Indonesian Translation Service

Poet loves Vietnamese poems

2009-03-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

John Balaban has been known among American poets as one whose many works are best-sellers. These books are not about America, but of his English translations of well known Vietnamese poems, including a collection of poems in Nom scripts by famous poetess Ho Xuan Huong (in the 18th century) and “The Tale of Kieu” by the great poet Nguyen Du (in the 18th century).

Sitting on a bench near Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi , John Balaban told me why he chose poems by Ho Xuan Huong and Nguyen Du to translate into English. “I am a professor of English, and an American poet to be present in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. That might be the reason why I am encouraged to translate Vietnamese poems,” he said.

Balaban said 20,000 copies of his translation of Ho Xuan Huong’s poems published in 2000 were sold. It was such a “phenomenon” that the American press spent much time and effort studying it. President Bill Clinton, during his visit to Hanoi in 2000, also mentioned John’s translation as a cultural phenomenon of great concern in the United States at that time.

Actually, Balaban’s translation of Ho Xuan Huong´s poems helped many American readers understand the fate and strong response full of femininity of the Vietnamese women of the past. They were known for not only having virtues due to close ties to family education and principles, but also having strong characters. They dared to spell out the taboos of society such as sex and an intimate sexual life, etc., through poems which are pure, sensitive and graphic. Their response surprised many American readers because deep in their mind the American audience thought that those sensitive matters could only be spoken by them.

Balaban said he also wanted to bring American readers another story about life of the Vietnamese women in the feudal period. It was the poetic work "The Tale of Kieu” by great Vietnamese poet Nguyen Du (1766-1820), telling about the talented, but unhappy fate of a young woman - Kieu. According to Balaban, “The Tale of Kieu” is not only a literary masterpiece of the Vietnamese people, but it also concealed a lot of strange details. The strangest one is about the word “fate” defined by Buddhists, which seems to go along with, and was closely attached to Kieu’s talented, but misfortune life. For those reasons, Balaban decided to translate this poetic work into English with the whole-hearted feeling of an American poet full of passion and aspiration. (At the time John and I were talking, his translation of this work is being processed).

Saying farewell, Balaban asked me to reserve one copy of Vietnam Pictorial with the article about him and send it to him as a souvenir. I agreed. In addition I promised that when his English translation of “The Tale of Kieu” is made public, I will invite him to sit by Hoan Kiem Lake again, and I’ll listen to his story about the “fate” that tied him to the story of her life.

Professor John Balaban was born in 1943 in Philadelphia (USA). He is the Poet in Residence and Professor of English at North Carolina University in Raleigh, North Carolina ( USA ). He has many works about Vietnam, including “Ca Dao Vietnam: A Bilingual Anthology of Vietnamese Folk Poetry”, “ Vietnam – The Land We Never Knew” and “ Vietnam – A Traveler’s Literary Companion”. Of particular popularity is his translation of Ho Xuan Huong’s poems entitled “Spring Essence – The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong”. John Balaban is now President of the Vietnamese Nom Preservation Foundation – an American non-governmental organization.

Story by Thanh Hoa -

The curious case of Hillary’s button

2009-03-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

By Peter Lavelle

For years Russian-U.S. relations have been on the rocks. Megaphone diplomacy on both sides was considered the norm and benefited neither side. That is why U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's public relations stunt of "resetting" this bilateral relationship is important to consider.

The makeshift button Clinton presented to the media and pressed together with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov read "reset" in English, but in Russian it was rendered as "reload." Not the best way to restart things.

The lost-in-translation part was put aside with kind words and high hopes. However, this linguistic error could be very telling, depending on how the next few months pan out.

Clinton's enthusiasm to recast the Russia-U.S. relationship says a lot about how the Bush administration got Russia wrong. The Bush people always wanted it to appear they reached out to Russia, but at about every possible juncture the Russians saw it differently.

Few remember that it was then President Vladimir Putin who first called George W. Bush after the 9/ll attacks - pledging support against the terrorists who attacked the United States. While Putin didn't like it, he didn't object to the U.S. military stationing a "temporary" base in Kyrgyzstan promoting Bush's "war on terror."

Putin didn't like it when the United States unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, but there was nothing Russia could do to stop it.

Putin didn't like Western funding of overtly anti-Russian "coloured revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia. But that was something Russia could do about. The more the United States tried to undermine Russia's neighbourhood to promote Washington's geopolitical interests, the more Moscow defended what it saw as its legitimate security interests.

Washington started this competition, not Russia. And because of geography, history and Washington's bad habit of not following through on so-called commitments to friends and allies, Russia has been given a new hearing in its neighbourhood.

The U.S. government is very close to its energy companies and has pressed hard to promote their interests in the energy-rich, post-Soviet space. At the same time, many in the West claim that Russia is using energy as a political weapon.

It is not amiss on the Russian side that mainstream media presents Western companies as merely looking for profit, while Russian companies only seek geopolitical advantage. As far as Moscow is concerned, this is a clear double standard. Russia's embrace of capitalism and the profit motive is genuine and scares the heck out its Western competitors.

The Bush people pushed hard to continue NATO's expansion eastwards. Russia strenuously objects to this. Russia cannot veto any country from joining a political, economic and military bloc, but it can and does speak out about its own security interests.

NATO does not present itself as a foe of Russia's; however it does not accept Moscow's self-defined security interests. This is a red line that Moscow will not compromise on.

Then there is the issue of security architecture. Obama has waffled on Bush's hard-line commitment to anti-missile defence in Europe. For Russia this is an existential threat. Any country - large or small - would rightfully be concerned if a new and modern military system was based close to its border. Given all the broken promises and smiles coming from the United States regarding Russia for almost 20 years, it's understandable that Russians want more than good intentions from their American counterparts.

Georgia's pre-emptive war against South Ossetia last August remains a very sour issue in Russia. America funded and trained Saakashvili's military. The same military killed Russian citizens and peacekeepers.

The trust level Russia has toward the new American administration is limited, to say the least. As long as the U.S. continues its military engagement of Georgia and promotes Tbilisi's NATO aspirations, the more likely it is that Moscow will view Washington with apprehension.

What will happen? Will it be the "re-set" or "reload" button? We still really don't know.

It seems to me that the new administration in Washington still doesn't see Russia to be all that important - it is deemed as a problematic country only to be dealt with. But all the same there is the recognition that not much can be done on many global issues without Russia's engagement and help.

Viewed from the Potomac, Russia remains a bridesmaid. This is a huge mistake inherited not from the George Bush administration - look further back to Bill Clinton's time in office to understand this.

I must admit I remain sceptical. I have no doubt there was an obvious and embarrassing translation error made when Clinton gave the button to Lavrov. But I can't but help sense that the same tried and failed policies toward Russia remain in play. The "reload" translation is somehow not serendipity.

For almost 20 years, Republican, Democratic, Republican - and now again Democratic administrations have continued the same ritual. They all believe that they only have to explain why the United States never threatens the world and that everyone should agree with it. And they believe Russia should not question this proposition.

Yet Russia is not interested in diplomatic PR, it seeks reliable partners. Partnership is the button that needs to be pressed.

Peter Lavelle is the host of Russia Today's weekly analysis programme ‘In Context'

Implementation of New National Translation Program for Book Publishing

2009-03-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

Mar 03, 2009 10:00 ET
Implementation of New National Translation Program for Book Publishing
The Government Delivers on Its Commitments to Linguistic Duality and Canadian Culture

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - March 3, 2009) - The Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, today announced the implementation of the new National Translation Program for Book Publishing, designed to increase the availability of Canadian books in both official languages. Through this program, the Government is delivering on the commitment it made when it announced the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality last June.

"Our Government wants to give as many Canadians as possible access to the enormous wealth of our country's culture and literature," said Minister Moore. "The new program will also help our authors gain recognition in new markets, thereby strengthening the financial health of Canada's book publishing industry."

Starting April 1, 2009, the Government will invest $5 million over four years in this program, which will help publishers in Canada translate Canadian-authored books into English and French. To minimize administrative costs and implementation time, and to take advantage of existing expertise, administration of the program is being entrusted to the Canada Council for the Arts for 2009-2010, and the arrangement can be renewed annually. The Government is pleased to be able to draw on the experience and administrative structure already in place at the Council to provide this new support to publishers.

"Our Government's commitment is unwavering. This strategic investment allows the Government to support our linguistic duality, the reach of our culture, and our economy," concluded Minister Moore.

"This is wonderful news for Canadian readers, publishers, and literary translators," said Robert Sirman, Director of the Canada Council for the Arts. "The Council welcomes the federal government's commitment today, as it shows confidence in the Council and its ability to deliver additional support for translation. The Council is looking forward to receiving the money in the coming months, when it will be in a position to allocate it to grant recipients."

The Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality is an unprecedented government-wide investment of $1.1 billion over five years. Its new arts and culture component includes more than $20 million and is in addition to funding of more than half a billion dollars over the next two years under Budget 2009 to support the arts, culture, and heritage.

This news release is available on the Internet at www.canadianheritage.gc.ca under Media Room.

BACKGROUNDER

Objectives

The Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, released in June 2008, includes $5 million to increase the number of books available in both official languages by helping Canadian publishers translate works of Canadian authors into English and French. For Canadians, this will mean greater access to the cultural wealth and literature of the country's Anglophone and Francophone communities, in both official languages.

The investments announced today add to the $68 million already invested annually by the Government in Canadian writing and book publishing. This is provided through Canadian Heritage's Book Publishing Industry Development Program ($37 million) and the Canada Council for the Arts, including the Public Lending Right Commission (a total of $31.1 million in 2007-2008).

Delivery mechanism

After studying various options, the Government selected the Council to deliver the new program. The intention expressed in the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality to provide "greater access to the cultural wealth and literature of the country" is directly aligned with the mandate of the Council, which is to "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts." Moreover, the Council already has a Translation Grants Program in place, and building on this existing infrastructure will reduce administrative costs and avoid duplication. This is an opportunity not only to deliver the program efficiently, but also to draw on the Council's expertise and experience in this area. The Council will also be able to provide timely support through grants that offset the high upfront costs associated with translations.

Canada Council for the Arts

The Canada Council is a federal Crown corporation created by an act of Parliament in 1957. The Council offers a broad range of grants and services to professional Canadian artists and arts organizations in dance, integrated (multidisciplinary) art, media arts, music, theatre, visual arts, and writing and publishing. It also promotes public awareness of the arts through its communications, research, and arts promotion activities. The Public Lending Right Commission and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO also operate under the aegis of the Canada Council.

Eligibility criteria for the National Translation Program for Book Publishing

Funding will be provided for literary translations produced by Canadian publishers already taking part in the Council's book publishing support programs. Concentrating support in this manner will help to ensure sufficient per-title grants to provide an incentive for the production of new translations.

The federal government will continue to support translations of non-literary titles through Canadian Heritage's Book Publishing Industry Development Program. This program, which provides sales-based formula funding to a broad range of publishers, directs more than $2 million annually to publishers for their translation work. A majority of this amount goes to educational and general trade publishers.

For more information on the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, visit www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/slo-ols/strat-eng.cfm.

For more information on the Canada Council for the Arts and its writing and publishing assistance programs, visit www.canadacouncil.ca/writing.

For more information on Canada's publishing policies, visit www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/padie-bpidp/liv-bk/index-eng.cfm.

For more information, please contact
Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage
and Official Languages
Deirdra McCracken
Director of Communications
819-997-7788
deirdra.mccracken@pch.gc.ca

or

Canadian Heritage
Media Relations
819-994-9101
1-866-569-6155

Prose

2009-02-09T13:13:00.001-08:00

UNIQUE TEXT AND MY TRANSLATION

2009-02-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends,

Today is the 5th day of 2009, here's something to inspire all of us,
titled " THE FOUR BLESSED LOOKS"

Look back and Thank God
Look forward and Trust God
Look around and Serve God
Look within and Find God

Without God, our week is: Sinday, Mournday, Tearsday, Wasteday,
Thirstday, Fightday and Shatterday. So allow Him to be with you every
day!

Have a blessed day! Keep your chin up and rest your problem in God's Hands.

Happy New Year 2009!

MY INDONESIAN TRANSLATION:
Hai Sobat,

Hari ini adalah hari ke-5 di tahun 2009. Aku punya sesuatu yang bisa mengilhami kita semua, namanya "EMPAT ANUGERAH MELIHAT"

Lihatlah ke belakang dan bersyukurlah pada Tuhan
Lihatlah ke depan dan percayakan kepada Tuhan
Lihatlah sekeliling dan layanilah Tuhan
Lihatlah ke dalam dan temukan Tuhan

Tanpa Tuhan, dalam seminggu hanyalah berisi: Ahad penuh maksiat, Senin penuh duka berpilin, Selasa penuh air mata membahana, Rabu bagai abu,
Kamis dahaga nan mengiris, Jumat dendam kesumat dan Sabtu tak ada yang tersisa bagimu. Maka biarkan Dia bersamamu tiap hari!

Semoga harimu diberkahi! Tegakkan kepala dan serahkan segala risaumu padaNya.

Selamat Tahun Baru 2009!

sofiamansoor@gmail.com

The Art of Poetry Translation

2008-05-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

The Art of Poetry Translation

Four Translators Talk About Their Methods

May 1, 2008
During the Poetry International festival each year various poetry translation projects take place. The Chinese Whispers programme is a kind of fun relay race in which a poem moves from Dutch through as many languages as possible and back again into Dutch during the course of the week. The participating poets provide the flow. The resulting poem is usually rather different from the original and its differences are often humorous, the project is not so much to be considered poetry translation as an exercise in linguistics and a demonstration of the foibles of language.

Alongside this, there are more serious translation ventures. Supervised workshops enable participating poets to translate festival poets (this year Iwakiri and ter Balkt) into their mother tongues. The ways in which a poet might be better or less well- equipped to translate a fellow poet than a professional translator is something I’ll be considering when I report on the workshops during the festival.

Beforehand, it is interesting to take a look at how the professionals go about their job. How does one even begin to translate poetry? I’ve invited four translators from the PIW site to share their expertise.

ALOK BHALLA

Alok Bhalla is a Professor of English Literature at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. He has translated a range of poems, plays and fictional texts from Hindi and Urdu and, as a critic, has published extensively on literature, politics and translation theory.

How do you go about translating a poem - where do you start?

I think that choosing a poem for translation is always a startling and an enigmatic process. Sometimes, I am sure, it is similar to throwing coins to find the right hexagram in that I Ching that suddenly seems to speak to one’s peculiar emotional state or one’s present political anger That doesn’t mean one is ‘fated’ to translate a particular poem. Rather, a poem ‘asks’ to be translated by someone with whose present anguish or sentiment resonates with its own. That is how, I think, the poems I have translated with a degree of pleasure ‘found’ me. Poems by Udayan Vajpai, Kedarnath Singh and Kunwar Narain seem to have become accessible to my need to understand specific personal and political conditions – sometimes of power and base surrender, sometimes of private loss and grief, and sometimes of public acknowledgement of a poet’s gracefulness and my own gratitude at reading an ordinary spoken Hindi that was not first required to pay homage to Sanskrit. These poems became ‘visible’ in bookstores, or arrived by mail, or insistently placed themselves along my intellectual journey so that I had to either glance at them or push them aside, be either irritated by them or notice that they had a remarkable clarity which I could translate for others. I translated them because I knew that they deserved another ‘life’ in another language, another hearing by others located somewhere else.

Where do you go from there?

I have always refused to mingle the ‘art’ of translation with any of the ‘theories’ of translation. I think both have their protocols. Theorists of translation are not always so generous. Many a time they adopt the tone of stern law-givers for whom the translator is always a guilty thing who does or does not, must or must not reveal, deform, explain, improve, expand, rationalize, eroticize, clarify, infect, simplify, defer, ennoble, rewrite, natives, destroy, exoticism, feminize, domesticate, minorities, foreignism, impoverish, colonies, subvert or misrepresent the meaning of the original text – there are other spurs on their whips of flagellation (the poor translator is always at the receiving end). They inevitably speak about the impossibility of translating the ‘original’, the ‘primal’ glory of a culture or its language. I don’t believe that a translator is required to carry the ontological burden of our times or be the messianic voice of a civilization. Let me at least assert, even if my assertion does not have the melodramatic bass of the theory: It is possible for a translator to imagine another language and hence other forms of living and being; and, it is possible for a translator to speak to others who understand how we become ‘human’ when we find ourselves in conversation with others who have an utterly different way of ‘being human’ than we have. My own claim to intellectual cosmopolitanism (which I need to declare again and again for I live in the midst of sectarian arrogance and the genocidal virulence of identity politics) depends upon the labour of a community of translators, as does my claim that for a translator to be part of a literary habitat we need to understand the important ways in which translation contributes to the creation of cultural and moral pluralities.

If the task of the theorist is to craft critical tools so as to understand what may have determined the rhythms, phrases, cultural presuppositions, philosophic or moral preoccupations of the original text, the translator is guided by radically other considerations. Or, at least, I as a translator I am. A translator must fulfill two ethical or aesthetic tasks simultaneously. Even as a translator crafts a new work, the translated version must respect the integrity of the original so that the vision of the original is made available. This is a minimum ethic (I know this has a naive edenic nostalgia attached to it, just as I am aware of the theoretical temptations to make translation part of our more suspicious and skeptical age which distrusts the power of all ‘originals’).

I almost always begin my translations by making a literal draft which is so shamelessly dependent on dictionaries and thesauruses that the lines on the page are as depressing and meaningless as marching ants. The first scribbles almost inevitably confront me with the inadequacy of my qualifications and imaginative competence to the task. Just because the draft seems mock the ego, I put the original aside and try to remake each line so as to meet of Coleridge’s definition of a poem as the best possible arrangement of words best suited to the sentiments and thoughts expressed. That involves listening to each line within the surrounding silence. Only after I am seemingly satisfied that I actually ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the translated words as well as I can, do I begin to attach them to the sentences, lineation or spaces that precede or follow them. Once the poem begins to ‘speak’ well in English, I dare myself to return to the original to ensure that I haven’t violated the two ethical and aesthetic imperatives I have laid down for translators above.

Which translation of yours on the site are you most proud of, what were the difficulties and how did you solve them?

