Abstract:Chinese idioms bear the characteristics and the massages of five thousand years of Chinese culture. The majority of the Chinese idioms are four-character idioms, which give the essentials in simple language and are favored by Chinese people and foreigners. Originated from fairy tales, historical stories, literature works and verbal common saying, the Chinese four-character idioms are closely linked with cultural traditions.
Because of differences in physical geographic environment, religions, customs, and historical allusion, Chinese four-character idioms carry different cultural characteristics and information from English idioms. The cultural factors constitute the major difficulty of their English translation. To render them properly, this paper makes a preliminary probe into the translation of the Chinese four-character idioms from the perspective of culture. Four commonly used methods in the translation of Chinese four-character idioms are put forward: literal translation, free translation, using English idioms of the similar meaning and annotation.
Key words: Chinese four-character idioms; cultural discrepancy; translation
中文摘要:汉语成语以四字成语居多，它承载着中华五千年的文化特色和文化信息。汉语四字成语言简意赅，为中外人们所喜爱，大多数汉语四字成语出自于神话故事，历史，文学作品，口头语等, 而汉语四字成语与中华文化紧密相连，不可分割。
由于不同的自然环境，宗教信仰，风俗习惯，历史典故等诸多方面的差异，汉语四字成语和英语成语承载着各自不同的民族文化特色和文化信息，汉语四字成语的文化因素构成了翻译的困难。为了恰当的把四字成语译出来，本文主要从文化差异的角度初探汉语四字成语的翻译，以及四种常见的翻译方法：直译、意译、套用法、以及注释法。
关键词：汉语四字成语，文化差异，翻译
