Jianjun’s Blog

Many translators would agree that living in the country where your source language is spoken is the best way to build upon your existing language skills and give your translation career a certain credibility. It’s hard to disagree with this view. Immersing yourself in the local language and culture is the ideal way to equip yourself with the linguistic and cultural knowledge needed for a career in translation. What better way to learn obscure slang and the latest ‘buzzwords’ than through daily interaction with native speakers from all walks of life?

Not all translators have the luxury of living in the country where their source language is spoken, whether it is due to family obligations or financial circumstances. Trailing spouses and partners of expats may find themselves living in a country where neither their native nor source languages are spoken, working as translators in countries where their language combinations are in lesser demand.

Thanks to the Internet, however, there are still ways for translators and other language professionals to maintain, even improve, their language skills and keep up with the latest terminology and developments in their chosen areas of specialisation. As a former freelance translator looking to re-enter the highly competitive world of Chinese-to-English translation, it’s important for me to know what the latest trends in the PRC and Greater China are, which political and social ‘buzzwords’ are in fashion and, like all other translators, continue to learn new words and expressions on a daily basis. Language is constantly evolving and 普通话 (国语 in Taiwan) is by no means an exception.

I have a list of resources I have found invaluable and would like to share with fellow Chinese-to-English translators, especially those of you who are no longer living in the ‘Middle Kingdom’. If there’s a resource I may have missed and which you feel a translator should have among their list of bookmarked sites, then do not hesitate to leave a comment with a link to the resource in question.

• Online Dictionaries : There are a number of fairly good online dictionaries. One of my personal favourites is Jukuu, which lists a number of example sentences with every search result. iCIBA is also a link worth bookmarking. It’s important to note that these dictionaries do not necessarily provide translations for highly specialised or technical terms. Links to specialist online dictionaries and glossaries will be dealt with in a separate post.

• Internet Slang : For those who come across obscure slang while browsing online forums, check out 网语网. It’s quite possible that much of the slang and terms listed on that site will be out of date by the time I finish writing this post. Nevertheless, it’s one of the best resources I have found thus far for the rapidly-evolving language of ‘net speak’.

• New Terms & Buzzwords : The Chinese Terms section of the People’s Daily Language Tips website is full of useful words and phrases. The site is actually aimed at ESL learners but those wishing to boost their Chinese vocabulary may find it equally helpful. Latest additions include 高清晰度的卫星图片 (high-resolution satellite photo) and 堰塞湖 (quake lake). The Shanghai Daily’s Buzzword Blog is another great resource, which gives the reader a bit of background information about each ‘buzzword’.

• Glossaries : While I intend to cover specialist glossaries in another post, I thought I would share a link to a site which has a sizeable collection of subject-specific glossaries. FanE.CN’s has over 20 pages’ worth of glossaries and word lists for subjects ranging from media and traditional Chinese snacks to needlework and real estate.

Online newspapers, radio and blogs are also excellent ways to stay informed about linguistic and social developments in the Chinese-speaking world. I will review a selection of these in my next post.

This is all for my debut post at Jianjun’s Blog. Check back often for more of my articles on the challenges of Chinese-to-English translation.

A few Twitter users reported today that they were seeing partially localized text on Twitter web interface. Currently, localized text strings are often mixed with English, and text language changes according to your browser settings.

The following picture shows Chinese with English when I used Safari Chinese version:

Here’s another screen shot showing French mixed with English when I viewed the page with my French version of FireFox:

And I have a feeling that they are still testing the pages before going on with the full-scale internationalization - anyway a nice development out there!

When I tell people I’m a translator, I often hear they say, ‘Ah cool, earning money without costing a cent huh?’ I guess most people think what a translator needs to start a career is just two languages and a computer. some even think we are still working with a pen and a piece of paper. But the fact is starting as a translator does require some expensive investments.

Besides a computer, today’s translators have to invest in a tool which is called a Translation Memory (TM). This is a piece of software that ‘remembers’ what you have translated and creates a translation ‘library’. The advantages of using such a tool are multi-faceted:

1. By remembering the terms you used, TM helps to keep consistency. It’s no strange thing that when a translator is working on a large project, sometimes she forgets the translation she used for a certain term. Without a translation memory, she could use more than one translations for the same term, causing inconsistencies. Now, when she’s not sure, a context or glossary search would make things clear.

