【正确答案】 1、正确答案：Language is the carrier, container, and instrument of culture. Needless to say, all languages are able to express any meaning if need arises. Yet it is not likely that they express them with the same ease, and in the same mode due to the cultural differences. Culture is a complex whole which includes history, belief, art, morals, laws, customs, and many other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society. Thus the cultural elements peculiar to one language mean a collection of differences in the shared knowledge, the historical awareness, different modes of thinking, etc. The general elements between cultures make it possible to communicate with one another, yet the specific points make the translation pose seemingly insurmountable barriers to sufficient transmission. When cultural factors are involved in translation, translators are usually faced with a dilemma of whether to preserve the flavor of the SL or to conform to the rules of the TL. On the one hand, if for-eignization is adopted, the original image is preserved, yet it is also faced with the jeopardy of making no sense at all in the TL. On the other hand, if domestication is adopted, the exotic flavor is totally lost. In some extreme cases, translator can do nothing but resort to explanation, which, in a narrow sense, is not translation. In this sense, when cultural specific factors are involved, it is almost impossible to perfectly translate the original. However, enlightened by Eugene Nida, translation is to produce the similar effect on the target readers. Thus some remedy can be made to compensate this pitiful situation. For example, "Even Homer sometimes nods" is a perfect cultural-specific idiom with the image " Homer" alien to Chinese readers. Yet through translating it into "智者千虑，必有一失" , the original meaning is rendered to some extent. In a word, translatability is a matter of degree.