Before speaking about my translations of poems which have been posted on this website, I should like to mention that the poetic translation which took me the longest of time, and of which I am the proudest, is that of Dharamvir Bharati’s play, Andha Yug (The Blind/Dark Age, OUP). The play, which is perhaps one of the finest written in post-independence India, posed great difficulties because it functions on three different levels of religious, ethical and personal awareness. I had to find, in English, a language and a rhythm which is, at times, hieratic and is, at other times, recognizable as a song of ethical lament. I also had to craft a dramatic speech for characters that is tormented because men and women find themselves participating in a war that humiliates and debases each of them.

Of the poems on the website, the prose-poems by Udayan Vajpeyi were perhaps the most difficult to translate. The first problem that confronted me was the shape of the texts. Along with the original Hindi versions of the poems, Udayan had sent me copies of their French translations also. The visual shape of the French translations, which had Udayan’s approval, was different from that of the Hindi text. In the original the poems appeared like blocks of lines which so crowded each other as to create a sense of claustrophobic walls from which the consciousness of the poet was trying, with growing sense of futility and despondency, to escape into spaces where it could breath more freely. In the French version, the lineation was looser as each cluster of images or emotions was given its own space. The arrangement had its virtues. Instead of creating a feeling of entrapment by opaque and relentlessly indifferent circumstances within which a consciousness finds itself placed, it suggested spaces of silences from which the self could not escape as well as abysses of memory and time which faced the self in its attempt to deal with loss or find meaning. I offered both kinds of arrangements to Udayan to choose from when I translated his poems into English. I could ‘hear’ the sounds of both the versions and accept the virtues of each arrangement.

The other difficulty I faced as I translated Udayan’s poems was to find a way to communicate in English a mode writing which was simultaneously austere in its language and surreal in its vision. A literal translation of the tone (as distinct from the images and emotional situations concerned with memories of grief and consequent bewilderment) of the original Hindi could well have turned into bathos and sentimental excess. Fortunately, English has the possibility of understatement that can at the same time accommodate a feeling of the strange and the surreal in the affairs of human beings.

DAVID COLMER

David Colmer was born in Australia and has lived in the Netherlands for seventeen years. His poetry translations include work by Benno Barnard, Tsead Bruinja, Anna Enquist, Ramsey Nasr and Mustafa Stitou. His translation of Nijhoff's Awater will appear later this year from Anvil Press.

How do you go about translating a poem - where do you start?

I read the original and quickly try to see elements that I need to try to reproduce in the translation. I mainly look for technical elements such as metrical structure, internal rhyme, sound patterns. I don’t explicitly think about the meaning or the mood at this stage, because I get those implicitly at first. It is however easy to miss some technical aspects because you read over them and it's important to check whether there is a specific structure.

Where do you go from there?

Then I just start translating. Draft after draft, comparing the translations to the original. If possible I leave time between the different drafts so that I can see the translation with fresh eyes. (Forgetting why I did certain things and just seeing how they work or, more often, fail.) I do the first four or five drafts on the computer and then carry on on paper. The longer I work on it, the faster each run-through becomes. In the end I might just be reading it out loud and changing a word or two, or not changing it at all. When I start changing the same words back and forth between two variants it’s time to make a decision and call it finished. (Although I would always revise it if given a chance at a later date.)

Which translation of yours on the site are you most proud of, what were the difficulties and how did you solve them?

I think Benno Barnard’s, ‘A Kiss in Brussels’. The difficulties are obvious to anyone who reads the original, but that of course requires Dutch. The poem really has it all: rhyme and rhythm, images that are simply beautiful and images that make you think. At the same time, there's something mysterious about it despite its clarity. For me the translation just fell into place and I feel like I have gone a long way toward producing a poem that can stand in English on its own merits. Obviously I failed to do full justice to lines as beautiful as “mijn hand blijft steken in een teer gebaar”, but that failing is somehow compensated by what I see as the compelling simplicity of the English version. Even the line I most doubt (“my fingers...”) has something moving about it and every time I think about changing it I can’t help but think that it might be its awkwardness that makes it so moving and appropriate. Will I still think so in a year or two? I don’t know.

TAKAKO LENTO

Takako Lento was born in Japan and has lived in the US for over thirty years. He was educated at Tsuda College and Kyushu University in Japan and the University of Iowa in the US, with MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Lento writes and translates prose and poetry from Japanese to English as well as from English to Japanese.

How do you go about translating a poem – where do you start?

I identify a poem I want to translate. I read, chew, taste and digest the poem. I try to understand my experience of the poem.

Where do you go from there?

I prepare the first draft by recreating in English my experience of the original, following each original line. At this time I focus on the original poem’s overall tone, messages, and overt or subtle references. My revisions of this draft focus on the original words, their usage, intended effects, implications, or associations or references, often culturally loaded. I try to reflect these elements in my translation as fully as I can manage. I ask a native speaker to check the English. Then I prepare a final version incorporating the checker’s linguistic corrections as well as any changes that I sense need to be made based on the native speaker’s reading or understanding of the translation.

Which translation of yours on the site are you most proud of; what were the difficulties and how did you solve them?

‘Invisible Tree’ by Ryuichi Tamura. The problem I faced was in relation to the use of the word “mind.” This is a poem I love, but I am not sure if the difficulty is resolved in my translation. The Japanese word “kokoro” means either “heart [emotionally charged entity]” or “mind [mind’s function].” This is a perennial issue in translating Japanese poetry. Of course, when someone’s ‘heart is aching,’ no one would argue against choosing to use “heart.” Or when someone ‘imagines in his mind,’ the choice of “mind” is probably universal. But in Tamura’s poetry, the heart and the mind are so closely tied together that I often find it difficult to choose one against the other.

RICHARD ZENITH

A native of Washington DC, previous PIW-Portugal editor, Richard Zenith has lived as an adult in Colombia, Brazil, France, and – since 1987 – in Lisbon, Portugal, where he works as a freelance writer, translator, and researcher in the Fernando Pessoa archives. Zenith has rendered a number of other Portuguese and Brazilian poets into English, as well as novels by Portugal’s António Lobo Antunes and Angola’s José Luandino Vieira.

How I translate a poem...

I don’t begin by producing a slavishly literal translation. Or rather, I don’t distinguish between ‘literal’ and ‘literary’. The moment I begin translating, I’m already searching for the word or phrase that works in English. My first drafts are full of alternate possibilities placed in brackets, or I’ll place question marks after words or phrases that don’t seem quite right. The written word gains a false authority; we’re more liable to give it credence just because it’s already there on the page. So I’m nervous, as a translator or as a writer, about jotting just anything down, with the idea that I’ll improve on it later.

After establishing an initial multi-translation (‘multi’ because of all the variant wordings I still have to choose from), I look at what I've done against the original, very closely. A translation should not be a close reading, or an interpretation, but the translator must read closely and carefully interpret — without, however, revealing that interpretation in the translation.
At a certain point I abandon the original text and just read the English. And when it seems right enough (perfection, of course, is never achieved), then I'll read it once more alongside the original.

I seek out all the help I can get, asking native speakers to clarify even the tiniest doubt. If the poet is living, I always ask her or him to see what I’ve done, but only when I’ve achieved what seems to be a relatively final version. If her or his English is poor, I explain any hesitations or uncertainties I may have and listen attentively to what the author has to say.

I feel especially proud of certain translations right when I finish them, but once they’re out there, published, they become public property and I don’t feel that they belong to me anymore. So I can’t really name a translation I feel especially proud of, unless it’s one I did yesterday. [Editor’s note: Richard Zenith’s most recent translations are of A.M. Pires Cabral ]

Michele Hutchison
From:

AN ENGLISH POEM TO TRAIN PRONOUNCIATION

2008-05-05T05:33:00.000-07:00

This is a poem written by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité, 1870-1946. Anyone wants to translate it into your native language? Hi..hie

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

The author of The Chaos was a Dutchman, the writer and traveller Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité. Born in 1870, he studied classics, then law, then political science at the University of Utrecht, but without graduating (his Doctorate came later, in 1901). From 1894 he was for a while a private teacher in California, where he taught the sons of the Netherlands Consul-General. From 1901 to 1918 he worked as a schoolteacher in Haarlem, and published several schoolbooks in English and French, as well as a study of the Dutch constitution. From 1909 until his death in 1946 he wrote frequently for an Amsterdam weekly paper, with a linguistic column under the pseudonym Charivarius.

--From Chaos by Chris Upward, Aston University, UK
Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society

ESSLIN, THEATER OF ABSURD

2008-04-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

Ini sampel terjemahan saya. Saya sudah menerjemahkan secara lengkap. Mungkin ada yang berminat menerbitkan silahkan kontak saya di mukhid_translator@yahoo.com

PENDAHULUAN
Absurditas Yang Absurd

Pada tanggal 19 November 1957, sekelompok aktor yang cemas sedang bersiap tampil di hadapan para penonton. Para aktor tersebut adalah para anggota Company of San Fransisco Actors’ Workshop. Penonton terdiri atas seribu empat ratus narapidana di penjara San Quentin. Belum pernah ada pertunjukkan langsung ditampilkan di San Quentin sejak Sarah Bernhardt tampil di sana pada tahun 1913. Kini, empat puluh tahun sesudahnya, naskah yang dipilih, sebagian besar karena tidak ada peran wanita di dalamnya, adalah karya Samuel Beckett berjudul Menunggu Godot (naskah asli berbahasa Prancis, sudah diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Indonesia dari bahasa Inggris oleh Rendra dan terakhir oleh Penerbit Bentang).
Tak mengherankan jika para aktor dan Herbert Blau, sang sutradara, merasa cemas. Bagaimana mereka harus menghadapi salah satu khalayak penonton paling keras di seluruh dunia dengan sebuah naskah intelektual yang samar, yang nyaris menimbulkan kericuhan para penonton jenius kelas atas di Eropa Barat? Herbert Blau memutuskan untuk menyiapkan khalayak penonton San Quentin atas apa yang akan terjadi. Dia melangkah ke atas panggung dan menyapa North Dining Hall yang gelap dan penuh sesak - lautan nyala korek yang dilemparkan para narapidana ke pundak mereka sehabis menyalakan rokok. Blau membandingkan pentas drama itu dengan sebuah nomor musik jazz ‘yang mana setiap orang harus menyimak apapun yang ada di dalamnya’. Dia juga berharap akan ada makna di dalamnya, makna pribadi bagi setiap penonton Menunggu Godot.
Layar terangkat. Drama dimulai. Dan apa yang telah mengguncangkan khalayak penonton berpendidikan di Paris, London dan New York dapat dipahami dengan mudah oleh para narapidana..Sebagaimana yang ditulis oleh penulis `Catatan sehabis pementasan malam pertama’ di kolom koran penjara, San Quentin News:

Trio pria berotot, otot bisep bergerak-gerak…memarkir seluruh berat badan sebesar 642 pon berderet menantikan para gadis dan lelucon. Ketika yang ditunggu tidak muncul, mereka menggerutu dan memutuskan untuk menunggu sampai lampau gedung redup sebelum melarikan diri. Mereka keliru. Mereka menyimak dan menonton dua menit lebih lama - dan bertahan. Mereka baru keluar di akhir pertunjukan. Semuanya takjub…1

1. San Quentin News, San Quentin, California., 28 Nopember 1957
Atau sebagaimana ditulis oleh penulis cerita utama dari koran yang sama, dengan judul, `San Fransisco Group Leaves S.Q. Audience Waiting for Godot’:

Sejak setting yang serius dan terlupakan buatan Wegner ditimpa cahaya, sampai tepukan penuh harap dan sia-sia terakhir secara ragu ditimbulkan oleh dua orang pengembara yang sedang melakukan pencarian, kelompok teater San Fransisco ini telah membuat penontonnya terjerat... Mereka yang sudah merasakan media yang tidak terlalu kontroversial akan berusaha menganggapnya sebagai drama pertama yang membuat mereka merasa gentar lima menit sesudah karya Samuel Bekcett ini mulai tersingkap.2
2. ibid.

Seorang reporter Chronicle San Fransisco yang hadir di sana menengarai bahwa para narapidana tidak merasa kesulitan dalam memahami drama tersebut. Seorang napi berkata kepadanya, “Godot adalah masyarakat.” Yang lainnya berkata: “Dia ada di luar sana.”3 Seorang guru yang menjadi tahanan berkata, “Mereka tahu apa artinya menunggu...dan mereka juga tahu bahwa kalau pun Godot pada akhirnya datang, itu hanya akan menjadi sebuah kekecewaan.”4
3. Theatre Arts, New York, Juli 1958.
4. ibid.

Itu merupakan sebuah ekspresi simbolis untuk menghindari segala macam teror pribadi, oleh seorang penulis yang mengharapkan penontonnya akan menarik kesimpulan sendiri, membuat kesalahan sendiri. Tidak mempertanyakan apapun, tidak memaksakan moral yang didramatisir kepada penontonnya, tidak ada harapan khusus....Kita masih menunggu Godot, dan akan terus menunggu. Ketika yang ada di panggung kurang menarik dan lakuannya terlalu lambat, kita akan saling memanggil nama dan bersumpah untuk pergi selamanya – tapi, ternyata kita tidak pergi kemana-mana!5
5. San Quentin News, 28 Nopember 1957

Diaktakan bahwa Godot itu sendiri, maupun pergantian frasa dan tokoh dari naskah itu telah menjadi bahasa pribadi yang permanen, menjadi mitologi institusional San Quentin.

Mengapa sebuah naskah yang dianggap sebagai garda depan esoteris ini memberikan dampak yang bersifat langsung dan mendalam kepada penonton yang terdiri dari para napi? Apakah karena drama ini menghadapkan mereka pada sebuah situasi yang mirip dengan situasi mereka sendiri? Mungkin. Atau mungkin karena mereka tidak cukup cerdas untuk menonton teater tanpa gagasan-gagasan yang sudah ada sebelumnya dan siap sedia dengan harapan-harapan sehingga mereka menghindari kesalahan yang banyak menjebak para kritikus mapan yang mencerca drama ini karena tidak ada alur, perkembangan, perwatakan, tegangan atau nalar biasa. Tentunya para napi San Quentin tidak bisa dicurigai sebagai kelompok yang sok tahu, karena begitu banyaknya penonton Waiting for Godot seringkali diolok-olok sebagai berpura-pura menyukai sebuah pementasan padahal tidak memahaminya, hanya seolah-olah memahami.
Penerimaan Waiting for Godot di San Quentin, dan banyak mendapat pujian yang diberikan terhadap naskah-naskah karya Ionesco, Adamov, Pinter dan lain-lain, yang menyatakan bahwa naskah-naskah yang seringkali dianggap hanya omong kosong atau mistifikasi ini, memiliki makan tertentu dan dapat dipahami. Sebagian besar dari ketidakpahaman atas naskah-naskah semacam ini masih dialami oleh para kritikus maupun para pengamat teater, sebagian besar kebingungan yang ditimbulkan dan masih dirasakan berasal dari kenyataan bahwa naskah-naskah itu merupakan bagian dari sebuah konvensi pementasan yang masih baru dan tengah berkembang dan belum dipahami secara umum, apalagi untuk dapat diuraikan. Tak pelak lagi, naskah-naskah yang ditulis dalam konvensi baru ini akan dianggap sebagai kurang ajar dan kasar kalau dinilai berdasarkan kriteria dan standar konvensi lain. Kalau memang sebuah naskah harus berupa sebuah cerita yang dibangun secara cerdas, maka tidak ada cerita atau alur di sini. Kalau sebuah naskah dinilai berdasrakan kehalusan perwatakan dan motivasi, maka naskah-naskah tersebut acapkali tanpa tokoh-tokoh yang bisa dikenali dan menghadirkan boneka-boneka yang nyaris mekanis kepada penontonnya. Jika sebuah naskah yang bagus harus mempunyai tema yang dijelaskan secara utuh, yang dipaparkan secara rapi dan akhirnya dituntaskan, maka naskah-naskah itu kerapkali tanpa awal atau akhir. Bila sebuah naskah yang bagus harus menjadi cerminan alam dan menggambarkan perilaku maupun manerisme jaman dalam gambaran yang sangat rinci, maka naskah-naskah ini kerap hanya merupakan cerminan dari mimpi dan mimpi buruk. Jika sebuah naskah yang bagus bergantung pada tanya jawab yang cerdas dan dialog yang terarah, maka naskah-naskah ini seringkali hanya berupa ocehan yang tidak ada juntrungnya.
Naskah-naskah drama yang kita bahas di sini memiliki tujuan dan capaian yang sama sekali berbeda dengan naskah konvensional sehingga membutuhkan metode yang sama sekali berbeda pula. Naskah-naskah itu hanya bisa dinilai berdasarkan standar Teater Absurd, yang akan didefinisikan dan dijelaskan dalam buku ini.
Namun demikian, perlu kiranya ditekankan di sini bahwa para dramawan yang karyanya dibahas dini tidaklah memproklamirkan suatu aliran atau gerakan. Malahan, setiap penulis yang dipertanyakan di sini adalah sosok individu yang menganggap dirinya sebagai orang luar yang kesepian, tercerabut dan terisolasi dari dunia pribadinya. Masing-masing memiliki pendekatan prbadinya sendiri baik terhadap persoalan maupun bentuk; terhadap akar, sumber maupun latar belakangnya. Kalaupun mereka memiliki banyak kesamaan, yang memang jelas demikian kendati mungkin tidak mereka sadari, hal itu dikarenakan karya mereka sangat peka dalam menjadi cermin dan mencerminkan berbagai keasyikan maupun kecemasan, emosi maupun pikiran dari orang-orang pada jamannya di dunia Barat.
Namun ini bukan berarti mengatakan bahwa karya-karya mereka merupakan representasi sikap massa. Terlalu sederhana jika diasumsikan bahwa suatu jaman merepresentasikan sebuah pola yang homogen. Keberadaan kita pada masa transisi, lebih dari yang lain, menampilkan suatu gambaran yang berlapis: berbagai keyakinan abad pertengahan masih dipertahankan dan dilapis oleh rasionalisme abad kedelapan belas maupun Marxisme abad kesembilan belas, dikejutkan oleh ledakan fanatisme pra sejarah dan kultus kesukuan primitif. Setiap unsur pola budaya jaman itu menemukan ekspresi artistiknya sendiri. Namun demikian, Teater Absurd bisa dipandang sebagai refleksi apa yang tampaknya merupakan sikap paling murni representasi jaman kita.
Tonggak sikap ini adalah nalar bahwa keyakinan-keyakinan maupun asumsi-asumsi dasar yang tak tergoyahkan pada jaman sebelumnya sudah dihancur leburkan, diuji kembali dan dianggap tidak layak, dipandang sebagai ilusi murahan dan kekanak-kanakan. Runtuhnya keyakinan beragama masih tersembunyi sampai pada akhir Perang Dunia II denagn agama-agama pengganti seperti kemajuan, nasionalisme dan berbagai ajaran sesat totaliarianisme. Semua itu hancur lebur oleh peperangan. Pada tahun 1942, dengan tenang Albert Camus menyodorkan pertanyaan, kalau memang hidup sudah kehilangan makna, mengapa tidak bunuh diri saja. Dalam salah satu pencari besar pada jaman kita, The Myth of Sisyphus (Mite Sisifus), Camus berusaha mendiagnosis situasi manusia di dunia mana keyakinan sudah hancur lebur:

Sebuah dunia yang tidak bisa dijelaskan dengan nalar, betapapun kelirunya, adalah dunia yang dikenal. Namun dunia yang tiba-tiba tercerabut dari ilusi dan cahaya, manusia jadi merasa seperti orang asing. Dia adalah seorang buangan yang tak terpulihkan karena tercerabut dari kenangan kampung halaman yang hilang dan juga tidak punya harapan akan adanya negeri yang dijanjikan. Perceraian antara manusia dan kehidupannya, antara aktor dan settingnya, itulah makna Absurditas yang sebenar-benarnya.1
1. Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, (Paris: Gallimard, 1942), hlm. 18.

