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.

FireFox now displays a warning (see picture on the left, click to see large image) when you are tricked to click on some of the ‘Pics for MSN Friends’ phishing site URLs created by the so-called ‘TST Management Inc.’

At the time of writing, a new URL emerged and, according to the ‘official’ phishing site’s server status report, “c0mpics.info” is now the most active site that’s hoaxing not only MSN users, but ICQ users.

When you visit the phishing site (never do it!), a window pops up displaying content from ‘awesomeoffers.info’ (see picture below, click to display large image) saying, ‘We’re sorry! This offer is not available in your area. You will

be redirected shortly. If you are not automatically redirectly, please click here.’ Then you are served ads from various sources.

Thanks to our fellow netizens, sites such as jumphost.info, ther1ng.info, etc. were alerted as potential phishing sites by FireFox. But if you are using IE or Safari, the chances are you won’t see these warnings.

Personally I think MSN and ICQ should do their fair share of work and warn their users never trust any offline messages containing such links. That will be the most effective and proactive way to deal with these bad guys. However, each one of us who knows about the phishing attempt can also lend a helping hand by telling our MSN/ICQ or other IM buddies about this and report any such sites through FireFox or IE.

Here’s how:

FireFox:

When you are on that site, click on ‘Help’ -> ‘Report Web Forgery.’

French version, click on ‘?’ -> ‘Signaler un site contrefait…’

IE:

When you are on that site, right-click this icon on bottom status bar.

*UPDATE*

Good news. As on June 6, all phishing sites from the so-called ‘TST Management Inc.’ have been down. But I am not sure if they are simply banned by the ISP in Hong Kong and are in the process of finding other server locations. If you find any further information, please let me know. Thanks.

*UPDATE-1*

The phishing sites are back on again. A new one to watch:

“freakpics.info”

I stayed up late last night and was up early this morning. But it didn’t help with my WordPress blog’s ’404 Not Found’ problem.

Actually it happened yesterday afternoon when I installed a plug-in that tampered with my .htaccess file. The install document was so badly written in some sort of English that in the end I was driven nuts and uninstalled it. I manually removed the part that it inserted into my .htaccess, but didn’t realize I probably mistakingly deleted/altered some of the old codes along the way.

The home page looked fine but all permalinks returned a ’404 Not Found’ error – and I didn’t find that until this morning when I checked visitor statistics! If you experience a similar problem, i.e. you can visit the home page of your database driven site (not necessarily WordPress) but each individual page returns a ’404 Not Found’ error, check your .htaccess file. It’s not your database problem.