Unnecessary Nouns and Verbs
we should adopt a series of measures to ensure that...
A little thought will reveal that they add nothing to the meaning of the sentence.
When they are deleted the sense is not diminished, only clarified.
at that time the situation in northeast China was still one where the enemy was stronger than the peopke's forces
Revised: at that time the enemy was still stronger than the people's forces in northeast China.
"Situation" is generally here and drags other unnecessary elements after it
(in this instance, "one where")
Category nouns
a serious mistake in the work of planning
promoting the cause of peaceful reunification
the first noun announces the category of the second
Verbs
1.unnec. verb + noun
we must make an improvement in our work.
we must improve our work
这让我想到了，德语中的 Verbessung vornehmen。好像德语中不必要的动词处处都是啊，什么Frage stellen之类的。更不要说动词名词化了。这在德语中还是高级说法。。不过作者开篇就说了，好的译文应该是言简意赅的。所以就算中文里这么说，也不能翻译到英文中去。
2.unnecessary verb + unnecessary noun +third word
a. our efforts to reach the goal of modernization
b. our troops used the method of slow advance
Revised: our troops advanced slowly.
c. we failed to take care to ensure that there must be an all-round balance between the various planned targets
Revised: we failed to ensure an all-round balance between the planned targets
"There must be" merely duplicates the sense of "ensure". "Various" adds nothing
to the plural "targets".
Overworked introductory verb phrases
- make every effort to
- try our best to
- do our utmost to
- do everything possible to
- pay attention to
需要额外注意的是，这些词汇并不是所有的情况下都要被避免的。例如，
We must make great efforts to overcome this difficulty.
有时候不那么好下判断。
We must follow the policy of putting quality first.
Revised: We must always put quality first.
这句话究竟是译者的习惯使然，还是故意如此来强调这是一项政策呢?这些判断可以将你的翻译和机器翻译区别开来。