Kata `Absurd’ aslinya berarti `tidak harmonis’ dalam konteks musik. Maka dari itu definisi kamusnya adalah: “tidak selaras dengan nalar atau kelayakan umum; tidak kongruen, tidak masuk akal, tidak logis.” Dalam pemakaian sehari-hari, `absurd’ berarti `menggelikan’, tapi bukan dalam pengertian seperti yang digunakan oleh Camus, maupun pengertian dalam pembahasan Teater Absurd. Dalam sebuah esai tentang Kafka, Ionesco mendefinisikan pemahamannya mengenai istilah tersebut sebagai berikut: “Absurd berarti tidak ada tujuan...Tercerabut dari akar relijius, metafisis maupun transedental, manusia tersesat; segala perilakunya jadi tak bernalar, absurd, sia-sia.”2
2. Eugène Ionesco, `Dans les armes de la villa’, Cahiers de la Compagnie Madelaine Renaud-Jean-Louis Barrault, Paris, no. 20, Oktober 1957.

Makna kesenduan metafisis atas absurditas kondisi manusia ini, secara umum menjadi tema naskah-naskah Adamov, Ionesco, Genet dan para penulis lain yang dibahas dalam buku ini. Namun ini bukanlah satu-satunya pokok persoalan yang diuraikan dari apa yang disebut sebagai Teater Absurd. Makna ketidakbermaknaan hidup yang sama, tak terelakkannya penurunan nilai cita-cita, kemurnian dan tujuan, juga menjadi tema sebagian besar dramawan seperti Giraudoux, Anoulih, Salacrou, Sartre dan Camus sendiri. Sekalipun demikian, para penulis tersebut berbeda dengan para dramawan Absurd dalam hal penting: mereka menyajikan pemikiran mereka soal rasionalitas kondisi manusia dalam bentuk penalaran yang dibangun dengan bagus dan sangat logis, sementara Teater Absurd berusaha mengekspresikan ketidakbermaknaan kondisi manusia dan ketidaklayakan pendekatan rasional dengan cara melakukan penangguhan terbuka atas berbagai piranti rasional dan pemikiran diskursif. Sementara Sartre atau Camus mengekspresikan muatan baru dengan konvensi lama, Teater Absurd melangkah lebih jauh lagi dengan berusaha mencapai penyatuan antara asumsi-asumsi dasar tersebut dengan bentuk yang diekspresikannya. Dalam pengertian tertentu, teater Sartre dan Camus kurang memadai sebagai ekspresi filsafat Sartre dan Camus – dalam pengertian artistik, bukan filosofis – dibandingkan dengan Teater Absurd.
Jika Camus berpendapat bahwa pada jaman kita yang mengecewakan ini dunia sudah kehilangan makna, maka dia melakukannya secara rasionalis elegan dan gaya diskursif moralis abad kedelapan belas, dengan naskah-naskah yang tertata dan halus. Kalau Sartre berpendapat bahwa eksistensi ada sebelum esensi dan bahwa pribadi manusia bisa direduksi menjadi potensi murni dan kebebasan untuk memilih dirinya sendiri baru setiap saat, dia menyajikan gagasan-gagasannya dalam bentuk naskah-naskah yang didasarkan pada tokoh-tokoh yang digambarkan secara cerdas dan benar-benar konsisten sehingga masih mencerminkan konvensi lama bahwa setiap manusia memiliki esensi inti yang tak bergeming dan tak berubah – yaitu jiwa abadi. Untain kalimat indah dan kecerdasan argumentatif Sartre maupun Camus penelitian tak kenal lelahnya, ternyata masih menunjukkan keyakinan tersembunyi bahwa wacana logis bisa menjadi solusi yang sah, bahwa analisis bahasa akan menggiring pada penyingkapan konsep-konsep dasar – gagasan-gagasan Platonis.
Ini merupakan sebuah kontradiksi batin yang berusaha diatasi dan dipecahkan oleh para dramawan Absurd dengan insting dan intuisi dan bukannya dengan usaha sadar. Teater Absurd tak lagi berpendapat soal absurditas manusia, namun hanya menyajikan keadaannya – artinya, dalam pengertian gambaran konkret di atas panggung. Inilah perbedaan antara pendekatan filsuf dan penyair; pendekatan untuk mengambil contoh dari bidang lain, antara gagasan Tuhan dalam karya-karya Thomas Aquinas atau Spinoza dengan intuisi Tuhan pada St John of the Cross atau Meister Eckhart – perbedaan antara teori dan pengalaman.
Ini merupakan upaya untuk memadukan isi dan bentuk ekspresi yang membedakan antara Teater Absurd dengan teater Eksistensialis.
Tentu juga harus dibedakan dengan kecenderungan sejenis lain dalam teater Prancis kontemporer, yang juga asyik dengan absurditas dan ketidakpastian kondisi manusia: teater `garda depan puitis’ para dramawan seperti Michel de Ghelderode, Jacques Audiberti, Georges Neveux dan generasi muda seperti Georges Schehadé, Henri Pichette dan Jean Vauthier, untuk menyebut beberapa eksponen penting. Bahkan lebih sukar lagi untuk menarik suatu garis batas, karena kedua pendekatan tersebut saling tumpang tindih. `Garda depan puitik’ bersandar pada fantasi dan realitas mimpi sebagaimana halnya Teater Absurd. Teater ini juga mengabaikan dalil-dalil tradisional maupun kesatuan dasar dan konsistensi setiap tokoh serta adanya alur. Kendati begitu, pada dasarnya `garda depan puitik’ merepresentasikan suasana batin yang berbeda; lebih liris dan kurang kejam dan aneh. Yang lebih penting lagi adalah perbedaan sikap terhadap bahasa: `garda depan puitik’ lebih banyak bersandar pada tuturan `puitik’ sadar; mengilhami naskah dengan puisi-puisi efek, citraan-citraan yang dibangun dari segudang asosiasi verbal.
Di lain pihak, Teater Absurd cenderung mengarah pada devaluasi (penurunan nilai) radikal bahasa, menuju sebuah puisi yang muncul dari citraan-citraan konkret dan diobyektifikasi dari panggung itu sendiri. Unsur bahasa masih memainkan peranan penting dalam konsep ini, namun yang terjadi di atas panggung mentransedenkan, dan juga kerap berkontradiksi, kata-kata yang diucapkan tokoh-tokohnya. The Chairs (Kereta Kencana) karya Ionesco misalnya, muatan puitik dari sebuah naskah yang sangat puitis tidak terletak pada kata-kata biasa yang diucapkan, tetapi pada kenyataan bahwa kata-kata itu diucapkan kepada kursi-kursi yang jumlahnya makin banyak.
Dengan demikian, Teater Absurd merupakan bagian dari gerakan `anti-literer’ pada jaman kita, yang telah menemukan ekspresinya dalam lukisan abstrak, dengan penolakannya pada unsur-unsur `literer’ lukisan; atau dalam `novel baru’ Prancis, dengan kebergantungannya pada deskripsi benda dan penolakannya terhadap empati dan antrofomisme. Seperti halnya gerakan-gerakan tersebut maupun berbagai macam usaha untuk menciptakan bentuk-bentuk ekspresi baru dalam berbagai bidang seni, maka bukanlah kebetulan jika Teater Absurd berpusat di Paris.
Ini tidak berarti bahwa Teater Absurd pada hakikatnya Prancis. Secara umum Teater Absurd didasarkan pada rentang tradisi kuno Barat, dan benih-benihnya ada di Inggris, Spanyol, Italia, Jerman, Swiss, Eropa Timur dan Amerika Serikat maupun Prancis sendiri. Lebih dari pada itu, para praktisinya yang terkemuka yang tinggal di Paris dan menulis dalam bahasa Prancis bukanlah orang-orang Prancis.
Sebagai rumahnya gerakan modern, Paris merupakan sebuah pusat intersional, bukan hanya Prancis: Paris berfungsi sebagai magnet yang menjadi daya tarik bagi para seniman dari berbagai penjuru bangsa yang ingin mencari kebebasan berkarya dan menjalani kehidupan non konformis yang tidak terganggu dengan keharusan melongok apakah tetangganya akan terkejut. Inilah rahasia Paris sebagai ibukota para individualis dunia: di sinilah tempatnya dunia kafe dan hotel-hotel kecil yang memungkinkan untuk hidup santai dan tanpa gangguan.
Itulah sebabnya seorang kosmopolitan yang asal usulnya tidak jelas seperti Apollinaire; orang Spanyol seperti Picasso atau Juan Gris; orang Rusia seperti Kadinsky dan Chagall; orang Rumania seperti Tzara dan Brancusi; orang Amerika seperti Gertrude Stein, Hemingway dan E.E. Cummings; orang Irlandia seperti Joyce; dan banyak lagi yang lain dari berbagai penjuru dunia, bisa datang ke Paris dan membentuk gerakan modern dalam dunia sastra dan seni. Teater Absurd lahir dari tradisi yang sama dan dikembangkan dari akar yang sama. Orang-orang seperti sang Irlandia Samuel Beckett; seorang Rumania seperti Eugène Ionesco; seorang Rusia asal Armenia, Arthur Adamov, tidak hanya menemukan atmosfir kebebasan bereksperimen di Paris, tetapi juga mendapat berbagai kesempatan untuk mementaskan karya mereka.
Standar pementasan dan produksi di teater-teater kecil Paris seringkali dikritik sebagai sembrono dan asal-asalan. Mungkin kadang memang demikian kenyataannya. Namun kenyataannya tidak banyak tempat di dunia ini dimana banyak orang-orang teater hebat yang suka berpetualang dan cukup cerdas untuk mengerjakan karya eksperimental para penulis naskah baru dan membantu mereka menguasai suatu teknik panggung – dari Lugné-Poë, Copeau dan Dullin, sampai Jean-Louis Barrault, Jean Vilar, Roger Blin, Nicolas Battaile, Jacques Mauclair, Sylvian Dhomme, Jean-Marie Serrau dan masih banyak lagi yang namanya terkait dengan kebangkitan teater kontemporer.
Yang tidak kalah pentingnya adalah bahwa Paris juga merupakan tempat publik teater yang cerdas, yang bersikap reseptif, serius dan mampu menyerap gagasan-gagasan baru. Ini tidak berarti bahwa pementasan pertama sejumlah perwujudan mengejutkan dari Teater Absurd tidak mendapat demonstrasi yang memusuhi atau bahkan, pada awalnya tak ada penonton. Persoalannya adalah bahwa skandal-skandal tersebut merupakan ekspersi kepedulian dan perhatian, bahkan gedung-gedung kosong itu dihadiri sedikit orang yang antusias yang cukup untuk menjadi juru bicara yang kuat dan efektif atas kelebihan eksperimen-eksperimen orisinil yang telah mereka saksikan.
Sekalipun demikian, kendati ada situasi-situasi pendukung tersebut, yang menjadi bawaan iklim budaya Paris, keberhasilan Teater Absurd, yang dicapai dalam waktu singkat, tetap merupakan salah satu aspek paling mengejutkan dari fenomena ini. Drama-drama itu begitu aneh dan membingungkan, jelas tanpa daya tarik tradisional teater konvensional, selama kurang dari satu dasawarsa sudah dipentaskan di seluruh dunia, dari Finlandia sampai Jepang, dari Norwegia sampai Argentina, dan tentunya juga merangsang penciptaan banyak karya dengan konvensi serupa, dengan sendirinya merupakan ujian yang ampuh dan benar-benar empiris akan pentingnya Teater Absurd.
Kajian atas fenomena ini sebagai sastra, sebagai teknik pementasan maupun sebagai manifestasi pemikiran pada jamannya haruslah berasal dari pengamatan atas karya-karya itu sendiri. Hanya dengan itu, karya-karya tersebut dapat dipandang sebagai bagian dari sebuah tradisi kuno yang pada saat-saat tertentu sudah tenggelam tapi bisa dilacak kembali. Hanya sesudah gerakan masa kini diletakkan dalam konteks historisnya, maka bisa dilakukan suatu usaha untuk menilai maknanya dan memantapkan arti pentingnya maupun peranan yang harus dimainkan dalam pola pemikiran kontemporer.
Khalayak yang terkondisi pada suatu konvensi berterima cenderung menerima dampak berbagai pengalaman artistik melalui saringan standar-standar kritis dari harapan-harapan maupun ketentuan-ketentuan yang sudah dibangun sebelumnya, yang merupakan akibat alami pembelajaran selera maupun daya persepsi. Kerangka-kerangka nilai ini, yang ternyata begitu efisien, hanya melahirkan hasil-hasil yang membingungkan ketika dihadapkan pada sebuah konvensi yang sama sekali baru dan revolusioner – tarik ulur terjadi antara kesan yang mau tak mau sudah diterima dengan pra konsepsi kritis yang jelas mengabaikan kemungkinan bahwa kemungkinan semacam itu bisa dirasakan. Maka dari itu, badai frustasi dan kejengkelan selalu saja ditimbulkan oleh karya-karya dalam konvensi baru.
Tujuan buku ini adalah untuk memberikan sebuah kerangka acuan yang akan menunjukkan karya-karya Teater Absurd dalam konvensinya sendiri sehingga relevansi dan kekuatannya bisa menjadi gamblang bagi para pembaca Waiting for Godot maupun para narapidana di penjara San Quentin.