2. If you can’t remember terms, it’s impossible for you to remember phrases or whole sentences. Translation Memory remembers that for you. For projects with a lot of repetitions such as an operation manual, TM automatically copies or suggests an old translation.

3. MS PowerPoint, Excel, Word, HTML files often contain rich format information - the position of a picture, the font used, its size and color, background sound and animation effects, etc. Needless to say, you want the translation to be exactly the same with the original in these aspects. However, without a Translation Memory, to achieve these is very challenging, time consuming and in some cases impossible.

4. Certain TM also facilitates remote collaboration among team members. WordFast provides a shared TM function. The project translation memory is stored remotely on a ftp server for the whole team to access.

The above advantages are not provided for free, however. Translation Memory prices range from 250€ to 795€ (about $390 - $1264) per license and yes they are mostly priced in Euro.

But the story is not over yet. How come you can translate MS-Office documents without first purchasing the package? The Office 2003 Simplified Chinese version costs several hundred bucks and many clients require PDF file delivery in cases of business card or brochure translation. Acrobat 8.0 costs another 449 USD. Maybe not all translators/businesses use genuine software, but when calculating translators’ work cost, you can’t count that as a factor.

No translators can dispense with a good dictionary. No matter paper-based or electronic, they cost money. And translation training costs money too.

To protect data loss from power outage or hard disk failure, many translators also purchase UPS system, memory sticks or even ftp space. (It’s no surprise that so many translators can’t deliver on time!) Promotional expenses include personal web site and membership fees.

To sum up, being a translator is FAR from cost-free. Depending where the translator is located and what additional services she provides, there are maybe additional costs - such as a fax machine, etc. I hope this article can help people understand how much it costs for a translator to get her business started and why there must be a fee for the translation service.

With 2008 Beijing Translators’ Powwow (3pm - 6pm, April 19) just around the corner, I posted a reminder for possible live broadcast via BlogTV in the ProZ Chinese forum. While most colleagues responded the thread positively, there was one colleague expressed his concern over the live show.

He noted that not everyone might like to reveal his/her true identity on the web and said China is still not a ‘common peoples’ society’（公民社会或平民社会）and ‘individual rights have to be protected by oneself, and probably may not be fully protected.’（个人的权益需要自己注意保障，而且未必保护得过来。）

Although other colleagues were mostly joking about his comment, I see in China some people do think revealing their true identity may cause them discomfort or even ‘danger’. What are these people? I know lots of people in China fake girls in chats. The fun won’t be there if their manly faces were caught by a cam. I know there are guys who only use cloaked identity to write anti-government posts, comments, etc…

But I don’t think a professional should be afraid of showing his/her true identity. What do you fear and why?

As a matter of fact, IMHO, I believe showing my own identity is the only effective way to fight against those swindlers who claim they are somebody but not. By letting potential clients see who you are and what you think as a real person, you are more likely to build a business relationship. One of the purposes for me to come to this Powwow is exactly to see who’s who and what they are going to say…

Powwow Reminder - Broadcast your self LIVE

Translator is probably one of the most vaguely defined professions around the world. While many people outside the industry consider a bilingual to be a translator, it seems to me there are no obligatory qualification requirements within the industry.

Some translator organizations do have special membership requirements. For example, to become an Active/Corresponding member of the American Translators Association, you have to pass their certification test or meet their minimum requirements, such as a translation degree or certain years of experience or you can provide invoices/POs as proof of your actively engaging in translation, etc.

Some translation agencies also require that their potential translators have a translation degree, or a language degree with substantial translation component, or a translation certificate issued by one of the recognized professional bodies and so on.

However, the problem is that a great majority of translators (I mean people who do translations for a living) do not have a certificate or a translation/language degree or a professional membership and those who do have them still may not be able to do all translations or guarantee a satisfying work. I myself got my NAETI certificate in 2003, but does that mean I can take all translation jobs? Of course not.

The reason is simple. Translation involves more than languages. It involves a person’s specialized training, life experience, work/education background, exposure to translation and the ability to represent the source language concept in the target language, among many other things. For web site or software localization, the translator has to be at home with coding or syntax. And all these may be listed as qualifications for a translator.

To be a qualified translator is a lifelong process. The more translation you do, the more you’ll feel you have so much to improve and there are so many things you still don’t know. Some people say a successful translator has to be over 45 years. Well, I won’t list that as a requirement, but it’s true that a maturer mind is more sensitive to meanings that are beyond the lines.