Posts Tagged ‘Japanese Spanish translator’

Translator’s fidelity

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

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Fidelity and transparency have been sought after as the ideal in translation for ages. There is even mention of a French critic in the 17th-century who said that translations, like women, could be either faithful or beautiful, but not both at the same time. Being a female Translator, I completely disagree with that statement as “impossible” is the daily challenge in our profession.
Fidelity refers to the level to which a translation accurately presents the meaning of the source text, without adding to or subtracting from it, without intensifying or weakening any part of the meaning, and otherwise without changing or interfering with it while transparency relates to the point to which a translation appears to a native speaker of the target language to have originally been written in that language, and is consistent with the language’s grammatical, syntactic and idiomatic standards. One translation can be a “faithful translation” and another can be an “idiomatic translation” rendering transparency but the two attributes are not mutually exclusive.
Quality in translation entails high accuracy which refers to fidelity and transparency, proper translation of the terminology and attention to the target audience, considering the linguistic codes (lexicon, morphology, phonology and syntax) of both languages. This process requires thorough knowledge of the grammar, semantics, syntax, idioms, composition, form, voice, and the like of the source language, as well as the cultural contexts of its speakers. Translation is inherently a difficult activity indeed as it must take into account a number of constraints, including context, and writing conventions.
Just our conscious effort to pursue high accuracy, beautifully manifested through fidelity and transparency, will render a translation which will be considered “faithful” to the original text and “useful” to its potential readers even though acceptable translations can be as creative and original as their source texts.

Paulina Torres De Witt
www.goihata.com

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Successful translators

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

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Successful people are continually looking for ways to expand their knowledge because they understand that to be updated is a must in order to have the chance to seize new opportunities. They repeatedly invest in the process of self-education. They are always buying and reading books to acquire knowledge and put into practice what they learn. They regularly attend seminars given by experts and are eager to listen to those who have greater experience. We have to learn from them because they have the right attitude.
By contrast, the vast majority of the population is completely different. They hardly read books; they actually prefer to browse magazines and newspapers. When they read a book, it usually is the latest pulp fiction bestseller… I’m not criticizing pulp fiction writers though – everyone has the right to do as they like – but I’m trying to emphasize the fact that if only 15% of the population buys books, it means that 85% of the population don’t read books at all… pity! Of course, these people never go to seminars either (unless their companies pay for it), and they are not interested in buying courses to develop themselves in any way. They say they can’t afford it but astonishingly, they can afford their cigarettes, alcohol, etc. Times are tough but in most cases though, not investing in a book that will help you improve your life style is simply an excuse. Ironically, the people who need to commit to self education are the last people to do it.
You have to weigh the financial cost against the long-term personal cost of not obtaining the knowledge you require. Let’s learn from successful people: Translators cannot afford to be outdated when we want to do well in our fields and achieve all of our goals!

Paulina Torres De Witt
www.goihata.com

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Learning languages

Monday, March 24th, 2008

- www.goihata.com
I read about a study where a magnetic resonance imaging machine was used to map the language centers in the brain on multilingual individuals. Some of the people learned a second language as children while others learned it in high school or college.
Among those who learned it as children, the study shows the brain dealt with the languages in the same area: a yellow area, for example, representing the Croatian language, and a red area representing the English language. There was also in the study a large orange area showing common characteristics in the way the brain merged the verbal communication capability.
In the case where people learned additional languages but later in life, the study indicated that the brain used a separate area to deal with the new language and this is possibly related to the brain finding it easier to use a different area of the brain for the second language. The study also showed that the brain processes the information in a total different way depending on the age of the learner.
Although there is still a lot to learn about the way our brain deals with languages, the study is already being utilized by brain surgeons as now they can easily locate the language centers or the area where speech production is managed in the patient’s brain so they are able to avoid language centers during surgery.
Experience puts in the picture that children seem better suited to picking up new languages, but there is not a clear explanation why. So, the questions arise: When is it easier to learn a second language? In early childhood or adulthood? Are learning, storage, and usage of the languages more efficient as an adult? While researchers investigate I will continue as an English Trainer for both adults and kids!
Paulina Torres De Witt
- www.goihata.com