Nine Things Your Translators Wish You Knew

2008-04-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

By Rachel A. Davis
If you’re a technical writer with more than, oh, say, forty-five minutes of experience in writing for international audiences, you’ve likely encountered
the frustrations and challenges that often come with multi-language translation. So what are the secrets to
a stress-free and productive translation experience? How can you make sure that you’re getting the best value for your money, while ensuring that misunderstandings and schedule delays are kept at bay?
To find out, I asked Kristin Constantineau and Cyle Hajek, directors at International Language Services (ILS),a multi-language translation and localization
firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kristin and Cyle have over fourteen years of combined translation experience,
and they know how to smooth the process. Here are the top nine things they want you to know before you submit
your next translation project :
1. Keep translations in mind throughout your writing
process. Writing with translation in mind is more than knowing which languages you’ll support. It means paying attention to all those nuances and often overlooked
details of writing that vary from culture to culture. Use the following guidelines to ensure a translation friendly writing style.
Don’ts:
• Avoid making unnecessary culture or location-specific references. Time zones, units of measure, and national
holidays are particularly troublesome. Sports analogies should be strictly avoided.
• Avoid jargon and clichés. For international readers, these are ambiguous and confusing at best, meaningless
and baffling at worst.
• Avoid references to fiction or myth, which are unlikely to be understood outside their country of origin.
• Don’t include complex similes and metaphors, no matter how clever they might be in English! Chances are, your wit won’t translate across cultures.
• If possible, avoid the use of homographs (words that have the same spelling but different meanings or
pronunciations). These words can cause problems for writers, translators, and readers alike!
• Avoid using excessive noun strings. The nature of technical writing lends itself easily to cumbersome strings of nouns and their descriptors. It’s hard
to avoid. Keep in mind, though, that if it’s potentially confusing in English, it’s probably doubly confusing when translated.
Do’s:
• Use short, concise, and complete sentences. Simple sentences are easier to translate and understand.
• Use a formal tone. Maintaining a formal writing style offers a sense of respect and credibility for both domestic and international readers.
• Locate phrases next to the words they modify. This simple step will save your audience lots of backtracking and rereading.
• Repeat nouns instead of referring back to them. Too many references across sentences and paragraphs can
cause confusion for even the most proficient reader.
• Leave lots of extra space in your documents to permit expansion during translation. Translated documents can
require up to 30 percent more space than their English counterparts. Keep this in mind when writing and laying
out your English text. According to Cyle Hajek, ILS’s director of quality, “Keep your writing and your layout
simple. It’s going to get bigger anyway, so don’t make it more unwieldy than it already is.”
• Keep your language simple. While you undoubtedly have an impressive vocabulary, save your more obscure
usage for the English-major types who will appreciate it. Readers of technical manuals want information as quickly and simply as possible.
• Use complete clauses or complete sentences when making lists. Incomplete sentences are often problematic when it’s time for translation.
• Hyphenate phrases or noun strings that modify other words. Using hyphens might look awkward at times, but it provides a very clear indicator of what’s being modified.
2. Leverage your translation memory with consistent
Terminology. If you want to save money and take
advantage of your translation memory, intercultural technical communication use consistent terminology throughout your manual. Better yet, use that same
terminology (wherever possible) across multiple documents as well. Leveraging your translation memory in this way will simplify the job for everyone. It’s
often easiest to create boilerplate or “standard” text in sections like Safety or Warranty. If identical features are shared across multiple product lines, meet
with all relevant project team members ahead of time to agree on a standard text for those features. This will save lots of translation time and money later.
3. Choose the right application for your documentation—and use that application properly. Let’s face it: Microsoft Word is probably not the best option for your graphics-intensive 350-page maintenance manual. But you’d be surprised at how many translation clients will submit just such a manual, complete with text-rich graphics already embedded. Most translators prefer a document with “live text”instead of one with cross-references, tags, and other predefined variables.
Some of these English-language software time-savers end up costing time and creating confusion during the
translation process.
4. Never underestimate the importance of pictures.
Effective photographs, diagrams, and illustrations can do more to create a clear understanding than even the most competent, graceful, and savvy writing. A picture really is worth a thousand words (and thousands of dollars in translation costs!). An important note here: It’s usually best to avoid embedding text within your graphics, so the graphics don’t require additional updates. Instead, use text boxes outside of graphics
5 . Understand the difference between translating for
publication and translating for information. According to the American Translators Association (ATA), there’s a significant difference between translating “for publication” and “for information.” Translating for information means providing a technically accurate but unpolished translation that’s “good enough to understand.” In a “for information” translation, the finer details of good writing (smooth transitions between ideas, consistent terminology, correct word order, etc.) will probably be sacrificed for speed and cost-effectiveness. In translating for publication, however, grammar and style are critical elements, along with technical accuracy. Creating a “smooth” and polished final product is the goal of “for publication” translations, which are usually preferred when customers see the final product.
6.Finalize your text before having it translated. Changing your text after translation is under way will affect your cost and schedule. By ensuring that the text is final before handing it off, you’ll save yourself lots of time and headaches. Of course, it’s not always reasonable to expect a “final, final (no, really), final” document every time. And translators
understand this. Do your best, though, to ensure that your project team signs off on a document before you submit it for translation. If they insist upon changes
after the fact, make sure they understand the effect on time and budget
7. Talk to your translators. Don’t just throw your project over the wall to be translated and then wait a couple of weeks to get it back. Talk to your translation team. Help them understand the project’s goals, priorities, and potential pitfalls. Explain areas of text that were particularly challenging to write; they’ll likely be challenging to translate as well. Discuss your company’s needs, or any unique concerns you have about the project. Also critical? Make sure your translators understand your audience. You wouldn’t write for retiring medical professionals
in the same way you’d write for young skateboarding enthusiasts, and neither should your translators.Make sure your translators understand the readers for whom they’re writing.
8. Ask lots of questions while you’re writing.
As a technical writer, it’s your responsibility to provide clear and concise instructions for your readers. This means putting yourself in their shoes—even if those shoes are on a different continent! Ask lots of questions as you write: Could your text be interpreted in another way? Are you using simple sentences and clear language? Have you used any culturally biased language? Is the text appropriate for its intended audience and media? Your translators will
probably be glad to help you make your writing translation-friendly: you’ll become a better client for them, and their job will be easier in the long run.
9. Respect foreign-language typographical conventions.
The ATA often laments the number of translation clients who feel compelled to “adjust” foreign-language typography to bring it into line with English standards. They point out the following often-abused typographical conventions:
• French requires a space between a word and the colon that follows.
• French uses « and » for quotation marks.
• In German, nouns require capital letters.
• In Spanish and French, neither months nor days of the week require an initial capital.
• Ignoring the pesky and seemingly minor details of accents, umlauts, and ordinals can mean the difference between year (aٌo) and anus (ano). Following these nine rules will mean a better writing process for you, a quicker and more efficient production process for your translators, and a more enjoyable experience for your readers. Happy translating!
Rachel Davis, a member of the Twin Cities
Chapter STC, is a freelance writer in Minneapolis
and owner of Red Dog Writing Services (http://www.reddogwriting.com). She specializes in nonfiction writing, with an acute interest in technical and historical subject matter. She can be reached at rachel@reddogwriting.com

"I love you" in Various Languages

2008-03-28T05:56:00.002-07:00

"I love you" in Various Languages

Afrikaans : Ek is lief vir jou
: Ek het jou lief
Albanian : Te dua
: Te dashuroj
: Ti je zemra ime
Alsacien (Elsass) : Ich hoan dich gear
Amharic (Aethio.) : Afekrishalehou
: Afekrischalehou
Amharic (Ethiopian) : Ewedishalehu (male/female to female)
: Ewedihalehu (male/female to male)
American Sign Language : __
: __ ( )
: ( ) |__|
: |__| __ __ | |
: | |( )( )|__| __
: |__||__||__|| | / )
: | (__)(__) | / /
: | |/ /
: | / /
: \ /
Apache : Sheth she~n zho~n (nasalized vowels like French,
'~n' as in French 'salon')
Arabic (formal) : Ohiboke (male to female)
: Ohiboki (male to female)
: Ohibokoma (male or female to two males
or two females)
: Nohiboke (more than one male or females
to female)
: Nohiboka (male to male or female to male)
: Nohibokoma (male to male or female to two
males or two females)
: Nohibokom (male to male or female to more
than two males)
: Nohibokon (male to male or female to more
than two females)
Arabic (proper) : Ooheboki (male to female)
: Ooheboka (female to male)
Arabic : Ana behibak (female to male)
: Ana behibek (male to female)
: Ahebich (male to female)
: Ahebik (female to male)
: Ana ahebik
: Ib'n hebbak
: Ana ba-heb-bak
: Bahibak (female to male)
: Bahibik (male to female)
: Benhibak (more than one male or female to male)
: Benhibik (male to male or female to female)
: Benhibkom (male to male or female to more
than one male)
: Nhebuk (spoken to someone of importance)
Arabic (Umggs.) : Ana hebbek
Armenian : Yes kez si'rumem
Ashanti/Akan/Twi : Me dor wo
Assamese : Moi tomak bhal pau
Assyrian (east dialect) : ana buyanookh (female to male)
: ana buyanaakh (male to female)
Assyrian (west dialect) : ono korekhmalokh (female to male)
: ono korekh-hamnolakh (male to female)

Bangladeschi : Ami tomake walobashi
Basque : Maite zaitut
: Nere maitea ("My love/My darling")
Bassa : Mengweswe
Batak : Holong rohangku di ho
Bemba : Ndikufuna
Bengali : Aami tomaake bhaalo baashi
: Ami tomay bhalobashi
: Ami tomake bahlobashi
Berber : Lakh tirikh
Betazed : Imzadi
Bicol : Namumutan ta ka
Binary code : 011010010010000001101100011011110111011001100101
00100000011110010110111101110101
Bolivian Quechua : Qanta munani
Bosnian : Volim te
Braille : :..:| ..:| |..-.. .::":.., :.:;
Brazilian/Portuguese : Eu te amo
/Galician : Querote
: Amo-te (pronounced "Amu'-tee")
Breton : Ho karet a ran
: Karet a ran ac'hanoc'h
: Me a gar ac'hanoc'h
: Da garet a ran
: Karet a ran ac'hanout
: Me a gar ac'hanout
Bulgarian : Obicham te
: As te obeicham
: As te obicham
: Obozhavam te ("I love you very much")
Burmese : Chit pa de

Cajun : Mi aime jou
Cambodian : Kh_nhaum soro_lahn nhee_ah
: Bon sro lanh oon
Canadian French : Ch't'aime
: Ch'trip su' toe' ("I'm crazy for you")
: J'capote su' toe' ("I'm turned upside-down for you")
: Je t'aime ("I like you")
: Je t'adore ("I love you") (not really used in
a romantic or passionated way, it is mostly used
in family context, or for a pet, or a meal etc.)
Catalan : T'estimo (Catalonian)
: T'estim (Mallorcan)
: T'estime (Valencian)
: T'estim molt ("I love you a lot")
Cebuano : Gihigugma ko ikaw
Central Yup'ik : Assiramken ('r' is a voiced uvular fricative,
kind of like a German 'ch', except
voiced and pronounced a little
farther back in the mouth, nearer
to the throat)
Chaldean : Kibinakh (male to female)
: Kibanokh (female to male)
Chamoru (or Chamorro) : Hu guaiya hao
Cherokee : Aya gvgeyu'i nihi
Cheyenne : Ne mohotatse
Chichewa : Ndimakukonda
Chickasaw : Chiholloli (first 'i' nasalized)
Chinese : Gwa ai li (Amoy)
: Ngo oi nei (Cantonese)
: Wo oi nei ( " )
: Ngai oi gnee (Hakka)
: Ngai on ni ( " )
: Ai oi ngee ( " )
: Wa ai lu (Hokkien)
: Wo ai ni (Mandarin/Putonghua)
: Ngo ai nong (Wu)
Common Eldarin : Melinje^ edje^ (I love thee)
: Melinye^ edye^ (I love thee)
Corsican : Ti tengu cara (male to female)
: Ti tengu caru (female to male)
Creol : Mi aime jou
Croatian (familiar) : Ja te volim (used in proper speech)
: Volim te (used in common speech)
Croatian (formal) : Ja vas volim (used in proper speech)
: Volim vas (used in common speech)
: Ljubim te (in todays useage, "I kiss you",
'lj' pronounced like 'll' in
Spanish, one sound, 'ly'ish)
Croatian (old) : Ljubim te (may still be found in poetry)
Czech : Miluji te (a downwards pointing arrowhead
on top of the 'e' in te, which is
pronounced 'ye')
: Miluju te! (colloquial form)
: Ma'm te (velmi) ra'd (male speaker, "I like
you (very much)", often
used and prefered)
: Ma'm te (velmi) ra'da (female speaker)

Danish : Jeg elsker dig
Dhivehi : Varrah loabi vey
: Aharen, kalaa-dheke loabi-vameve (I love you)
: Aharen, kalaa-dheke varahh loabi-vameve
(I love you very much)
Dusun : Siuhang oku dia
Dutch : Ik hou van je
: Ik hou van jou
: Ik bemin je (old fashioned)
: Ik bemin jou ( " )
: Ik heb je lief ( " )
: Ik ben verliefd op je ("I am in love with you")
: Ik ben verliefd op jou ( " )
: Ik houd erg veel van jou ("I love you very
: Ik houd erg veel van je much")
: Ik vind je leuk ("I like you")
: Ik vind je aardig ( " )
: Ik vind je heel erg leuk ("I like you very
: Ik vind je heel aardig much")
: Ik zie je graag
: Ik mag jou wel ("I like you")
: Ik mag jou heel graag ("I like you very much")
(the last two are more superficial, thus more
suitable for male to male)

Ecuador Quechua : Canda munani
English : I love you
: I adore you
: I love thee (used only in Christian context)
Eritrean / Tigrinya : Afkireki (as said to a female)
: Afkireka (as said to a male)
Esperanto : Mi amas vin
Estonian : Mina armastan sind
: Ma armastan sind
Ethiopian : Afgreki'

Farsi (old) : Tora dust mi daram
Farsi : Tora dost daram ("I love you")
: Asheghetam
: Doostat daram ("I'm in love with you")
: Man asheghetam ("I'm in love with you")
Fijian : Au lomani iko (I love you)
: Au lomani iko vakalevu (I love you very much!)
: Au vinakati iko (I want you)
Filipino : Iniibig kita
: Mahal kita
Finnish (formal) : Mina" rakastan sinua
: Rakastan sinua
: Mina" pida"n sinusta ("I like you")
Finnish : (Ma") rakastan sua
: (Ma") tykka"a"n susta ("I like you")
French : Je t'aime ("I love you")
: Je t'adore ("I love you", stronger meaning
between lovers)
: J' t'aime bien ("I like you", meant for friends
and family, not for lovers)
French (formal) : Je vous aime

Gaelic : Ta gra agam ort
: Moo graugh hoo
Galician/Portuguese : Eu te amo
/Brazilian : Querote
Georgian : Miqvarhar (familiar)
: Me shen miqvarhar [MEh SHEN MI-(q pronounced
between k and g)-VURR-HURR]
: Miqvarharth (more respectful)
: Me thkven miqvarharth [MEh (t in breathing out)-
KVEN MI-(k/g)-VURR-HURR-(the same)]
German (formal) : Ich liebe Sie (rarely used)
German : Ich liebe dich
: Ich hab' dich lieb
: Ich hab dich lieb (not so classic and
conservative)
German dialects:
Bavarian (Bayrisch) : I moag di gern
(Bavaria/Bayern) : I mog di (right answer: "I di a")
: I lieb di
Berlin dialect : Ick liebe dir (Old, very old)
(Berlinerisch) : Ick liebe Dich
Berner-Deutsch : Ig liebe di
Bochumer : Ich lieb Dich!
Franconian (Fra"nkisch): Du gfa"llsd mer fai
(Franconia/Franken) : Bisd scho mai gouds freggerla (already in a
relationship)
: Mid dier ma"cherd ich a amol (sexually touched,
ment as a compliment, not litterally)
(the above 3 entries really mean "I like you",
a Franke would never say "I love you")
Friesian (Friesisch) : Ik hou fan dei (sp?)
: Ik hald fan dei
Hessian (Hessisch) : Isch habb disch libb
Ostfriesisch : Ick heb di leev
Saarla"ndisch : Isch hann disch lieb
Saxon (Sa"chsisch) : Isch liebdsch
Swabian (Schwa"bisch) : I mog di fei sauma"ssich (Literally "I like
you like a pig.")
: I mog di ganz arg (More formal, literally
"I like you very much!")
Swiss German : Ch'ha di ga"rn
(Schweizerdeutsch)
Vorarlberg dialect : I stand total uf di
(Vorarlbergerisch)
Gilbertese : Itangiriko (g is pronounced like "ng" in "singing")
Greek : Se agapo (spoken "s'agapo", g is lower case gamma)
: Eime eroteumenos mazi sou ("I'm in love with)
: Eime eroteumenos me 'sena (you", male to female)
: Eime eroteumeni mazi sou ("I'm in love with)
: Eime eroteumeni me 'sena (you", female to male)
: Se latrevo ("I adore you")
: Se thelo ("I want you", denotes sexual desire)
Greek (Arhea/Ancient) : Philo se
Greenlandic : Asavakit
Gronings : Ik hol van die
Guarani' : Rohiyu (ro-hai'-hyu)
Gujrati : Hoon tane pyar karoochhoon.
: Hoon tuney chaoon chhoon ('n' is nasal, not
pronounced)

Hausa : Ina sonka (female to male)
: Ina sonki (male to female)
Hawaiian : Aloha wau ia 'oe
: Aloha wau ia 'oe nui loa ("I love you very much")
(The ' mark is the "glottal stop".)
Hebrew : Anee ohev otakh (male to female)
: Anee ohevet otkha (female to male)
: Anee ohev otkha (male to male)
: Anee ohevet otakh (female to female)
('kh' pronounced like
Spanish 'j', Dutch 'g',
or similiar to French 'r')
Hindi : Mai tumase pyar karata hun (male to female)
: Mai tumase pyar karati hun (female to male)
: Mai tumse pyar karta hoon
: Mai tumse peyar karta hnu
: Mai tumse pyar karta hoo
: Mai tujhe pyaar kartha hoo
: Mae tumko peyar kia
: Main tumse pyar karta hoon
: Main tumse prem karta hoon
: Main tuze pyar karta hoon ('n' is nasal, not
pronounced)
Hopi : Nu' umi unangwa'ta
Hungarian : Szeretlek
: Te'gedet szeretlek ("It's you I love and
no one else")
: Szeretlek te'ged ("It's you I love, you know,
you", a reinforcement)
(The above two entries are never heard in
a normal context.)

Ibaloi : Pip-piyan tana
: Pipiyan ta han shili ("I like/love you
very much")
Ibo (Igbo) : A hurum gi nanya
Icelandic : Eg elska thig (pronounced 'yeg l-ska thig')
Ilocano : Ay ayating ka
Indonesian : Saya cinta padamu ('Saya', commonly used)
: Saya cinta kamu ( " )
: Saya kasih saudari ( " )
: Saja kasih saudari ( " )
: Aku tjinta padamu ('Aku', not often used)
: Aku cinta padamu ( " )
: Aku cinta kamu ( " )
Interglossa : Mi esthe philo tu
Italian : Ti amo (relationship/lover/spouse)
: Ti voglio bene (between friends)
: Ti voglio (strong sexual meaning, "I want you",
refering to other person's body)
Irish : Taim i' ngra leat
Irish/Gaelic : t'a gr'a agam dhuit

Japanese : Kimi o aishiteiru (mostly male to female but
can be used female to male)
: Aishiteiru (both male and female use this)
: Chuu shiteyo (literally "Please give me a kiss"
mostly female to male)
: Ora, omee no koto ga suki da (very informal,
male to female)
: Ore wa omae ga suki da (informal, male to
female)
: Sukiyo ("I like you.", informal,female to male)
: Watashi wa anata ga suki desu
(literally "I like YOU.", female to male)
: Watashi wa anata o hontooni aishite imasu
(formal meaning "I REALLY love you.",
female to male)
: A-i-shi-te ma-su(both male and female use this)
: Watakushi-wa anata-o aishimasu
(very formal meaning "I will love you.",
future tense, female to male)
: Suki desu (used at the first time, like for a
start, when you are not yet real lovers,
both male and female use this)
Javanese : Kulo tresno

Kankana : Laylaydek sik a
Kannada : Naanu ninnanu preethisuthene
: Naanu ninnanu mohisuthene
Kapampangang : Kaluguran daka
(or Pampangang)
Kekchi : Nacatinra
Kikongo : Mono ke zola nge (mono ke' zola nge')
Kiswahili : Nakupenda
: Nakupenda wewe
: Nakupenda malaika ("I love you, (my) angel")
Klingon : bangwI' SoH ("You are my beloved")
: qamuSHa' ("I love you")
: qamuSHa'qu' ("I love you very much")
: qaparHa' ("I like you")
: qaparHa'qu' ("I like you very much!")
(words are often unnecessary as the thought is most
often conveyed nonverbally with special growlings)
Korean : (Dangsineul) Saranghae ("I love you")
: (Dangsineul) Saranghaeyo (with a little respect)
: (Dangsineul) Saranghamnida ( " )
: Naneun dangsineul saranghamnida ( " )
: Dangsineul saranghae
: Dangsineul saranghaeyo ("I love you, dear")
: Saranghae (between lovers, spouses.
short and commonly used expression)
: Naneun dangsineul joahamnida ("I like you")
: Naneun dangsineul mucheok joahamnida
("I like you very much")
: Naneun dangsineul mucheok saranghamnida
("I love you very much")
: Naneun geu saram i joa ("I like him" or "I like her")
: Nanun geu reul saranghamnida ("I love him" or
"I love her")
: G'daereul hjanghan naemaeum aljiyo? (with a little
respect: "You know how much I love you")
: Neo'l hjanghan naemaeum alji ?
("You know how much I love you")
: Naneun neoreul saranghanda (This nuance is used
generally after you get to know him/her enough)
: Joahaeyo ("I like you")
: Saranghaeyo (more formal)
: Saranghamnida (more respectful)
: Neoreul sarang hae (male to female in casual
relationship)
: Dangshini joayo ("I like you, in a romantic way")

* '-haeyo', '-hamnida' makes the sentence more formal
and with respect. Without '-haeyo', '-hamnida',
the sentences go more casual way or between close
relatives and lovers long-time.
* Korean Vowel
a: a as in ganz in German, in sayonara in Japanese
ae: a as in air in English, ae in aehnlich,
Universitaet in German
eo: u as in sun, hunt, run in English (monothong
not a diphthong, so do not say this 'ee-ow')
eu: same sound as 'the undotted i' in Turkish (as
kirimizi sharap 'red wine'), as the 'i' in
Sichuan, Ribao, 4(si) in Mandarin Chinese.
Similar with oo as in good, put, look in
American English, u as in Fuji, sushi in
Japanese, final used '-e' as in solmente, de
nada, sorte in European Portuguese (monothong
not a diphthong, so do not say this 'ee-ow').
This vowel 'eu' sometimes turn into non-vocalic
in casual speech languages. 'Geudae' (You, Sie,
Usted,Vous) can be heard in your ear as [gdae].
* Korean Consonant
s: s as in sayonara in Japanese. s as in Hindi.
Korean fricative consonant 's' sounds more soft
than the English one. While English 's' makes
more fricative violent air stream, Korean 's'
sounds have less tension while its air stream.

