, a casebook of questions that have served as catalysts to my own thinking. They are offered here with the hope that they may give rise to new ideas and further areas of study. Translating any thought expressed in one language into another language is not a mechanical process. If it is to be of any real value, translation is rather a thoughtful understanding of the initial expression and a very careful attempt to express that thought in the target language. This concept points out four significant thoughts encountered in translating the Book of Mormon into Chinese." [Publisher's abstract]