Professor Chen Zhongcheng was known for his sharp, bold, and sometimes painfully blunt critiques of legal translations. Anyone in the legal translation field in China would have come across his name, whether through his books or his fearless commentary.
His Comparative Study of the AAA Translations of the General Civil Law of PRC left a particularly strong impression on me. In that book, Professor Chen compared translations by LAB, CCH, and CLR, going clause by clause, dissecting word choices, and explaining what worked, what didn’t, and why.
Two of his critiques stayed with me. One was his relentless stance against the overuse of shall, something many translators, myself included, barely questioned at the time. The other was his take on 注销登记. All three translations used cancel the registration, but Professor Chen found this unnecessarily wordy. He preferred the cleaner, more efficient deregister, a choice that made me rethink how I approached legal phrasing.
For many, Professor Chen’s legacy is built on his critiques. But what fewer people realize is that he was also an outstanding legal translator. His Legal English Reading series — three books covering Commercial Law, Civil Law, and Comprehensive Laws — became a personal treasure.
At the time, good bilingual legal materials were scarce, especially those that paired original English texts with carefully crafted Chinese translations. Professor Chen’s books stood out. Each article was presented in full — English on one page, his polished Chinese version on the next — accompanied by footnotes explaining the trickiest terms. The topics spanned everything from arbitration and finance to criminal and family law. To capture both legal intent and natural flow within such compact texts required a depth of understanding few could achieve. Professor Chen did.
I didn’t just read those books. I studied them. Unlike most translators who move on after reading, I break down great translations sentence by sentence, aligning the English and Chinese side by side. I analyze how a master translator handles structure, nuances, and tricky legal phrasing. Whenever I come across a particularly well-crafted expression, I record it, memorize it, and internalize it. With Professor Chen’s work, I took this even further—importing entire texts into Excel, dissecting his approach, and studying how he balanced precision with readability. No matter how closely I examined every detail, I never found a mistranslation or omission. That level of meticulousness was truly remarkable.
Even now, every time I revisit his books, it feels like sitting down with a sharp but generous teacher. One who never lowered his standards and, in doing so, made sure I never lowered mine either.
For those who want to know more about Professor Chen’s life and legacy, here is a news article about his passing (in Chinese).