Kpele : I walikana
Kurdish : Ez te hezdikhem

L33t : 1 |0\/3 U
Lao : Khoi hak jao
: Khoi mak jao lai ("I like you very much")
: Khoi hak jao lai ("I love you very much")
: Khoi mak jao (This means "I prefer you",
but is used for "I love you".)
Latin : Te amo
: Vos amo
Latin (old) : (Ego) Amo te ('Ego', for emphasis)
Latvian : Es tevi milu (pronounced 'es tevy meelu')
('i in 'milu' has a line over it,
a 'long i')
: Es milu tevi (less common)
Lebanese : Bahibak
Lingala : Nalingi yo
Lisbon lingo : Gramo-te bue', chavalinha!
Lithuanian : Tave myliu (Ta-ve mee-lyu)
: Ash mir lutavah
Lojban : Mi do prami
Luo : Aheri
Luxembourgish : Ech hun dech ga"r

Maa : Ilolenge
Macedonian : Te sakam (a little stronger than "I like you")
: Te ljubam ("I really love you")
: Jas te sakam ('j' sounds like 'y' in May)
: Pozdrav ("Greetings")
Madrid lingo : Me molas, Tronca!
Maiese : Wa wa
Malay/Indonesian : Saya cintakan kamu (grammatically correct)
: Saya cinta akan kamu(expanded version of above)
: Saya sayangkan kamu (grammatically correct)
: Saya sayang akan kamu (expanded version)
: Aku cinta pada mu (most direct translation)
: Saya cintakan awak
: Aku cinta pada kau
: Saya cinta pada mu (best, most commonly used)
: Saya sayangkan engkau ('engkau' often shortened
to 'kau', 'engkau' is informal form and should
only be used if you know the person _really_
well)
: Saya sayang pada mu
: Aku sayangkan engkau
: Aku menyintai mu
: Aku menyayangi mu
: Aku kasih pada mu
: Aku jatuh cinta pada mu
Malayalam : Ngan ninne snehikunnu
: Njan ninne premikunnu (not used in real life,
only said/sung in movies by hero to heroine)
: Njan ninne mohikyunnu (I desire you, I lust you)
Maltese : Jien inhobbok
Marathi : Maze tuzya var prem aahe
Marshallese : Yokwe yuk (sort of multi-purpose, like Aloha,
literally "Love to you, my friend")
Mikmaq : Kesalul
Mohawk : Konoronhkwa
Mokilese : Ngoah mweoku kaua
Moroccan : Kanbhik (both mean the same, but spoken)
: Kanhebek (in different cities)
Morse Code : .. ._.. ___ ..._ . _.__ ___ .._
: ___.. ___.. (Literally "88", a Morse Code
shorthand meaning "Love, hugs & kisses to you.")
: __... ...__ (Literally "73", a Morse Code
shorthand for non romantic friends
meaning "Best regards.")

Nahuatl : Ni mitz tla-zo-tla (the 'a's are "schwa"s)
Navaho : Ayor anosh'ni
Ndebele : Niyakutanda
Norwegian : Jeg elsker deg (Bokmaal)
: Eg elskar deg (Nynorsk)
Nyanja : Ninatemba

Op : Op lopveop yopuop
Oriya : Mun tumaku bhala pae ('n' is nasal and
not pronounced)
Osetian : Aez dae warzyn

Pampangang : Kaluguran daka
(or Kapampangang)
Papiamento : Mi ta stima'bo
Pig Latin : Ie ovele ouye
Polish : Kocham cie
: Kocham ciebie
: Ja cie kocham (slang, not commonly used)
Portuguese : Eu amo-te (pronounced "Eu amu'-tee")
: Estou apaixonado por ti (male to female,
"I'm in love with you", pronounced "Esto^
hapa'isho^na'duu puur ti'")
: Estou apaixonada por ti (female to male,
"I'm in love with you", pronounced "Esto^
hapa'isho^na'daa puur ti'")
: Eu adoro-te ("I adore you.")
: Tu e's o meu amor ("You are my love.")
: Eu gosto de ti ("I like you.")
: Quero-te ("I want you", understood as romantic
feelings but may have sexual tones)
: Eu desejo-te ("I desire you", may have sexual
tones)
: Eu preciso de ti ("I need you.")
: Eu quero fazer amor contigo ("I want to make
love with you.")
Portuguese lingo : Gramo-te `a brava! ("I love you very much",
literally "I love you wildly")
Pulaar : Mbe de yid ma (mbe: d: yidh ma)
(Pronounced as two words,
"Mbe deyidma". 'b' and second
'd' have bars through the stems
indicating affrication, the ':'
indicate minute pauses)
Punjabi : Main tainu pyar karna
: Mai taunu pyar karda
: Mein nu terey na^l piyaar ay (pronounced:
"meinu therei naal piya'rei", th as in bath)
' = stressed syllable
Pushto : Mung jane' (pronounced: "puxto: mu'ng jane'")
: Pa ta mayan yem

Quenya : Tye-mela'ne
: Melinyet

Raetoromanisch : Te amo
Romanian : Te iubesc
: Te ador (stronger)
Rotuman : Gou 'oaf se 'a"e
(The ' mark is the "glottal stop" as in Hawaiian.
The G is actually the "ng" sound, as in "singing".)
Russian : Ya vas lyublyu (old fashioned)
: Ya tyebya lyublyu (best)
: Ya lyublyu vas (old fashioned)
: Ya lyublyu tyebya

Saami : Mun ra'hkistan du
Samoan : Ou te alofa outou
: Ou te alofa ia te oe
: Talo'fa ia te oe ("Hello, from me to you")
Sanskrit : Tvayi snihyaami
: Mama tvayi aasaktirasti (I have love/longing in you)
Scot-Gaelic : Tha gradh agam ort
Serbian (formal) : Ja vas volim (used in proper speech)
: Volim vas (used in common speech)
: Ljubim te (in todays useage, "I kiss you",
'lj' pronounced like 'll' in
Spanish, one sound, 'ly'ish)
Serbian (familiar) : Ja te volim (used in proper speech)
: Volim te (used in common speech)
Serbian (old) : Ljubim te (may still be found in poetry)
Serbocroatian : Volim te
: Ljubim te
: Ja te volim ('j' sounds like 'y' in May)
Sesotho(Southern Sotho) : Ke a mo rata
Setswana : Dumela
Shona : Ndinokuda
Sindarin : Le melin (thee I love [like?])
Sinhala : Mama oya'ta a'darei
Sioux : Techihhila
Slovak : Lubim ta (L pronounced similarly to 'll' in Spanish)
: Mam ta rad (male to female)
: Mam ta rada (female to male)
: Milujem ta (all 't's spoken softly like 'ty')
Slovene : Ljubim te
Solresol : do-re mi-la-si do-mi
Somali : Waan ku Jecelahay
Spanish : Te amo
: Te quiero
: Te adoro ("I adore you")
: Te deseo ("I desire you")
: Me muero por ti ("You make me die")
: Tengo ansia de ti ("I crave you")
: Tengo ansias de ti ("I crave you")
: Estoy ansioso de ti ("I crave you")
: Te ansi'o ("I crave you" (only in poetry))
Sranan Tongo : Mi lobi joe
Srilankan : Mama oyata arderyi
Swahili : Nakupenda
: Naku penda (followed by the person's name)
: Ninikupenda
: Dholu'o
Swedish : Jag a"lskar dig ('dig' pronounced like 'day')
Syrian/Lebanese : Bhebbek (male to female)
: Bhebbak (female to male)

Tagalog : Mahal kita
Tahitian : Ua here au ia oe
: Ua here vau ia oe
Taiwanese : Wa I Lee
Tajik : Man turo dust medoram (literary language)
: Man tuya nagz mebenam (northern dialect)
: Bukhrmta-e (used as modern cool speak up)
Tamil : Naan unnai kadalikiren
: Nan unnai kathalikaren
: Ni yaanai kaadli karen ("You love me")
: N^an unnaki kathalikkinren ("I love you")
: Nam vi'rmberem
Telugu : Ninnu premistunnanu
: Neenu ninnu pra'mistu'nnanu
: Nenu ninnu premistunnanu
Thai (formal) : Phom rak khun (male to female)
: Phom ruk koon ( " )
: Ch'an rak khun (female to male)
: Chun ruk koon ( " )
Thai : Khao raak thoe (affectionate, sweet, loving)
Timerio : 1-80-17
Tongan : 'Ofa 'atu (I love you)
: 'Oku ou fie manako'i koe (I want to marry you)
(The ' mark is the "glottal stop" as in Hawaiian.)
Tugen : Achamin (pronounced "atshamean")
Tunisian : Ha eh bak
Turkish (formal) : Sizi seviyorum
Turkish : Seni seviyorum
: Seni begeniyorum ("I adore you")
(g has a bar on it)
: Senden ho$laniyorum (Sound of '$' is like 'sh'
in English. Must be a point under 'S'.
The 'i' must be without a point.)
Twi : Me dowapaa

Ukrainian : Ya tebe kokhayu
: Ja tebe kokhaju (real true love)
: Ja vas kokhaju
: Ja pokokhav tebe
: Ja pokokhav vas
Urdu : Main tumse muhabbat karta hoon
: Mujhe tumse mohabbat hai
: Mujge tumae mahabbat hai
: Kam prem kartahai
: Muje se mu habbat hai
: Mujhe tum se piyaar hai (pronounced:
"mujhei' Oo'm se' piya'r ha'e")
: Mujhe tum se muhabbat hai (pronounced:
"mujhe'i Oo'm se' mohub:u'th ha'e", th as
in bath)
' = stressed syllable, Oo' = o like in bold

Vai : Na lia
Vdrmldndska : Du dr gvrgo te mdg
Vietnamese : Toi yeu em
: Anh ye^u em (male to female, or older
to younger, romantic)
: Em ye^u anh (female to male, or younger
to older, romantic)
: Con thu+o+ng ba (kid to father)
: Ba thu+o+ng con (father to kid)
: Con thu+o+ng ma' (kid to mother)
: Ma' thu+o+ng con (mother to kid)
: Cha'u thu+o+ng o^ng (grandkid to grandpa)
: O^ng thu+o+ng cha'u (grandpa to grandkid)
: Ba` thu+o+ng cha'u (grandkid to grandma)
: Cha'u thu+o+ng ba` (grandma to grandkid)
: Anh thu+o+ng em (big brother to younger
sister or brother)
: Chi. thu+o+ng em (big sister to younger
sister or brother)
: Em thu+o+ng anh (younger sister/brother
to big brother)
: Em thu+o+ng chi. (younger sister/brother
to big sister)
Volapu"k : La"fob oli
Vulcan : Wani ra yana ro aisha

Walloon : Dji vos veu volti (lit. I like to see you)
: Dji vos inme (lit. I love you)
: Dji v'zinme
Welsh : Rwy'n dy gari di (most commonly used)
: Rwy'n dy garu di
: 'Rwy'n dy garu di
: Yr wyf i yn dy garu di (chwi)
: Yr wyf i yn eich caru chwi
Wolof : Da ma la nope
: Da ma la nop (da ma'lanop)

Yiddish : Ikh hob dikh lib
: Ich libe dich
: Ich han dich lib
: Kh'hob dikh lib
: Kh'ob dikh holt
: Ikh bin in dir farlibt
Yoruba : Mo Feran e
Yucatec Maya : 'in k'aatech (the love of lovers)
: In yakumech
: 'in yabitmech (the love of family, which
lovers can also feel; it
indicates more a desire to
spoil and protect the other
person)

Zazi : Ezhele hezdege (sp?)
Zulu : Mena tanda wena
: Ngiyakuthanda!
Zuni : Tom ho' ichema

Explanation of Accents
----------------------
a' -> 'a' with the acute accent (') over it, accent aigu
(ASCII code 160)
a" -> 'a' with two dots (Umlaut) (ASCII code 132)
a^ -> elongated vowel (e.g. 2 a's)
a~ -> 'a' with a tilde(~) over it
e^ -> 'e' with a carot(^) over it
e' -> 'e' with the acute accent (') over it (ASCII code 130)
n~ -> 'n' with a tilde(~) over it
o~ -> 'o' with a tilde(~) over it

