question: How did the Greeks translate into Arabic, Chinese etc. without knowing the languages?
comment: Who says they didn't? Human beings are capable of learning multiple languages. It is harder when the new language is completely unknown to you and there are no existing translations/resources to draw on, but not impossible.
passages: In 1798 Hamilton was established as a merchant in Hamburg, and went for instruction in German to General D'Angeli, a French émigré. D'Angeli, without using a grammar book, translated to him word for word a German book of anecdotes, parsing as he proceeded; and after about twelve lessons Hamilton found that he could read some German books. Beatty and Mulhall had had a somewhat similar system.
   The most important work of the academy however was done by Yahya's pupils and successors, especially Abu Zayd Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (d. 263 A.H. = A.D. 876), the Nestorian physician to whom we have already referred as translating into Syriac the chief medical authorities as well as parts of Aristotle's "Organon". After studying at Baghdad under Yahya he visited Alexandria and returned, not only with the training given at what was then the first medical school, but with a good knowledge of Greek which he employed in making translations in Syriac and Arabic.
   Translation gained propulsion during the Umayyad period and Arabic became the official and common language of the Islamic Empire.
  
  Arabs began to encounter the knowledge of Greeks, most of which came from remaining scholars of the Byzantine period. Syriacs were a key factor in the translation of Arabic materials because while Arabs were unable to understand the Greek language, Syriacs had been communicating with Greeks for over ten centuries. The first translation from Greek to Arabic was produced by Khalid ibn Yazid, the son of the second Umayyad caliph, Yazid ibn Muawiya.
   Section::::Overview.
  
  In the Abbasid era, a new interest in extending the study of Greek science had arisen. At that time, there was a vast amount of untranslated ancient Greek literature pertaining to philosophy, mathematics, natural science, and medicine. This valuable information was only accessible to a very small minority of Middle Eastern scholars who knew the Greek language; the need for an organized translation movement was urgent. 
   Whether Raimond actually started a truly central, organized effort at translation, later generalized as the Toledo School of Translators, remains unknown. What is known is that most translations coming out of Spain dealt with either medicine or astronomy. Hugo of Santalla, for example, translated a large selection of Arabic works all dealing with astronomy, as well as tracing the history of astronomic thought through history, underscoring the work of the Greeks, Persians, Hellenists, and Arabs in one large preface to his volume.
   He also explains that the Indo-Parthian king of Taxila, named Phraotes, speaks Greek fluently, a language in which he had been educated while in exile to the east, beyond the river Hyphasis:
  
  Tell me, O King, how you acquired such a command of the Greek tongue, and whence you derived all your philosophical attainments in this place? – Book II:29 
   BULLET::::- "Lectures On The Comparative Grammar Of The Semitic Languages"
  
  BULLET::::- "The Travels Of Ibn Jubair, Edited From A MS. In The University Library Of Leyden"
  
  BULLET::::- "A Grammar Of The Arabic Language, Translated From The German By Caspari, And Edited With Numerous Additions And Corrections, Volume I"
  
  BULLET::::- "A Grammar Of The Arabic Language, Translated From The German By Caspari, And Edited With Numerous Additions And Corrections, Volume II"
  
  BULLET::::- "The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius In Syriac, Edited From The Manuscripts, (also by) Norman McClean, M.A., With A Collation Of The Ancient Armenian Version By Dr. Adalbert Merx"
   Some of the Arabic literature was also translated into Latin, Hebrew, and Ladino, such as that of Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, Muslim sociologist-historian Ibn Khaldun, Carthage citizen Constantine the African, or the Persian Al-Khwarizmi.
   Although there was a huge amount of work being accomplished in Spain, there was no central school for translating and no real organized effort, as there had been at times among the Arabs. Translators came from many different backgrounds and translated for many different reasons. For example, non-Christian Jewish scholars participated by translating Arabic works which had already been translated into Hebrew, into Latin and Vulgate languages. Some scholars, however, have suggested that Raymond de Sauvetât the Archbishop of Toledo, seems to have started an organized movement of support for translations, and many scholars who seem to be associated with him in documents may have translated two-by-two, working together.
   BULLET::::- Science in the medieval Islamic world
  
  Section::::Further reading.
  