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Updated translators

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

– www.goihata.com
On every profession it is important to be updated but in ours it becomes vital! We ought to read constantly and a whole variety of themes: let’s take advantage of the internet to read newspapers from different countries every single day and let’s keep a file with all the information that we gather here and there, that way we will have access to the right word, the precise name and any special date at all times. It is a must to be informed and on the alert.
Updated modern translator
There are several things we can do: A good idea is to keep personalized lists with terms, words and phrases that catch our attention and we consider might be useful sometime; read reviews and books related to our business to be aware of the latest changes and/or tendencies; open a folder in Favorites on your browser to save the links considered important for consultation as well as learning; adapt to changes by buying the latest equipment and software in order to be more efficient and productive; join discussion groups on the Web; share information with colleagues around the world.
When time is not an issue, although I know most of the time it really is, let’s offer our services without any charge… Remember the saying, the more we give, the more we get! You can easily find several institutions that are helping out the global community in a selfless manner and we can be part of that chain and contribute with our favorite cause, as doing so will keep us active and will provide an excellent opportunity to share our knowledge without expectations except for the satisfaction of helping others. There is always something interesting to share with the entire world, it is just a matter of reaching out and offering a hand.

Paulina Torres De Witt
– www.goihata.com

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The correct language translation price

Friday, November 9th, 2007

– www.goihata.com
Which is correct the translation price? There is no such “correct price”, the translation price moves up and down influenced by many factors like;
* Supply and demand situation; when competition is tough prices drop and the contrary happens when professionals are in high demand.
* The text’s difficulty; Translation is a niche business, customers are highly recommended to find the right translator for the specific field. It is not the same the translation of patents and intellectual property or publicity and marketing text. A good translator for a medical subject, is not necessarily so at marketing.
* The language combination: Is not the same to translate into a very closely related language like Portuguese (from Spanish) or into a language poles apart, using a completely different alphabet, syntax and cultural background.
* The country where the translator is located: Scandinavian language translations tend to be more highly valued than others in the southern part of Europe, and does not make much sense to search for such translators in Timbuctoo.
* The translation format: It is more time consuming to translate an MSWord document with images and embedded text than plain straightforward text.
* The program being used: Elegantly presented documents in QuarkXpress, Freehand, Adobe Indesign, and other DTP document translation is more laborious.
* Documents with a lot of repetitive text: Technical manuals often have repetitive text that can be reused using a Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) program like Wordfast. Some discounts can be applied for the repetitive text in these cases.

Having mentioned all the above, we still come across bad-expensive translations and good-cheap translations. But the customer should weigh up the risks and take all the necessary steps to minimize them.
If the translation is going to be used in a marketing campaign costing a huge amount of money, it is not recommended to take risks by trying to save a few pennies.

And always remember the bad translation is the most expensive of all translations.

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Will computers replace translators?

Saturday, October 27th, 2007

Translators are using computers and very powerful tools to increase productivity.
Some of those tools could be automatic translation software programs that do the translation on a swift and then a professional translator revises the text in the target language. One of the problems with this kind of software is that quite often the translation is such a mess that the revision and correction process is more time consuming than doing it from scratch.
We all know such programs: Sytram, PowerTranslator, etc. If you try to translate literature text or typical expressions that do not exist on the other language, chances are very high that you will experience the above mentioned frustration.
Then we have the Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) software programs. Some well known programs are Wordfast, Trados, Transit, Dejavu, etc. These programs save into their memory all the paragraphs and when the same sentence or a similar one comes up again, the professional translator has to validate or amend that translated text. This is very helpful when translating technical manuals and repetitive text, because it can save a lot of time and increase productivity during the translation process.
Some problems facing the CAT programs are that they are not very friendly to DTP programs like QuarkXpress, Freehand, Adobe InDesign, PageMaker, etc.
This CAT programs are also more efficient when the source language and the target language are somewhere related like Spanish or French or even Spanish and English. But when we come across languages that are using completely different syntax, completely different cultural background and scripts poles apart like in the Japanese Spanish combination case, then the CAT programs are not so efficient and sometimes can even become troublesome.
Therefore do not expect computers to replace the professional translator for quite a while, language is a complex and often non logical communication tool that is difficult to code. Language is not black or white, there is a lot of grey that needs to be clarified by linguists and translators. Competition is tough, but we are still very much needed.
A Japanese Spanish translator
www.goihata.com

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Japanese Translation

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Japanese to English, Japanese to Spanish and vice-versa
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