Explanation of Languages
------------------------
Afrikaans -> spoken by people of Dutch heritage in South Africa
Alentejano -> An accented form of Portuguese spoken in the Alentejo
region of Portugal (the part of the country south of
the river Tagus).
Alsacien -> French/German dialect (live in France, but speak
like Germans)
Amharic -> Official language spoken in Ethiopia. Just one of
over 80 languages spoken there.
Apache -> North American Indian Nation rangeing from the plains
states to the eastern Rocky Mountains and from the
Canadian to Mexican borders
Arabic -> language spoken in the Arab countries including
but not limited to Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,
Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and
the region of Palestine.
Ashanti/Akan/Twi-> Ashanti is the most popular and predominate of
many dialects spoken in Ghana. The Ghanan language
is generally refered to as either Akan or Twi.
Assamese -> language spoken in the state of Assam, India
Bassa -> language spoken in Africa
Batak -> language spoken in the northern Sumatra province of
Indonesia
Bavarian -> language spoken in the state of Bavaria, southern
Germany (actually a German dialect)
Bemba -> language spoken in Africa
Bengali -> language spoken in the state of West Bengal, India,
as well as almost all people of Bangladesh
Betazed -> Spoken in Star Trek on planet Betazed
Bicol -> dialect spoken in the Philippines
Braille -> The alphabet represented by patterns of raised dots.
It is 'read' by touch.
Basque -> language spoken in the Basque region of Spain
Breton -> a Celtic language (as Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Scottish
Gaelic) spoken in Brittany, west of France, by about
250,000 people.
Cajun -> French dialect spoken by people who migrated from
Acadia, Canada, to the Louisiana, USA, area.
Acadia is in an Atlantic province.
Catalan -> language spoken in a region in the north-east of Spain
named Catalonia. It is also spoken in the Balearic
Islands, in Andorra and in some small villages of
Sardinia and the south of France.
Cebuano -> language spoken in Philippines near the town of Cebu
Central Yup'ik -> language spoken by the indigenous Eskimo people of
southwestern Alaska
Cherokee -> North American Indian tribe
Cheyenne -> North American Indian tribe, part of the Apache
Nation
Chichewa -> language spoken in Malawi, Central Africa
Chickasaw -> North American Indian tribe (southeastern Oklahoma)
Chinese
Amoy -> language spoken on Taiwan, an island off Fukien
Province in southeast China, and Singapore
Cantonese -> language spoken in the region around Guangzhou
including Hong Kong and also in Malaysia
Mandarin/ -> The official language of China
Putonghua litterally 'common language'
also spoken by native Chinese in Singapore and
Malaysia
Wu -> language spoken in Jiangsu Province
Common Eldarin -> the elven language where the languages Quenya and
Sindarin came from
Creol -> French dialect spoken by people from Haiti. It is
basicly French with a little English and German.
Dhivehi -> language spoken in the Maldives
and in the Minicoy Island of India
Dusun -> language spoken by the Dusun tribe, one of the largest
in North Borneo
Dutch -> language spoken in the Netherlands and the provinces
of East- and West-Flanders, Antwerp, Limburg, and
Flemmish-Brabant, Belgium
Esperanto -> The International Language. An 'artificial' language.
Farsi -> language spoken in Iran. Dialects of Farsi spoken in
Pakistan and Afghanistan. Farsi is sometimes called
Persian.
Fijian -> spoken by native Fijian people in Fiji
Franconian -> German dialect spoken by the citizens of Franken or
Franconia which is part of Bavaria in the area
around Nuremberg
French -> language spoken in France, Canada, and the provinces
of Luxembourg, Namur, Liege, Hainault, and Brabant-
Walloon(Brabant of the Walloons), Belgium
Friesian -> language spoken in northern Holland, northern
Germany, and in some parts of Denmark
(mainly west coast)
Gaelic -> language spoken in Ireland
Galician -> Galicians live in the four Spanish provinces located
along the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula,
but their language zone shades into neighboring areas
of Spain and Portugal as well. The four provinces are
A Corun~a, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra.
Georgian -> language spoken in Georgia
Gilbertese -> properly Kiribati, spoken by the Micronesians of the
Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific on the equator
Gronings -> Dutch dialect
Guarani' -> one of the two official languages in Paraguay
Gujrati -> language spoken in the state of Gujrat, India, and
Pakistan
Hakka -> Chinese dialect from Manchuria
Hausa -> language spoken in Nigeria
Hebrew -> language spoken in Israel and by Jewish people
Hindi -> language spoken in the northern states of India
Hopi -> North American Indian tribe (southwest, Arizona)
Ibaloi -> dialect spoken in the Philippines by the Igorot
natives, specifically the Ibaloi's
Ilocano -> dialect spoken in the Philippines
Interglossa -> An 'artificial' language invented by Lancelot Hogben,
circa 1940.
Kankana -> dialect spoken in the Philippines by the Igorot
natives, specifically the Kankana-ey's
Kannada -> language spoken in the state of Karnataka,
southern India
Kapampangang -> Filipino dialect
(or Pampangang)
Kekchi -> language spoken by 380,000 Mayans in Guatemala,
Belize, and El Salvador
Kikongo -> language spoken in Zaire, Africa
Klingon -> Spoken in Star Trek. Proper term for the language
is "tlhIngan Hol". The Klingon homeworld is
Qo'noS, in English it's Kronos.
Kpele -> language spoken in Africa
Lao -> language spoken in Laos and by the Laotian people
living in northern Thailand
Luo -> language spoken in Kenya
Luxembourgish -> language spoken in Luxembourg and in the border areas
in Belgium (Arlon), France (Thionville), and Germany.
A mixture of French and German, with the emphasis on
German.
Maa -> language spoken in Africa
Malayalam -> language spoken in the state of Kerala, India
Maltese -> language spoken on Malta, a small independent island
in the Mediterranean Sea south of Italy with around
400,000 inhabitants. Maltese is a mixture of Arabic
and Italian mostly.
Mandarin/ -> The official language of China
Putunghua
Marathi -> language spoken in the state of Maharastra, India
(Bombay is the capital city)
Marshallese -> language spoken on the Marshall Islands
Mikmaq -> an Indigenous people of north-eastern North America
Mohawk -> North American Indian tribe (New England, maybe one of
the Seven Nations/Iriquois?)
Mokilese -> language spoken on Mokil and Ponape (Pohnpei)
Moroccan -> language spoken in Morocco, North Africa
Morse Code -> A code using series of dots and dashes to represent
letters, numbers, and other characters. Originally
developed by Samuel Morse for use on the telegraph.
Navaho -> North American Indian tribe (southwest)
Ndebele -> language spoken in Zimbabwe
Nyanja -> language spoken in Africa
Oriya -> language spoken by people of Orissa, India
Papiamento -> language spoken on the islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire
Portuguese -> The official and regular language spoken in Portugal,
Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe,
Cape Verde, Macau, Guinea-Bissau, Goa(India), and
Galicia(Spain). Also spoken in but not the official
language of East Timor, Damao(India), and Diu(India).
It is the sixth most spoken language in the world.
Pulaar -> dialect spoken in Senegal by the Fulani people
Punjabi -> language spoken in the state of Punjab, northern India
Quechua -> language spoken by Incan Indians (South America)
Quenya -> Elvish language invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for his
books. Notably, "The Lord of the Rings".
Rotuman -> language of a Polynesian people originating from the island
of Rotuma, politically a part of Fiji, but quite different
Saami -> Language of an indigenous people living in the
Northern Scandinavian region of Lapland. Formerly
known as Laplanders or Lapps. They have several
dialects, but this is the main one, Northern Saami.
Their language is related to Finnish.
Sesotho -> language spoken in South Africa
(Southern Sotho)
Setswana -> language spoken in Botswana and South Africa
Shona -> language spoken in Zimbabwe
Sindarin -> Elvish language invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for his
books. Notably, "The Lord of the Rings".
Sinhala -> Language of the non-Tamil (majority) people of
Sri Lanka. Also spoken in Ceylon.
Sioux -> North American Indian tribe (upper midwest)
Solresol -> An artificial musical language composed of sequences
of notes on the diatonic scale (do, re, mi,...) sung
by name for comprehensibility to the tone deaf. The
7 notes could also be mapped into colors so that
writing would be a series of colored squares.
South Africa -> There are several official languages listed in the
Constitution of South Africa. They are: Afrikaans,
English, Ndebele(Sindebele, isiNdebele), saLeboa,
Sesotho, Swazi(Siswathi, siSwati), Tsonga(Xitsonga),
Setswana, Tshivenda, Venda(Tshivenda), Xhosa(isiXhosa),
Zulu(isiZulu), Sepedi.
Spanish -> Language spoken in Spain and Latin America(Mexico,
Central and South America) except Brazil. It is the
third most spoken language in the world.
Sranan Tongo -> creole language spoken in Suriname
Swabian -> One of the German dialects. The literal word 'love'
(Schwa"bisch) does not exist in this language.
Swahili -> language spoken by some indigenous tribes of East
Africa
Tagalog -> dialect spoken in the Philippines
Tajik -> language spoken in Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
It resembles Persian (Farsi).
Tamil -> language spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu, India,
and in Sri Lanka(by a low percentage of the people),
Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritus
Telugu -> language spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India
(eleventh most spoken language in the world)
Tetum -> language spoken in East Timor
Timerio -> An artificial language using only numbers. The idea
was that each language has a different word for each
concept, so if the concepts were numbered, automatic
translation would be possible.
Tugen -> language spoken predominantly or even only in Kenya.
Tugen is a subordinated tribe of the Kalinjin tribe.
Twi/Akan -> language spoken in Ghana. See also Ashanti.
Urdu -> language spoken in Pakistan and India
Vai -> language spoken in Africa
Vdrmldndska -> language spoken in the Vdrmland(Vaermland), Sweden,
region north of Lake Vdnern.The real Vdrmldndska
language is spoken to the northwest of Lake Vdnern
up to the border of Norway and in northern Vdrmland
around the town of Torsby by about 270,000 people,
90,000 of which consider it to be their mother
language. It is a mixture of Swedish and Norwegian
with some borrowed words from the many Valloonian
people who went there to work as engineers in the
mining industry during the 17th century.
Volapu"k -> An 'artificial' language invented by August Scheyler,
circa 1880.
Vulcan -> Spoken in Star Trek by Mr. Spock and others from
the planet Vulcan
Walloon -> literally Welsh(not English Welsh), a little used
French dialect with certain German influences
spoken in the provinces of Luxembourg, Namur,
Liege, Hainault, and Brabant-Walloon(Brabant of
the Walloons), Belgium
Wolof -> dialect spoken in Senegal by the Wolof people
Yoruba -> language spoken in West Africa, specifically in Nigeria
and bordering countries
Yucatec Maya -> language spoken by indigenous people of the Yucatan
peninsula in Mexico
Zazi -> Kurdic dialect
Zuni -> North American Indian tribe

=======================================================
(no guarantee for correctness though....)

Something extra:

Chinese:
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oQQQQ" QQ YQ .odQQQQQQQQQP" QQ' QQ'
QQ QQ " QQ QQ QQ QQ' QQQQQQQQb
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Hindi: (Om Shanti, Symbol of Peace and Love and Oneness)

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TRANSLATINGBIOGRAPHY

2008-03-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

TERSESAT DI RIMBA KATA
Abdul Mukhid

Ketika diberi “tugas” untuk menuliskan proses menjadi penerjemah oleh pak Sugeng, tiba-tiba saya teringat pengalaman saya waktu SD. Tidak ada hubungannya langsung memang, tapi bila saya telusuri mungkin itu bisa jadi salah satu embrio minat saya pada dunia terjemahan dan tulis menulis. Waktu itu saya duduk di kelas tiga di sebuah SD swasta di kota kecil di Kabupaten Malang. Kalau mengingat kembali saya juga sempat heran betapa di sebuah sekolah kecil semacam itu saya bisa menemukan dan membaca karya-karya sastra yang luar biasa. Salah satunya adalah “Pangeran Kecil” karya seorang penulis Prancis, St Antoine de Exuperry. Sempat pula terlintas saat itu, betapa enaknya bisa membaca karya-karya dunia lewat terjemahan. Tapi tentu saja tidak pernah terlintas di benak kanak-kanak saya untuk menjadi seorang penerjemah!
Kecintaan pada bahasa yang sudah sejak kecil ini semakin berkecambah, terutama ketika SMA. Di saat teman-teman pada bingung ingin masuk jurusan Fisika (sekarang IPA), saya mati-matian berusaha bisa masuk ke jurusan Budaya (sekarang Bahasa). Ternyata pilihan saya tidak keliru, sekalipun saya juga masih belum terlintas bayangan untuk terjun ke dunia penerjemahan. Saya masih ingat betul, sebagai tugas akhir waktu itu saya berusaha menerjemahkan bacaan-bacaan yang ada di dalam buku pelajaran bahasa Inggris ke dalam bahasa Indonesia.
Singkat cerita, saya masuk Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris IKIP Malang (Sekarang UM) pada tahun 1993. Pilihan masuk di IKIP Malang sebenarnya juga bukan untuk menjadi penerjemah. Yang terlintas di benak saya saat itu adalah bahwa saya bisa belajar teater secara informal dari para tokoh yang ada di sana. Sedangkan pertimbangan mengambil bahasa Inggris adalah keinginan untuk membaca buku-buku sastra dan humaniora pada umumnya dari sumber asli (atau minimal bukan dari terjemahan bahasa Indonesia).
Di kampus inilah saya mulai berkenalan dengan terjemahan sebagai profesi. Sekali waktu saya membantu seorang teman yang membuka biro terjemahan di kos-kosannya. Kadang saya juga dimintai tolong teman-teman sesama aktivis kampus untuk menerjemahkan tugas-tugas mereka. Namun semua itu saya lakukan sambil lalu saja. Seringkali tarif yang saya pasang pun hanya sebatas “tarif pertemanan”. Disamping itu, kadang saya juga menulis untuk koran kampus. Sebenarnya saat itu sampai setahun lulus, saya sempat bercita-cita menjadi jurnalis. Bahkan sekarang pun kadang saya masih diundang untuk mengisi workshop atau diklat jurnalistik. Kesempatan itu sebenarnya sempat datang. Seorang teman yang menjadi biro Jawa Pos Radar Banyuwangi menawarkan lowongan untuk menjadi wartawan, tapi harus siap dalam 24 jam. Ternyata nasib tidak berpihak pada saya. Karena berbagai pertimbangan (diantaranya harus mendampingi kelompok teater yang saya sutradarai ke Surabaya) mau tidak mau saya harus menolak tawaran itu.
“Satu pintu tertutup pintu lain akan terbuka,” begitu kata-kata dari sebuah film yang saya lupa judul maupun bintangnya. Benar kiranya bahwa Tuhan seringkali membuka jalan yang tidak pernah kita duga sebelumnya. Sungguh saya akui betapa pongah dan bodohnya saya yang tidak tahu cara bersyukur. Saya merasa beruntung karena ada orang yang mengingatkan saya untuk hidup secara realistis dengan tanpa menjadi pragmatis. Adalah seorang Setyono Wahyudi, yang saya kenal di penerbit IKIP, mengingatkan saya untuk menyeimbangkan kehidupan spiritual dan idealisme berkesenian saya dengan kehidupan material. Beliau menyarankan saya untuk “melamar’ menjadi penerjemah di Biro Penerjemahan Adiloka. Sebelumnya saya hanya kenal sekilas dengan pak Adiloka yang juga saya kenal di penerbit IKIP. Ternyata beliau menerima saya senang hati, bahkan saya dibimbing dengan baik dalam proses menjadi penerjemah. Tidak jarang beliau maupun keluarga beliau memberikan masukan, tidak hanya soal terjemahan tapi juga kehidupan pribadi saya. Bulan September 1999 merupakan awal terjun saya secara profesional ke dalam dunia terjemahan. Di Biro Penerjemahan Adiloka ini saya bergelut dengan berbagai macam teks akademik, dan kemudian juga menjadi jembatan untuk menerjemahkan buku.
Menjadi penerjemah ternyata memiliki berbagai macam tantangan yang bagi saya begitu memesona. Saya harus berjuang “mengakrabi” kata-kata dan “melawan” kemiskinan bahasa. Paradoks “pengintiman” dan “perlawanan” ini kadang harus diatasi menjadi sebuah dusta, terutama ketika menerjemahkan karya sastra. Kadang kita harus memilih sekian pilihan kata untuk pada akhirnya sampai pada yang kita anggap sebagai yang terbaik. Kadang kita harus menciptakannya. Kadang kita harus berdusta dengan hanya menangkap makna atau nuansanya. Namun seperti halnya seni, yang kata orang adalah dusta yang kudus, karya terjemahan pun kadang harus berkhianat untuk menunjukkan kesuciannya. Dan bukankah Bisma juga Suci? Bukankah Sinta juga suci hingga rela dibakar api? Hal semacam ini pernah saya alami ketika menerjemahkan buku Deepak Chopra (entah kenapa sampai sekarang belum diterbitkan) yang berisi puisi-puisi spiritual Rumi, Hafiz dan sejenisnya. Begitu pula ketika menerjemahkan naskah drama dan kumpulan cerpen Hemingway, The Fifth Column. Misalnya saja, apakah tidak dusta namanya kalau menerjemahkan orang Spanyol berbahasa Inggris terbata-bata, lalu saya terjemahkan seperti orang Belanda yang gagap berbahasa Indonesia . Apa juga bukan dusta menerjemahkan kata Ubermensch (dalam filsafat Nietzsche) yang dalam bahasa Inggris diterjemahkan Superman, padahal keduanya memiliki nunasa makna yang berbeda. Kalaupun akhirnya saya memilih menerjemahkannya menjadi Adimanusia, saya tetap tidak yakin kata itu benar-benar mewadahi konsep yang dikehendaki Nietzsche. Sedangkan pengalaman mengatasi kemiskinan bahasa saya alami terutama ketika menerjemahkan teks-teks filsafat. Ada kalanya kita harus menyerah untuk menghindari kerancuan pemikiran. Ketika saya menerjemahkan kata know dalam filsafat sosial, akhirnya saya harus memilah kapan kata ini bermakna,: mengenal, mengetahui, memahami dan seterusnya.
Menerjemahkan buku seringkali memberi kenikmatan tersendiri bagi saya, di luar hal-hal yang bersifat finansial. Saya merasa bahagia dan bangga dapat menerjemahkan buku Theatre of Absurd karya Martin Esslin (sekalipun sekarang naskahnya terombang-ambing nasibnya), karena saya yakin ini akan sangat bermanfaat bagi “keluarga besar saya” di dunia teater.
Akhirnya sempat juga saya berkenalan dengan penerjemahan internasional lewat internet. Dunia yang saya sangka sebelumnya sebagai rimba sunyi kata-kata ternyata mengasyikkan juga.. Perkenalan saya dengan portal-portal terjemahan di internet telah menyadarkan saya bahwa saya tidak sendirian di rimba ini. Di dalamnya saya bertemu dengan banyak “mahluk” dengan berbagai macam perangai dan “kesaktiannya”. Akhirnya saya tahu saya tidak akan pernah menyesal masuk ke rimba ini. Seperti kata Robert Frost:

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(Dari The Road Not Taken).
Malang, 4-5 Maret 2005

International Mother Language Day

2008-02-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

21 February was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. Its observance was also formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution establishing 2008 as the International Year of Languages.[1]

International Mother Language Day originated as the international recognition of Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) since 1952, when a number of Bangladeshi university students were killed by the East Pakistan police and army in Dhaka.

International Mother Language Day is observed yearly by UNESCO member states and at its headquarters to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

History
On 21 February 1952, corresponding to 8 Falgun 1359 in the Bangla calendar, a number of students campaigning for the recognition of Bangla as one of the state languages of Pakistan were killed when police fired upon them. [2]

At a public meeting on 21 March 1948, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Governor general of Pakistan, declared that Urdu will be the only language for both West and East Pakistan. The people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), whose main language is Bengali, started to protest against this.

A student meeting on 21 February called for a province-wide strike. But the government invoked Section 144 on 20 February. The student community at a meeting on the morning of 21 February agreed to continue with their protest but not to break the law of Section 144. Even then the police opened fire and killed the students.

[edit] Annual themes
The observances of International Year of Languages tend to have a theme, indicated either in the formal program set for observance at UNESCO headquarters, or more explicitly in the publicity.[3]

2000, Inaugural celebration of International Mother Language Day
2001, Second annual celebration
2003, Linguistic Diversity: 3,000 Languages in Danger (slogan: In the galaxy of languages, every word is a star)
2004, Children's learning (the observance at UNESCO included "a unique exhibition of children’s exercise books from around the world illustrating the process by which children learn and master the use of written literacy skills in the classroom"[4])
2005, Braille and Sign languages
2006, Languages and Cyberspace
2007, Multilingual education
2008, International year of Languages

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day

INTERPRETING PRACTICE

2008-02-01T01:54:00.000-08:00

THUNKEL
An Interpreting Practice

Reporter : Baiklah para pemirsa di studio maupun pemirsa budiman di rumah, pada kesempatan kali ini masih diacara yang sama dalam acara Mariah Oprah. Kami tampilkan sosok Ilmuwan peneliti purbakala yang sudah tidak asing lagi di telinga kita dia adalah Dr. JD, yang pada kesempatan ini bersama temannya yang dia temukan di hutan belantara Afrika Selatan, apa kabar Dr. JD?
Interpreter : How are you Dr. JD?
Dr. JD : I am fine, thank you
Reporter : Ngomong-ngomong siapa nama teman baru anda yah?
Interpreter : What is your friend’s name, anyway?
Dr. JD : His name is Thunkel.
Interpreter : Namanya Thunkel.
Reporter : Oh, yah. Berapa umur dia sekarang?
Interpreter : How old is he now?
Dr. JD : hullu halla O’ UU? (He speaks to Thunkel)
Thunkel : UU’ A? gelle belle walla
Dr. JD : He is twenty two years old
Interpreter : Dia berumur 22th
Reporter : Apa yang dia lakukan di hutan belantara
dan apakah dia hidup sendiri?
Interpreter : What was he doing in the jungle…and is he alone?
Dr. JD : Baa gilli buu haha whaah, glaba wick wick
wuuk wuuk. (He speaks to thunkel)
Thunkel : Haa wuu, gilli buu whaah. Haa wuu wick wick
cruck
Dr. JD : He is not alone as you think; he is a permanent residence at small ethnic group and every day he works as farmer and hunter.
Interpreter : Dia tidak sendiri hidup di belantara tapi bersama keluarganya, dia sudah menetap dalam sebuah suku kecil dan setiap harinya dia bercocok tanam dan berburu.
Reporter : Untuk Mr. Thunkel, Bagaimana pendapat anda mengenai dunia luar?
Interpreter : Mr. Thunkel, What do you think about your new world?
Dr. JD : Willi willi wuu waga bagga ha ha mbem?
Thunkel : Wagga bagga ha ha gilli buu? Whah whah, mmm
bauhh serrr bherr. Mbeeem, reeerr cut
Dr. JD : He says that “he loves this country” here everything is very different from his small group
Interpreter : Dia mengatakan bahwa kota ini menyenangkan dia suka tinggal disini dari pada disukunya
Reporter : Apakah dia sudah menikah?
Interpreter : Is he married?
Dr. JD : Gilli buu pus pus whie’?
Thunkel : Whie’ pus pus, halla whehleh-whehleh mbbem
Dr. JD : He says that he is not marriage yet. But he loves you.
Interpreter : Dia belum menikah, tapi dia katakan
kalau dia suka Anda
(Sesi tanya jawab)Impromptu
Reporter : Mungkin diantara Anda para pemirsa baik di studio maupun yang sekarang berada di rumah akan bertanya kepada Dr. JD atau Mr. Thunkel, silahkan hubungi kami di nomor 567280 untuk wilayah Jabotabek dan (021)567280 di luar Jabotabek. Baik sambil menunggu penelpon, kita kembali bertanya kepada keduanya. Apa yang membuat Anda suka tinggal dikota ini?
Interpreter : What make you like to stay in this town?
Dr. JD : Wahah huu gilli buu bee hoo he whee he?
Thunkel : Whie’- Whie’ whehleh-whehleh, cukk-cukk breem.
Dr. JD : he said that he likes the girl here they are so beautiful. Than at his ethnic group in hinterland of South Africa.

