翻译在中国究竟始于哪一个朝代,现在可能已经很难考证了。有的学者说,中国的翻译已有两千多年的历史;还有专家说,中国的翻译可以追溯到三千多年前的周朝。但是,有一点是可以肯定的,那就是两、三千年前发生在中国的译事与我们今天所说的翻译有着很大的区别。一种公认的看法是,中国现代意义上的翻译是从十九世纪下半叶开始的。然而,对于中国外语教学的历史,学界并没有太大的争议:虽然十九世纪初中国沿海城市已经有外国传教士在讲授英语, Which dynasty did the translation originate in China may have been difficult to verify now. Some scholars said that China’s translation has a history of more than two thousand years. Some experts said that the Chinese translation goes back to the Zhou Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago. However, one thing is certain: the translations that took place in China two to three thousand years ago are quite different from what we say today. A generally accepted view is that the translation in the modern Chinese sense began in the second half of the 19th century. However, there is not much controversy over the history of foreign language teaching in China: although foreign missionaries already teach English in the coastal cities of China in the early nineteenth century,