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Translating an old novel

de Alkanadi, 2015-oktobro-12

Mesaĝoj: 23

Lingvo: English

robbkvasnak (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-12 17:10:15

I translate a lot of documents from Spanish into English for refugees. The machine translations are so horrible that I find it often quicker to do the work myself - I do use the internet to search for odd or rare expressions. For example, I recently translated a birth certificate for an Uruguyan. The write of the doc used the word 'oriental' when refering to his mother - via the internet I learned that Uruguyans use that expression to mean 'Uruguyan'. but a machine translation would have just made 'oriental' out of it - no help

nornen (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-12 17:19:13

This is due to the fact that the country is called República Oriental del Uruguay. The Uruguay is a river and not a country and the republic is simply called "The Republic to the east of the river Uruguay". A very good friend of mine who is from Uruguay, says that they are the only people who don't have a name, but just a place description instead. He refers to himself as oriental (easterner) and not as uruguayo, being oriental the official gentilicio.

Cf. oriental 6

Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-12 17:23:20

Alkanadi:
Tempodivalse:Machine translation?? Seriously?
That is just step one.
Some unscrupulous people have actually gone around on Amazon selling machine translated works into Esperanto (as mentioned in a recent thread
I was the creator of that recent thread. I was the one that pointed out the issue.

A human will still edit the work, unlike these unscrupulous people.
Alkanadi, my point was that the machine translation actually makes the job of the human harder, not easier. It is better to just start from scratch rather than try to fix the machine's garbage. A lot of the time you will have to work directly from the original anyway to find out what the meaning is. This is especially true with any kind of idiomatic or metaphorical language.

I also want to reiterate this:

sudanglo:the machine translation might even prolong the process as it fixes your mind too firmly into a rather literal translation which may not be best.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-12 19:27:19

I appreciate all your work to create Esperanto content.

But might it not be better to spend your time on intensive Esperanto study, so that you bring your level up to where it needs to be to do your own translations?

It takes a long time to do a good translation of a novel (whether assisted by machine translation or not). You could make great improvements in your language level in that time.

What do you put on your CV for the translation? Seems unethical to say that the book is "by" you if you didn't have any part in its production other than coordinating the work of others and publishing it.

Alkanadi (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-13 07:14:24

erinja:I appreciate all your work to create Esperanto content.

But might it not be better to spend your time on intensive Esperanto study, so that you bring your level up to where it needs to be to do your own translations?
That would be awesome. I really hope to get to that level some day.

I use duolingo every morning before work, and also at lunch, and also at night. I repeat the phrases out loud.

I also watch Evildea and listen to Esperanta Retradio on a daily basis.

Also, I try to participate in Lernu forums and read as much as I can in Esperanto.

I really hope that I will be good enough to translate one day. If you have any other ideas then please let me know.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-13 14:04:36

You will learn more by writing than by reading. Reading will help build vocabulary but there's no substitute for writing when it comes to improving your level. Try to write something every day -- and feel free to post it to the forums for others to correct your mistakes (Esperanto forums are good for this, you can discuss your errors in Esperanto and get even more practice)

robbkvasnak (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-13 15:08:04

nornen:This is due to the fact that the country is called República Oriental del Uruguay. The Uruguay is a river and not a country and the republic is simply called "The Republic to the east of the river Uruguay". A very good friend of mine who is from Uruguay, says that they are the only people who don't have a name, but just a place description instead. He refers to himself as oriental (easterner) and not as uruguayo, being oriental the official gentilicio.

Cf. oriental 6
My main point was how the net is useful in learning things but that machine translations usually don't help much. Basic research is needed.
I translate these things for free for undocumented immigrants. Before I finish them I go over the translation with the guys. They usually explain them to me. In the case of Uruguyan the man is too old and forgetful. But it got him the medical support he needed. Thanks, for the elucidation, nornen

Alkanadi (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-13 15:28:13

sudanglo:...sold 10,000 copies of a book I had published. It was a colour picture dictionary of Esperanto, and at the time (1979) there was nothing like it in Esperanto.
Can you tell us the secret to selling so many copies? Did you set up a booth at Esperanto events or something? How did you do it?

Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-13 17:25:19

Alkanadi, if you want to boost your E-o knowledge, the only surefire way to do that is to start actively using it yourself: by writing more, and if possible by spontaneously speaking. Passive listening, reading, and rote memorisation can only take you so far.

Only one person has so far taken me up on my challenge to write short articles for Esperanta Vikipedio, but I think it's the best way to "jump in the deep end". You get to write about something you're interested in, you help out an awesome project, and you get fast feedback from competent Esperantophones.

If you're not comfortable with writing for Vikipedio, at least go to a chat room in Esperanto and try to speak as much as you can using whatever grammar and vocabulary you know. (The lernu chatroom is OK, but small; a more active and diverse place is the ##esperanto channel on the Freenode.net network, which has around ~80 users at a given time.)

Alkanadi (Montri la profilon) 2015-oktobro-18 08:47:38

Tempodivalse:Only one person has so far taken me up on my challenge to write short articles for Esperanta Vikipedio
Okay. I made an account - User: Alkanadi_EO
and you get fast feedback from competent Esperantophones.
That sounds appealing. I hope it is true. I will give it a try

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