Note: everything’s written here are fictions, and for learning purpose only.
From my translation class

ON INTERPRETING

2008-01-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

LOST IN TRANSLATION
by Tanti Susilawati
tanti_susilawati@yahoo.com

I entered the small room packed with people without knowing what would hit me next, cos fools rush in where angels dread to tread. They said it would be a kind of meeting, but then it turned out to be a police investigation on a foreign witness.

As I was seated in front of those smoking interrogators, they just said two words, “Please translate” (well, of course they meant interpret), and as they expected me to dart out the words back and forth like a kind of machine, I felt as if I was being thrown into a bottomless abyss, had to grope in the dark before I gradually could get a grip and try to survive.

Most people think that translating/interpreting is just merely changing words into another language, so why bother explaining the context to the translators/interpreters? Well, they’re being cruel then, cos trying to translate/interpret without knowing the context is like trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle without looking at the big picture, or trying to knit something without having the pattern. Yes, you might have all the tools you need, but still you have to know where you’re going, what you’re aiming at—otherwise doing puzzle will be puzzling, and your half-done sweater will keep unraveling.

When it comes to translating, I take it very seriously, because, if I don’t translate faithfully, instead of being called a translator, I probably deserve more to be called a traitor. However, when you have to translate a written material, it might not be as challenging as trying to keep up with a speaker on the spot.

Once I was in a heated meeting of some medical teams, who, wanting to take over a hospital for themselves, each tried to come up with their opinion, and consequently, they spoke at the same time, leaving me flabbergasted. After I finally could seize up the situation, someone even snapped at me, thinking I was talking my own way, while I was just trying to make something clear (cos, as you know, we Indonesians sometimes find it hard to get right to the point and choose to wander around instead).

To prevent being in such situations again in my career as an interpreter, I made up my mind to always ask for the material beforehand, or being briefed of what I should be interpreting about. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s still impossible. But next time I am plunged into a without-preparation-interpreting, I will make it clear to the speaker to speak a sentence or two at a time, or three at the most, and not a big chunk of information which is almost impossible to be put into my limited memory capacity. After all, interpreters too, are human. Besides, it should be more important to them to have their message clearly communicated, than rush to finish their speech and have their information distorted or truncated unintentionally, by the poor puzzled traitor, I mean, translator.

Articles in Bahasa Indonesia

2008-01-02T04:43:00.000-08:00

KISAH PENERJEMAHAN THE FIFTH COLUMN KARYA HEMINGWAY

Pada sekitar pertengahan tahun 2003, seorang kolega penerbitan kecil dari Pasuruan, Jawa Timur menawarkan kepada saya untuk menerjemahkan buku berjudul The Fifth Column and Four Stories of Spanish Civil War karya Ernest Hemingway. Buku ini kemudian diterbitkan dengan judul The Fifth Column (Angkatan Kelima) pada bulan Agustus 2003 oleh penerbit Pedati. Sebagaimana tersirat dari judulnya, buku ini berisi sebuah naskah drama berjudul The Fifth Column dan empat buah cerita pendek karya Hemingway, yang kesemuanya berkisah atau berlatar Perang Sipil Spanyol. Konon naskah drama The Fifth Column merupakan satu-satunya naskah drama yang ditulis oleh Hemingway. Naskah ini ditulis pada tahun 1937 sewaktu dia masih menjadi koresponden untuk surat kabar the North American Alliance di Madrid. Saya tertarik untuk menerima tawaran tersebut setidaknya dengan dua alasan. Pertama, sebagai seorang teaterawan yang pernah menyutradarai dan memainkan sejumlah naskah asing, saya merasakan keingintahuan atas naskah drama satu-satunya yang ditulis oleh salah seorang maestro sastra dunia. Kedua, kesemua karya yang ada dalam buku tersebut belum pernah saya baca sebelumnya. Saya pikir ini sebuah kesempatan untuk membaca dan mengapresiasi karya-karya Hemingway. Sudah barang tentu, di luar kedua hal itu ada pertimbangan finansial juga.

PROSES PENERJEMAHAN
Secara umum proses penerjemahan karya ini dibagi tiga, yaitu pra penerjemahan, penerjemahan, dan pasca penerjemahan. Proses pra penerjemahan bisa dikata merupakan proses persiapan. Di dalamnya saya menggali kembali schemata (latar belakang pengetahuan) secuil tentang Hemingway dan karyanya. Lalu dengan bantuan internet saya mencoba menggali lebih jauh pengetahuan tentang Hemingway, terutama dalam kaitannya dengan buku tersebut. Namun hal ini tidak perlu saya lakukan dengan amat mendalam. Saya hanya mencari informasi yang saya kira akan membantu proses menerjemahkan the Fifth Column. Dalam proses persiapan ini saya juga membaca sekilas alias skimming atas buku yang hendak saya terjemahkan ini. Proses selanjutnya adalah proses penerjemahan itu sendiri, yaitu bergulat memilih dan memilah padanan dan berusaha bersentuhan sekaligus menghayati karya yang diterjemahkan. Sedangkan proses pra penerjemahan adalah memeriksa kembali padanan kata atau mencari kata-kata yang sukar diterjemahkan. Untuk kasus penerjemahan the Fifth Column, pertimbangan gaya penulisan pengarang agaknya juga perlu mendapat perhatian tersendiri. Proses ini saya lakukan sembari melakukan pemeriksaan silang (cross-check) dengan editor.

KENDALA DAN ATAU TANTANGAN PENERJEMAHAN
Secara garis besar, di luar kendala umum penerjemahan, ada dua macam kendala (atau saya lebih suka menyebutnya tantangan) dalam penerjemahan buku Hemingway ini. Kendala dan atau tantangan pertama adalah gaya menulis Hemingway yang cenderung bergaya jurnalistik. Hal ini dapat dimaklumi karena profesinya sebagai wartawan. Kadang narasinya bergaya setengah feature (karangan khas), dan kadang kita diajak seolah menjadi reporter yang menyaksikan langsung sebuah peristiwa dari dekat. Saya berkonsultasi dengan editor, apakah gaya ini dipertahankan atau saya mengubahnya dengan gaya yang `lebih komunikatif’ sebagai sebuah cerita. Editor menyarankan untuk tetap mempertahankan gaya Hemingway agar gaya itu tetap sampai kepada pembaca. Berikut ini saya berikan contoh petikan gaya jurnalistik investigatif yang amat kental dari cerpen Night Before the Battle yang saya terjemahkan menjadi Malam Sebelum Pertempuran:

….Below us a battle was being fought. You could see it spread out below you and over the hills, could smell it, could taste the dust of it…

Terjemahan:
Di bawah kami pertempuran tengah berlangsung. Kau bisa melihat pertempuran itu meluas di bawah dan juga di atas bukit, kau bisa mencium baunya, bisa merasakan debunya...

Sementara itu, tantangan kedua adalah persoalan multikulturalisme dalam naskah-naskah Hemingway ini. Di dalammnya ada orang Spanyol, Amerika, Rusia, Jerman dan lain-lain. Jika hanya menyangkut asal usul mungkin tidak akan menjadi masalah. Persoalan timbul ketika ada kaitannya dengan bahasa. Misalkan saja, meskipun menulis dalam bahasa Inggris, karena latarnya di Spanyol, Hemingway mempertahankan sapaan-sapaan umum dalam bahasa Spanyol. Sapaan-sapaan itu diantaranya Salud (Salam), Senor (Tuan), Senorita (Nona), atau kadang sapaan orang Rusia kamerad (yang satu ini mengingatkan saya pada film G 30S). Strategi penerjemahan yang saya lakukan adalah tetap mempertahankannya dalam bahasa asli sebagaimana ditulis Hemingway, tapi tentunya dengan memberikan catatan kaki. Masalahnya menjadi lebih rumit ketika saya menghadapi tokoh lokal orang Spanyol yang tidak mahir bahasa Inggris. Ini bisa dijumpai dalam naskah The Fifth Column. Untuk lebih jelasnya saya kutipkan sedikit di bawah:

ANITA. Listen good. I like you if you was sick. I like you if you dry up and be ugly. I like you if you hunchback.
PHILIP. Hunbacks are lucky.
ANITA. I like you if you unlucky hunchback. I like you if you got no money. I like you if you hunchback.

Untuk mempertahankan kesan ketidakcakapan berbahasa Inggris, maka saya tetap menggunakan struktur kalimat tokoh Anita, dan tidak membetulkannya. Mungkin akan terkesan seperti orang asing yang berbahasa Indonesia. Inilah hasil terjemahan saya:

ANITA. Dengar baik-baik. Aku suka kamu kalau kamu sakit. Aku suka kamu kalau kamu banyak bicara dan jelek. Aku suka kalau kamu bungkuk.
PHILIP. Bungkuk itu keberuntungan.
ANITA. Aku suka kalau kamu bungkuk malang. Aku suka kamu kalau kamu tidak punya uang. Kamu ingin? Aku buatkan.

Terkesan aneh memang, tapi itulah tuntutan mempertahankan gaya. Di luar kedua kendala itu, tentunya saya juga menghadapi kendala umum mencari padanan. Ya, kendala bergulat, memilah dan memilih kata. Itulah sekiranya sekelumit pengalaman saya. Oh ya, sebagai penutup menarik kiranya saya sampaikan kata-kata yang dikutip oleh penerbit sebagai kata pengantar. Mereka mengutipnya dari catatan Hemingway dalam Notes for the Next War:

….Pada jaman dahulu mereka menulis betapa manis dan terhormat orang yang mati demi negaranya. Tapi dalam perang modern, kematianmu tidak lagi manis dan terhormat. Seperti seekor anjing kau akan mati tanpa alasan yang jelas….

Salud Kamerad,

Abdul Mukhid

Service

2007-12-27T02:11:00.000-08:00

Our Services include:
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Language Pairs:
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Method of Payment

2007-12-27T02:06:00.000-08:00

I accept e-gold, moneybookers, paypal, and check.
Contact me for further information about the payment and the rate of the services to
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Articles on Translation

2007-12-26T04:49:00.000-08:00

Free Articles on Translation

So You Want to be a Translator.Reflections of a Fairly Young Translation Entrepreneur
By Edurne Alvarez December 1, 2005
About the author: Edurne Alvarez has translated from Finnish and Spanish to English since 1997. Her “home base” is in Uppsala, Sweden from where she coordinates her translation network, LINK Language Services (www.linklanguageservices.com).
Home / The How-To Library / Working as a Freelancer / How to become a translator and/or (court) interpreter
I originally began translating when working as a secretary for a tourism firm. No prior experience, no knowledge of translation. A high school education and fluent knowledge in a few languages. That is what my employer thought sufficed for translation. I did what I thought I was supposed to do. Possibly thinking that I did it fairly well. It was way before I had established my personal quality control system or used proofreaders, and before I actually knew what translating was. I don’t think I would ever want to see any of those texts today, as I would probably be mortified. I get asked a lot about the profession. Each time I attempt an answer I come up with some new aspect. I have however, come up with a few pointers that may help one to decide whether the field is for them. On the other hand, if you got this far, you’re not doing too bad. There are several great articles for beginning translators in this section, so hopefully I am able to bring in something new.Translators are writers. Contrary to popular belief, we are not machines. These days we actually need machines to help us do what we do. There are trained translators and untrained translators, some professional and some just plain crumby. There are those who feel that the only acceptable target language is the mother tongue, there are others who consider it okay to translate into their second (or even third) language. Whatever the case, translation is a creative process, and if writing is not something you enjoy doing, translation is probably not your thing. The final product reflects your writing ability at least as much as the original author’s. Translation requires an understanding of others. When you read a text to be translated, you should have some kind of idea of who your target audience is going to be. There is a difference between the language used in a speech and the language used in an article for a scientific journal. The translator’s job is to understand this difference, regardless of whether the client is or isn’t aware of this. The work that we do multiplies the number of readers of the text at hand. We all know what it feels like to read a badly written text, obviously lacking dedication from the writer. As a translator, you take the text personally. Sometimes, quality goes above profit—like when you have to consult another translator or pay for professional proofreading—and you end up on losing more than you gain. Sure, it’s unfortunate, but at the end, you will recover and at least you will be able to rest assured that you did a good job (and it won’t come back and bite you on the behind). Now that’s what I call gallant.Especially for the reason of rising quality expectations, I believe that specialization is going to be essential in the future of translation. As in so many other fields, the only way to differentiate oneself from all the others is to have your special niche, something you could be considered top in your field in, such as the mating habits of the manatee. The Internet with sites like TranslatorsCafé.com constitute the tools making it increasingly easy for clients to find just the translator they are looking for. Globalization along with the Internet has made all sorts of specialists accessible, even in the remotest areas on Earth. A good translator is inquisitive and curious. He/she enjoys reading and keeping up with the politics of the day. For in order to be able to process all the various and sundry projects that are placed before us an awareness of what’s going on in the world is indispensable, no matter how good one’s translation techniques are. In this field, being a jack-of-all-trades really does help. A healthy knowledge of different areas always provides added value to the translator’s work. My experience of translators is that they are social animals who enjoy maintaining and developing their language skills also by discussing and interacting. This also involves traveling, and not only for work assignments, but also for language maintenance. I can’t think of too many professions where an essential part of maintaining work ability involves such leisurely activities such as socializing and traveling. Generally translating as a freelancer provides a luxurious amount of freedom and flexibility that it almost makes one feel guilty. That is, if you can deal with lugging around suitcases weighed down with specialized literature and fat dictionaries much to the dismay of check-in counter workers. Sometimes, all you really need is a laptop, fast internet, and a cold refreshment. But being a translator isn’t all that all the time. The reality of it is that a lot of the time the work is grueling, thankless laboring with impossible deadlines, impatient clients and occasional bankruptcy. Often, the better you are doing as a translator the more stressful your life is. Interestingly enough, close acquaintances and even family members will still ask, after 7 years of full-time translating (and even having established your own company), what exactly it is that you do for a living and when you are thinking of “getting a real job.” So brace yourself for proofreading that takes more time than translating, and pays a lot less, extremely ill-timed computer problems, late payments. Your boyfriend’s mother surreptitiously pressing a wad of bills in your palm (for “something special”), blissfully unaware that the very same morning you have purchased a ton of posh new computer gadgets and programs.Are we the literary cowboys of the new millennium? Who knows. But being a translator—in an agency, freelancing, technical or general, Pashto or Basque—is being part of a community of creative minds, who share an amazing ability to transcend borders and make the implicit understood, everywhere. The best of luck in whatever you endeavor.