  BULLET::::- Gutas, D. (2012). "Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th 5th-10th centuries)". Routledge.
  
  Section::::External links.
  
  BULLET::::- Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  
  BULLET::::- How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs, in which the Barmakids play a considerable role. They also translated Indian mathematics books of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta. Arabs were mostly responsible for spreading of Indian number system and arithmetic throughout the world.
   Morrison joined the London Missionary Society in 1804 and was chosen to lead a mission to China. They sent him to study at Gosport and introduced him to a young Cantonese man studying English in London: Robert Morrison transcribes his name as "Yong Sam Tak", Eliza Morrison as "Yung-san-tih" in "Mandarin" transcription , and whose actual name was probably Rong Sande () . In 1807, the LMS instructed Morrison to sail to Guangzhou (then known as "Canton") and continue studying until he had "accomplished [his] great object of acquiring the language", whereupon he would "turn this attainment into a direction which may be of extensive use to the world: perhaps you may have the honour of forming a Chinese Dictionary, more comprehensive and correct than any preceding one", as well as translating the Bible into Chinese .
   BULLET::::- 1802 – "Observations on the language of Siwah; in a letter to the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks; by William Marsden, Esq., F.R.S." in "The Journal of Frederick Horneman's Travels: From Cairo to Mourzouk, the Capital of the Kingdom of Fezzan, in Africa," by Friedrich Hornemann, James Rennell, William Marsden and William Young. London: G. and W. Nicol.
  
  BULLET::::- 1796 – "Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars and Alphabets"
   A translator who contributed mightily to the advance of the Islamic Enlightenment was the Egyptian cleric Rifaa al-Tahtawi (1801–73), who had spent five years in Paris in the late 1820s, teaching religion to Muslim students. After returning to Cairo with the encouragement of Muhammad Ali (1769–1849), the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, al–Tahtawi became head of the new school of languages and embarked on an intellectual revolution by initiating a program to translate some two thousand European and Turkish volumes, ranging from ancient texts on geography and geometry to Voltaire's biography of Peter the Great, along with the "Marseillaise" and the entire "Code Napoléon". This was the biggest, most meaningful importation of foreign thought into Arabic since Abbasid times (750–1258).
   Unfortunately, Onesimos found that he lacked adequate knowledge of the words and idioms of his native language for he had not lived with his people since childhood, and he was forced to seek help. This came from Aster Ganno (1874–1964), a young girl who had been brought to Imkullu Mission, freed from a slave ship bound for Yemen by the Italian navy. Although she provided much of the material for the translation (which was published in 1893), Aster failed to receive any acknowledgement for her contributions.
   He transcribed the book in one night and returned it to his owner. He was able to translate and publish the book later. He studied Hieroglyphics, and became fluent in it. He taught Demotic (Egyptian) in the school of Egyptian Antiquities. He wrote the only book of its kind, Arabic words of Coptic and Greek origin.
  
  He was fluent in seven languages: English, French, Italian, Arabic, Greek, Latin and Coptic; he could also read hieroglyphics. He learnt Italian while looking after the Italian prisoners of war during the First World War.
   Wang had returned to China before 1785. In December 1784, he was working as a trader in Canton when he replied to a letter from the linguist Sir William Jones asking for help with the translation of the "Shijing".
   The ancient commentators on the classics paid much attention to syntax and the use of particles. But the first Chinese grammar, in the modern sense of the word, was produced by Ma Jianzhong (late 19th century). His grammar was based on the Latin (prescriptive) model.
  
  Section::::Middle Ages.
  
  Section::::Middle Ages.:Arabic grammar.
  
  Due to the rapid expansion of Islam in the 8th century, many people learned Arabic as a lingua franca. For this reason, the earliest grammatical treatises on Arabic are often written by non-native speakers.
   Translation of material into Arabic expanded after the creation of Arabic script in the 5th century, and gained great importance with the rise of Islam and Islamic empires. Arab translation initially focused primarily on politics, rendering Persian, Greek, even Chinese and Indic diplomatic materials into Arabic. It later focused on translating classical Greek and Persian works, as well as some Chinese and Indian texts, into Arabic for scholarly study at major Islamic learning centers, such as the Al-Karaouine (Fes, Morocco), Al-Azhar (Cairo, Egypt), and the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad. In terms of theory, Arabic translation drew heavily on earlier Near Eastern traditions as well as more contemporary Greek and Persian traditions.
   Translation Movement
  
  The Arabic translation movement was a widely supported movement under Islamic ruling that resulted in the translation of materials from various different languages, especially Greek texts to Arabic. 
  
