人次应不应该翻译成person time
汉语中的“人次”是经常出现的概念,常用于成果汇报中的人数统计。很多国内的译者,甚至包括做了很多年翻译的人,都在没有调查研究的情况下,就简(cu)单(bao)地将其处理为person time,甚至有些相对的渠道,也是这么处理的,比如外交部网站就出现了person time的表达:
On April 9, 2015, Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jianchao attended the commemoration held by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in China for China-ROK personnel exchanges exceeding 10 million person times.
在china.org.cn的网站上,也出现了person time的表达:
Till now, the number of people that have participated in compulsory tree-planting campaign has amounted to 10.4 billion person times, with 49.2 billion trees planted in accumulation covering an area of 219,000 km 2. (顺便吐槽一下compulsory这里的使用也是有问题的)。
对于这个表达,我一向是心存疑问的。学了这么多年的英语,各种类型的英文资料也算是看了不少,但是从来没有看过母语人士用person time的这个表达,仅有一次看到过统计劳动力投入的时候,母语人士用过man/days这样的表达,也就是汉语中的“人天”。那么母语人士到底是怎么表达“人次”这个概念的呢?先来看几个句子:
香港国际机场算是一个非常国际化的机场,我们先看他们怎么介绍乘客人次的:
In 2014, HKIA handled 63.3 million passengers, making it the 10th busiest airport worldwide by passenger traffic.
他们直接用63.3 million passengers,而没有采用国内机场person times的表达。而且,你也肯定可以断定,63.3 million passengers中肯定是包括重复的乘客。顺便提醒你handle在这个语境中的应用,介绍机场、汽车站、火车站等运输场所的年游客吞吐量(用名词表达就是throughput)就是这个表达。比如:这个火车站2014年的游客吞吐量为400万人次,就是This railway station handled 4 million passengers in 2014。
如果你认为香港的还不够,再看英国的希思罗国际机场(Heathrow Airport)旅客吞吐量的介绍:
In 2014, it handled a record 73.4 million passengers, a 1.4 percent increase from 2013.
这里同样没有使用person times的这个表达,而是和香港一样直接用passengers。下面,我们再看母语人士介绍东京迪士尼年接待人次的表达:
In 2013, Tokyo Disneyland hosted 17.2 million visitors, makingit the world's second-most visited theme park behind the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort.
这个句子也是直接用的17.2 million visitors。再看美国佛罗里达州的那个迪士尼介绍:
In 2014, the park hosted 19.33 million visitors, making it the most visited theme park in the world for the sixth consecutive year.
句式都是一样的。从这两句话中,你就知道,今后介绍景点年接待人次应该怎么说了。比如:长城2014年接待游客人次为500万,就是The Great Wall hosted 5 million visitors in 2014.
再看母语人士对日本新干线的介绍,看看人家是怎么介绍乘客人次的:
The Tōkaidō Shinkansen is the world's busiest high-speed rail line. Carrying 151 million passengers per year (March 2008), it has transported more passengers (over 5 billion, entire network over 10 billion) than any other high-speed line in the world.
我们现在再扩大一下语境。现在出国游比较热门,我们看看《福布斯》是怎么说的:
Mainland Chinesecitizens for the first time ever have crossed the border more than a 100 million times in a twelve month period.
在这句话里,这篇文章的作者采用的cross the border more than a 100 million times。再看另外一句话是怎么说的:
Government statistics show that between April 2013 and March 2014 about 102 million border crossings took place.
你看这里用的是crossings,也不是person time。我们继续把“人次”的范围扩大,比如”参观人次、观看人次、点击人次”。
America's national parks welcomed a record-breaking 292.8 million visits in 2014, shattering the previous record of 287.1 million visits set in 1999.
再谈到一个不雅视频观看人次的时候,英语媒体采用了如下表达,摘录几个:
This video has been viewed almost 4 million times.
This sex video has been clicked online more than 10 million times.
The sex tape has racked up more than 5 million clicks.
The video has more than 11 million views on Facebook.
上面的表达方式基本上可以分为两种:是采用被动表达+次数 (visited, clicked or viewed+ XX times);第二是次数+名词(比如XX + visits, clicks and views). rack up是一个非常不错的表达,if you rack up something, you get a lot of it.
综上,“人次”作为中文概念是没有问题的,但是简单地将其处理为person time是不合适的,因为老外不用这个表达。看完本文以后,今后如何处理“人次”想必你知道该如何处理了,底线就是不要用person time,你参照上述方法变通一下。
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