Untranslatability and its Compensation Strategies——Taking The Original of Laura as an Example

As is known to all in the translation field,the problem of translatability and untranslatability has been a long-debated is sue in the field of translation.And the phenomenon of untranslatability is especially prominent in translation of literary works.This paper tries to discuss,from theory and practice,the phenomenon of untranslatability and its compensation strategies in trans lation between Chinese and English.It is roughly divided into two parts,wherein the first part deals with the phenomenon of un translatability,explaining its causes and giving some examples,and the second part deals with the compensation strategies,intro ducing several methods of compensation and taking The Original of Laura written by the deceased Russian-American writer Nabokov as an example.With the development of intercultural communication in the world and the great efforts of translators,the untranslatable words today can be translatable tomorrow.