  Dmitri Gutas, in his "Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic translation Movement in Baghdad" mentions that available evidence shows that the translation movement privileged Greek texts. He emphasizes that Ibn an-Nadīm writing about a translation of the Almagest in the library of Harun al-Rashid was the only explicit reference to a contribution of the library of Harun al-Rashid to translation of Greek texts. 
   In 1830, during Rev. William Yate's stay in Sydney, New South-Wales, he supervised the printing of an edition of 550 copies of a translation of the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis; the first eight chapters of the Gospel according to St. Matthew; the first four chapters of the Gospel according to St. John; the first six chapters of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians; parts of the Liturgy and the third catechism, "Ko te katekihama" III.
   By the 13th century, translation had declined in Spain, but it was on the rise in Italy and Sicily, and from there to all of Europe. Adelard of Bath, an Englishman, traveled to Sicily and the Arab world, translating works on astronomy and mathematics, including the first complete translation of Euclid's Elements. Powerful Norman kings gathered men of high knowledge from Italy, and other areas, into their courts, as signs of prestige. Even the Byzantines experienced an Aristotelian revival in the mid-12th century, and gathered men from Italy as well.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Latin translations of the 12th century
   The first century of the Islamic Arab Empire saw almost no scientific or mathematical achievements since the Arabs, with their newly conquered empire, had not yet gained any intellectual drive and research in other parts of the world had faded. In the second half of the 8th century, Islam had a cultural awakening, and research in mathematics and the sciences increased. The Muslim Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (809–833) is said to have had a dream where Aristotle appeared to him, and as a consequence al-Mamun ordered that Arabic translation be made of as many Greek works as possible, including Ptolemy's "Almagest" and Euclid's "Elements". Greek works would be given to the Muslims by the Byzantine Empire in exchange for treaties, as the two empires held an uneasy peace. Many of these Greek works were translated by Thabit ibn Qurra (826–901), who translated books written by Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Ptolemy, and Eutocius.
   Section::::Arabic translations and commentary.:First period: Greek–Arabic translations.:Abbasids.
  
  The main period of translation was during Abbasid rule. The 2nd Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Here he founded the great library with texts containing Greek Classical texts. Al-Mansur ordered this rich fund of world literature translated into Arabic. Under al-Mansur and by his orders, translations were made from Greek, Syriac, and Persian, the Syriac and Persian books being themselves translations from Greek or Sanskrit.
   Sometime during his stay in the United States, he and Thomas Jefferson entered into a secret arrangement whereby Jefferson agreed to translate Volney's "Ruins of Empires" into English. Volney visited Monticello for two weeks during June 1796. The two men also met on several occasions at the American Philosophical Society (APS). Jefferson was President of APS at the time and sponsored Volney's induction into the organization. These meetings provided the two men with ample opportunity to conceive and discuss the translation project.
   In the case of Bronze Age literature, philology includes the prior decipherment of the language under study. This has notably been the case with the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hittite, Ugaritic and Luwian languages. Beginning with the famous decipherment and translation of the Rosetta Stone by Jean-François Champollion in 1822, a number of individuals attempted to decipher the writing systems of the Ancient Near East and Aegean. In the case of Old Persian and Mycenaean Greek, decipherment yielded older records of languages already known from slightly more recent traditions (Middle Persian and Alphabetic Greek).
  
presuppositions: Greeks did not know Arabic and Chinese. Greeks didn't know Arabic and Chinese when translating languages.
corrections: It is not impossible for the Greeks to have learnt Arabic and Chinese. Greeks did know Arabic and Chinese when translating languages.
raw_presuppositions: Greeks did not know Arabic and Chinese. Greeks didn't know Arabic and Chinese when translating languages.
raw_corrections: It is not impossible for the Greeks to have learnt Arabic and Chinese. Greeks did know Arabic and Chinese when translating languages.