翻譯事務在上海
由大衛Tan
一個好同時口譯員在上海能贏得由RMB500決定1小時。 我戲弄了那我的朋友的(誰是一个)她有夢想工作，并且不應該放棄。 她會承擔1項到2項任務每月，持續5天最大，并且贏得在7,000到10,000 RMB之間一個月。 由平均地方標準， 10,000RMB每月比舒適地居住的足够是更多。 25天剩下的時間在一個月，她花費做她喜歡的事的它。 她最後叫放棄援引「壓力的」一天。
壓力？ 什麼壓力？ 什麼是很困難的在重覆什麼某人認為。 如果您是流利在兩種語言，不應該是太困難的？ 權利？
否!
我最近得到了解釋或翻譯事務的我的第一口味。 我的朋友淹沒了與她的工作并且要求我翻譯powerpoint介紹的一個小部分為她(從漢語到英語)。 我採取了快速查找。 它是大約16頁以幾個句子在每張幻燈片。 似乎足够容易….或我如此認為…她問我多少時刻我需要。 我確信地回復它不應該需要超過30 mins。 60分鐘後，我仍然奮鬥完成最後幾張幻燈片。
Sabrina是正確更加早期的。 Without a proper glossary, knowing the background / objective, who the recipients of the information are, it is impossible to churn out any quality translation fast. Its like writing a letter and not knowing who you writing for. I kept needing to backtrack and make corrections on previous slides to ensure the overall coherence of the presentations. Same words can conjure different meanings and connotations to different audiences. I kept having to ask her how these are linked to other parts of the documents. It was finally finished at a “record” time of 1 hr 20 mins.
So next time, if you ever have a translator working for you, be kind to them! Provide them with information of your target audience/recipient info, background, objective and glossary. In return, you get better quality of work out of them, in a lot less time.
David Tan, Mad About Shanghai
October 30th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
thanks for sharing. Please be nice to us translators. :)
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Like the pros of other fields, they wont feel any pressure if he/ she is a quality and efficient translator.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:21 am
When translating something, you must know the whole story and understand it thoroughly. Otherwise, like what you said, you won’t be able to translate anything decent.
Translation is not just about replacing the every words with the other language, but “replacing” the whole thing (meaning…) with another language!
November 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
As a professional interpreter I cannot but chip in my 2 cents (looks like a buck now though))
From the obvious undercurrent of the author’s words I gather that he is not a professional translator - then the feeling you got from translating is about right.
Like the famous saying - having two hands does not make you a piano player as much as knowing two languages does not make you a translator, - you can understand that it is a skill and it is learned and practiced. Of course translating is not an easy job - what professionally done job is easy after all? - but it is a pleasant difficulty. Like with anything - a person should have a calling for a profession, and developed skills, which outweigh the difficulty. Simultaneous interpreting is the top-notch level in the profession, the challenge and the adrenaline can give you that - je-ne-sais-quoi ‘high’, but yeah, it sure gives the brain a certain stress. Though 5 days a month - she got herself a gravy train ride:) It’s a shame she quit. On the downside though perhaps switching between Chinese and Western sets of mind while interpreting is sure more difficult than doing it between Western languages, maybe it is the reason. But yeah, it all burns down to what you are saying, you gotta understand how your interpreter works and provide all the necessary background info and all. After all, you need to have some respect for the one whom you expect to relay in real-time a report you spent weeks writing up in another language. Nice post.
November 17th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Agree. Translation not just repeat, but need to analysis. Few years ago, my foreign colleague asked me to be her translator in her lesson since there were quite a lot of hong kong people. However, the lesson content included so many techical terms. My english was not good enough, so, even the lesson ran smoothly lastly, i was not satisfy with what i did.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:22 am
Yes, it is not easy to be a good interpreter or translator. I am working as a freelance translator and interpreter in guangzhou. Last month I worked for a sluice gate manufacturer from Canada for their presentation meeting in China. I prepared 300pages of terminology in this industry and the meeting is only 2 hours. My daily translation is less than 3000 word a day as I need to find the exact meaning of the terms both in Chinese and in English.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
When you do translation/interpretation, you have to be very familar with the industry that you work for and very familar with their products and services it is providing.
This will require time to prepare yourself.
I don’t mind do some translations. It could be pretty challenging