Envy is a bad emotion that is good to none but worse to yourself. The covetous you may nurse a grudge against a successful personage or young beauty. Then how to overwhelm the envious psyche? First of all, do not compare others’ strengths to your weaknesses, for a comparison generally breeds the envious emotion. According to psychologists, it has no bearing on you how much others obtain. Since “the number of successes” is not reduced in the world on account of their achievements, you stand the show of making great hits as they have ever done.
正确翻译首先就依赖于对“妒忌”一词的准确翻译。汉语“妒忌”常常对应着英语中的两个词,envy和jealousy,他们虽然可以互换使用,但从心理学上讲,还是有区别的,envy通常指由于缺少别人所拥有的事物而痛苦,jealousy则是指害怕失去自己拥有的东西,特别是恋爱中失去自己的爱人。由此可以看出,本文中的“妒忌”更多的是指前者,即envy。另外,envy也是基督教本人(pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, sloth and greed)之一。再者,原文第一句话涉及对于envy的定义,要准确翻译必须找出envy一词准确的上义词,笔者根据词典的定义使用了emotion或psyche等词。
“损人不利己”的翻译多种多样,但要注意“人(others)”和“己(oneself)”二者之间的关联性,有网友用cut off one’s nose to spite off one’s (own) face,感觉重点是放在了损害自己身上,由于汉语“损人不利己”具有互文性,所以一些网友也把它翻译成了do harms to both oneself and others。在句法方面,“不要和别人的长处比较。妒忌心理往往来源于将自己的短处与别人的长处进行比较。”这两句话中包含重复的部分,可以合并处理,以使其适应英语的表达习惯。
我们看一个未合并处理的例子: First of all, Compare not your demerits with others' demerits. Jealousness generally originates from the comparison with advantage and disadvantage(原文照录),这里两句话明显出现了不必要的重复(demerits和disadvantage的重复)。