Home Sweet Home—A Mother’s Guide to a Career at Home as a Translator
By Joanna Diez March 21, 2006
About the author: Joanna Diez has a Master's Degree in Applied Linguistics and has lived and studied in living in Poland, Germany and USA. Currently an Arizona resident, translator, mom, wife and part-time writer.
Home / The How-To Library / Working as a Freelancer / Tips for Translators
In my article I will focus on important aspects of working as a translator at a home based office. This will be a short guide to this job for translators, who have children and who, realistically speaking, are mostly women and mothers. Of course, my article also refers to male work-at-home translators who are fathers, those may please replace the words mother/wife/she in the article with the words father/husband/he and vice versa—and accept my apologies, of course.
1. Setting PrioritiesWhen you are a mom, who works at home as a translator, the most important thing is setting priorities. Of course, nobody expects you to declare if your kids or your work are the most important thing for you, but it is clear that priorities tend to change depending on certain factors. When an important project from a client comes in, the rest must wait. Organizing childcare, neglecting house chores for a while and focusing on the project become more important at this time. When workflow is slow, it is more important to focus on children, home and other errands. For a freelancer who also has a second full-time job as a mother and housekeeper, workflow tends to fluctuate due to the fact that she can’t and doesn’t want to give up all of her time to advertising, marketing, bidding for new jobs etc. Therefore a realistic approach would be not counting on a major career right away as well as a load of money after a month of translating. A slowly developing, steady base of clients and setting quality before quantity is the goal to success. If you are good, they will come back. Just keep your daily set priorities in mind.
2. A Flexible Approach to Your ScheduleYou can plan ahead, but you also have to remember that all plans can end up being useless. Reasonable deadlines are key. If there is an urgent job you would not like to refuse, ensure one or two backups regarding childcare and other issues on this day or week. If one of your children is sick or has a break from school or preschool, you may want to choose to notify a couple of clients that you will not be in the office for a couple of days and refrain from bidding on or accepting new assignments. When everything comes at once and it usually does for me, try not to let anyone down. Working odd hours, serving takeout food, neglecting the house for a few days and dumping your kids once in a while on a friend or family member won’t hurt anyone. Set up a few emergency plans. It can be helpful to write them on your wall calendar—phone numbers of friends, pediatrician, leaving weekends unplanned, even marking hectic and less hectic times of day with different colors on the calendar may help. Just remember to keep your head cool. I once accepted a big yet pretty easy assignment due in a couple of days, paid a good friend—a stay-at-home-mother—to hang out with her kids at my house all day long for a week and ended up doing great—the client was happy, the kids had playmates and my friend earned a couple of dollars for watching them.
3. A Backup PlanA backup plan can involve friend like described above. It can be a daycare nearby or your husband taking a few hours off work. When you are self-employed, there are no sick days or family days. You have to come up with your own solutions and remember if you say “no” too often to clients, they will tend to disappear. So write down a couple of backup plans in case of different emergencies, not only meaning sick kids, but also a repair guy coming to fix your roof or dealing with a problem HTML file.
4. Maintaining a Professional ImageAn office at home, especially an office of a mother rarely looks like a real office. Sometimes a kitchen table pretends to be an office and a closet has clients’ files standing next to children’s books. But it is important to maintain a professional image for your clients. E-mails and faxes always need to be written on a proper letterhead, with signature and in a proper business style. It is not enough to check the e-mail and fax twice a day and there is no excuse for that. Most clients expect a prompt and professional answer to their inquiries and remember—they live in different time zones, too. You need a separate telephone and fax line for your business. Answer your phone in a professional way and keep kids’ voices in the background to a minimum—little children can be occupied in a variety of ways, usually by playing with something quiet and/or forbidden—kitchen utensils, complicated puzzles, stickers, glitter markers while older ones actually listen when you ask them to keep quiet for 10 minutes. Keep a stash of these next to your business telephone easy to reach in a crisis situation. It’s optimal to call your clients when children are out of the house, but with incoming calls, this is not always possible.
5. Options for ChildcareThere are various options for childcare depending on the number and age of your children as well as your financial situation. The start is always difficult, because you make little or no money at all, but still try to solicit new business and build a client base. Therefore the cheapest options are best at the beginning. Working while a child is at school, using a babysitting co-op or sending your kids to a relative or friend who likes to watch them for free seem like best solutions at that point. Later, when a solid client base has been established and you depend on a steady workflow, a more stable and pricey childcare solution can be applied—a sitter, an au-pair, a daycare or after school program etc. The possibilities differ depending on the area of you residence. It is recommended to take a look at all of them, write them down and decide for a couple of the best ones that fit you shortly before you start your business.
6. Stay Cool!The most important part of this multitasking job is to convince yourself that you can do it. No two days will be the same and you cannot expect it. But keep in mind: you are a flexible, strong individual who can handle hard and long days to achieve his or her goal—financial stability without leaving your children for eight hours a day in the hands of a stranger. Enjoy!

Should I Become A Translator?
By Arthur Borges July 10, 2005
About the author: Arthur Borges has been translating and interpreting since 1989 and teaching Second Language English since 1975. He is a TC administrator and moderates the French Forum at TC.
Home / The How-To Library / Working as a Freelancer / How to become a translator and/or (court) interpreter
First off, your heart alone can answer that. I can only map out a few questions and considerations for the two of you to meditate.The next few paragraphs may amount to a tall order to someone straight out of university as well as to non-grads with all the right ingredients but give yourself a break because, if you’ve gotten this far, your heart headed you here and when you really want something and start doing something about getting there, you find allies along the way, along the same way that gives you time to fill in the blanks somehow or other.Discard concern about conforming to a one-size-fits-all profile. Good translators may come in any size, shape and color: neurotic but idealistic language teachers, laid-off factory workers, ex-army commandos in from the cold, sharp disbarred lawyers, retired physicians and poetic alcoholics. We are all human. We all have both failings and the strengths that flourish from them: you are one of us to at least some extent.Next, mercilessly strangle any noble aspirations you may have of translating enough true literature in the near term to pay bills regularly: the royalties are small change unless you do dimestore novels and better literature largely goes to academics with connections, doctorates, tenures and bibliographies of Amazonian length and Pacific depth. Most translations are intended for extremely narrow readerships, e.g. user manuals for lens polishing machines, sale contracts & commercial leases, government tenders, depositions, spec sheets and things of the like. So this begs the question of how innately curious you are. Innate curiosity is easy to measure: if you see someone in his 70s walking backwards along a park path around a lawn, do you see a loony and give him wide berth or do you feel like asking him why he’s doing that? The Holy Trinity of Translation is Language Proficiency, Specialization and Writing Skills and the ideal translator is a seriously bilingual and bicultural lad or lass with several years of work experience in absolutely any one field who writes great emails and loves crosswords, anagrams and the like.Language proficiency is about feeling comfortable in two wordworlds: have you got it or are you prepared to get it by spending at least two years in a country that speaks your source language (i.e. the language you want to translate out of)? Specialization is about hands-on knowledge of anything from basketweaving and meatpacking to phased array radar technology and offshore oil services. Writing skills is about how many different ways you can express the same thought in properly spelt and punctuated sentences. But there’s more. Documents arrive in different formats: how much of Microsoft Office can you exploit? Some terms are special to an industry or even a company: how deep are you willing to dig to find the right match in the target language (your mother tongue)? A touch of masochism helps: are you deadline-drive and able to work under pressure? Being a bit of a neatness freak helps too: are you a perfectionist about layout, spelling, carriage returns, numbering, spelling, grammar and, just before you do the final SAVE, can you go through a document to remove all the extra spaces after the periods and all the extra line feeds on the last page? Yes, the spell/grammar checker will help lots, but it suggests the occasional howler too—you have to have some personal judgment now and then.Finally, translation is as much as business as hamburger retailing: how much managerial, bookkeeping, advertising and networking skill have you got? Or willing to cultivate? Some clients studiously avoid immoderate honesty: can you go after money folks owe you like a Strella locking in an MH-47 Chinook? How easy is it to browbeat you in believing your work was gibberish unfit for printing on dried but used nappies? Some clients freak out when you use terms they’re not comfortable with: are you willing to adjust your impeccable prose and wordchoices down to someone’s expectations? Some clients feel alienated and dispossessed of their ideas when they see the reflection of their thought in the mirror of a foreign language: are you open to nurturing folks beyond their any vaguely defined concerns they fret over? Most clients will cheerfully acknowledge that it’s OK for you to know their business less well than they do but get justifiably heated up when your translation reads like pure fudge: are you brave enough to commit to paper exactly what you’ve understood in plain language, flag it as a question and cheerfully appreciate the frowns, feedback and corrections? Or are you tempted to hide your ignorance behind vague, ambivalent terms and syntax?
Language ProficiencyThis is far more than speaking one language at home and another in your environment or pocketing a degree in a given second language. Not only do different folks use different words and grammars, they also think differently, their emotions respond to different stimuli and they have different moral value systems, e.g. the French read women’s liberation along a scale of values that goes from traditional to modern lifestyles while Americans read it along a scale from slavery to freedom; chrysanthemums are suitable gifts only for dead girlfriends in France; a smaller share of European women consider adultery is grounds for divorce than American women. Your immigrant parents probably taught you such distinctions only incompletely because they’ve been adjusting their native standards to the country you were all brought up in. Moreover, languages are like flesh: they are subject to the law of birth, growth, old age and death. Immigrant parents lose contact with the evolution of their native tongue by living outside their native culture: you have to go back there for at least two years to get the hang of how folks think, act, feel, talk, gesticulate and generally operate. Or you have this degree in Tibetan from the University of Hintertupfingen that didn’t teach you any of the Chinese loanwords in the terminology of ATM maintenance training in Lhasa: you have to go there for at least two years too—who knows what China will be exporting next! But the baseline is about becoming bi-cultural: learning the mindset behind the words.
SpecializationYou get these agencies that list every discipline and language they can think of and polish off both lists with “and others”. So you sit there and do a piece of dumb arithmetic: you take the 40 languages they list, multiply it by the 40 disciplines they list and infer that they have 1,600 translators. And that’s only if they do all 40 only into English: double the figure because they are implying they work both ways and serious translators only translate into their mother tongue. Start raising that figure by a few dozen powers because the ad also implies they can mix ‘n’ match any which way: like Swahili and Urdu or Greek and Samoan and this is before you factor in the specializations. In short, get really focused, ideally, by listing one foreign language, one target language and one area of expertise. Choose the area of expertise from your job history: a smart bilingual bookkeeper should be able to translate accounting, a smart factory worker should be able to do industrial user manuals. If you’ve got a degree, check with friends with family—you have convenient, readymade mentors all around you: if dad’s a psychopathologist, if mom’s a sex worker or if your spouse is anybody’s combat diver, they are walking dictionaries and encyclopedias (fields: psychology, police/legal and military respectively). They have detailed knowledge of a trade, know their trade literature and can find out who publishes their mindfood. Target their trade literature for your ads—go down to the publishers, talk to someone who can identify which issues to advertise in: some issues are far more widely read than others. Relatives and friends with expertise can also explain the fuzzy parts of any sentences you are translating, which is critical to minimizing mistranslations. You WILL make mistakes: we only murder virtual doc files but by analogy, the more patients a surgeon has killed, the higher her/his skill levels
Writing SkillsYou have to enjoy writing. You have to enjoy playing with words and figuring out the meaning and intentions behind the words: some brilliant specialists write terribly but clients and readers will be judging you by the clarity of your translation. Although the Internet and websites like Translators Café are enabling the creation of social and professional networks whose potential is still early in the curve, translation is a lonely job and it helps if you can get playful about the words you handle: can you stop and wonder why aircraft have no wing nuts? Or why they have cosmonauts, official state atheism and censorship while we have astronauts, separation of church and state, and news management? If the Hebrew original uses the word “terrorist”, does your bent of mind translate it as “freedom fighter”? If you do that, you probably just blooped big time. Or did you add quotations not found in the original: you blooped bad anyhow.
PC SkillsTranslators are keyboard warriors: you need all 10 trigger fingers. Take touchtyping lessons with a bunch of bowheads for big bucks if you have to. Documents come in different formats based on different software: pirate or buy it and learn it (buy the real thing as soon as you can for the tech support—crashes ALWAYS happen somewhere towards the end of your document on the eve of your deadline and the lost business will erase any savings you made using pirated software). You have to have reasonably state-of-the-art versions: Windows 3.0 and Word 2.0 will not do; Windows 98 and Word 97 can maybe still get by for the output (as at July 2005) but you may have problems importing documents into Word 97 that were generated under later versions of Word and the lost enrichments may cost you repeat business. You have to have, and regularly update, your anti-virus and spyware software. Though most clients won’t ask for it, you may need encryption software—all documents from any client are confidential by definition. Even a client’s name is confidential: if your combination is Hebrew to Chinese and I know your field is electronics, give me the name of a client who just commissioned a translation system for you, I can find out what the company makes, look at which China is likely to want and perhaps become able to infer that, say, Israel is selling China another advanced air defense system that will have Washington seething, causing your client’s deal to fall through. You may also need a safe: the loss or leakage of any classified material will leave you with many-many time-consuming questions to answer, sometimes by two interrogators, one nice, one nasty. They take turns and do shiftwork on you. Room and board will be free but you may not get a window or have any control over meal times, menus, air temperature, humidity, noise levels, type of music and volume, WC/shower access or even the light switch. They take away your cellphone, MP3 and gameboy too. You will not like that. But this is very unlikely to happen to you: classified material usually gets translated in-house or goes to colleagues who already have security clearances that cost tens of thousands of dollars to get.
Living With Your CATAlso relevant are CAT tools, or computer-assisted translation software. You can still survive without it for the time being but if you have it, your chances of securing commissions improve nicely. That said, increasing numbers of agencies and clients expect you to buy that software and then use it against you to pay you a lower word rate. However, once you establish your reputation on the marketplace, you become immune to such practices: nice quality is a jewel that many clients and some agencies are prepared to garnish with at least the standard rate for your language pair(s).
Business Skills & SetupYou have to know what a purchase order is: you are a light bulb and the purchase order is what operates you: when you have one, you turn ON, without one, you sit tight in the OFF position. If you have a duly completed p/o, you stand a good chance of securing payment, if not you fall prey to the mercy of your client plus that of your unpaid landlord, heartless utility companies, unfed children, wailing housepets and various bailiffs or Federal marshals—some traditionally-minded countries do not have such officers because they send you straight to debtor’s prison.Next contact a bill collection agency or smart business owner to find out the right contents of a p/o, its various forms and how to collect payment from folks with creative payment practices. You will also feel more comfortable knowing all the rules and, if necessary, making an appointment with someone who did his best to charm you into using their services.You need to do bookkeeping. You have to invoice and track payments. You have to advertise; to advertise you have to write up the ad copy and do the graphics to sex it up. You have to socialize on the Internet, join voluntary associations—many are sponsored, patronized and frequented by prominent figures with oodles of connections to paid work: 40%+ of salaried recruitment happens through personal contacts. I don’t know the figure for freelance translations but I do know that word-of-mouth will get you the clients who pay the best rates and stand the best chance of becoming loyal customers.If you are bookkeeping drives you up the wall, you can farm that out but you have to understand it anyhow, otherwise you’re leaving yourself open to all sorts of fraud and embezzlement.
IncorporationSee a smart accountant before going into business—incorporating as a physical may not be the way to go. The consultation may be expensive but it will save you more money than you can imagine ever even earning when you’re all inexperienced and scared about taking the leap.
Power & HumilityYou incarnate the skills to package content in polished form; your client has the content. Most clients realize a good product depends on an alloy of both skills. If you can’t find a term, flag it and ask. If a sentence is unclear, flag it, translate it in the plainest way you can, add an alternate translation if you have one using the NEW COMMENT function of the REVIEWING toolbar and ask the author. There is no shame in not knowing something but everybody suffers if you try to pass off fudge for real substance. Stand your ground on style as gentle-firmly as possible but bow gracefully to client choices on terminology and, even if it means a clumsier final wording, rephrase anything s/he is not comfortable with: remember that the author has to feel confident about your product.
SecretariesHire one as soon as soon as you can afford it. Have separate phones with HOLD buttons on each. You may be able to find cut-price interns from secretarial schools. They can be better than fresh graduates with translation diplomas. But talk to each. At regular points in time, ask different friends to phone your assistant, inquire about services and ask for quotes. Have them ask your assistant ask you to call them back. Then see what happens.
ReachabilityYou have to be reachable in as many different ways as possible: email, voice & fax landline, cellphones and mobile messaging. Handwritten faxes remain the most secure medium of generally available transmission today. Telephone answering machines are only for use between bedtime and breakfast; if you sleep lightly and fall back asleep easily however, spare yourself that investment. Buy an email address: Yahoo, Hotmail and even AOL are for fly-by-nighters. Choose the account name carefully: mikethespike@thunderquill.com or bubbleboobs@whoopeeword.alt will not do. Invest as much money as you can in a professionally-designed, maintained and updated website.
DeadlinesDeadlines are sacred: miss one and your market value falls to that of a monolingual kindergartener holding a freshly opened box of brand new crayons. Baby’s upset tummy that diverted you to the clinic for a whole afternoon or the broken collar bone from the morning’s football match mean the same thing: you have missed a deadline with a great excuse but just lost the customer anyhow. Agencies will invoke breach of contract and not pay: they just lost their client, right? One marketing study reports that every unsatisfied customer talks to at least 11 potential customers; another study says the 11 is 15. You may whine about their heartlessness but your name will be moaned around the office and over their professional networks. If you followed the advice to specialize, the grim news will soon start sinking in. Negotiate the longest deadline you can, but once you’ve committed to a date, honor it. Before you commit to a date, make sure you have all the assurances you need on your end to get the job done.
Help Clients Help YouAsk for background papers, glossaries, earlier editions of the same document, the purpose of the document and its context in the processes that spawned it; also inquire about intended readerships and formatting needs, e.g. pdf, doc or rtf and line numbering. Figure out your client’s personality to spot insecurities and unexpressed needs. Unless absolutely impossible, deliver your first translation in person or arrange for a personal appointment on the day of delivery when negotiating the deadline—this gives the two of you to identify problems neither of you had foreseen and to correct them on the spot. Make notes of any special needs you discover for future reference. If the client is happy when you part company, s/he is very likely to become repeat business, if only because you took a personal interest in her/him.
Free Translations‘Pro bono’ or ‘voluntary’ translations are a good way to start off. Contact your town hall and surf the Internet to identify local non-profit organizations (also called NGOs, PVOs and INGOs) that may need your services. Because they are local, you can get detailed feedback on the quality and presentation of your translations, secure job references and build up a network of professional contacts that way: all of them can connect you to paid work and they will out of gratitude sooner or later. Non-profit translation agencies are actually part of profit-driven translation agencies and they get to keep the precious contacts to paid work all to themselves—go to them only if you expect never to need to earn a living from translation. Or if you cannot use a telephone directory and PC. Moreover, you might be able to get tax breaks for free translations.
PerksThe perk is working for yourself with freedom to manage your time as you see fit, within the limits of your deadlinesThe perk is being able to live anywhere in range of the Internet. You can live in Siberia and translate for Miami or work for Hintertupfingen and live in the Himalayas.The perk is inside insight to leading-edge research, business deals, technology and whatever—and a peek at how these things are interconnecting to shape daily reality and the world around you.The perk is developing a binocular vision of the world through a deeper understanding of contrasting mindsets and value systems—the more you understand them, the more aware you become of your own.The perk is sharpening and expanding your natural curiosity.The perk is doing something you love.

The Insider’s Guide to Project Management in Translation Agencies
By Christian Arno January 26, 2006
About the author: Christian Arno is a director of Lingo24, one of the UK's leading translation agencies. With operations in seven different countries including New Zealand, Lingo deliver translation services round-the-clock to market leaders in a variety of different sectors.
Home / The How-To Library / Translation Agencies / Tips for Project Managers
Juggling Words and PeopleYou can’t please all of the people all of the time, or so the saying goes. But as any translation project manager will tell you, that’s exactly what we attempt to do on a daily basis! On the one side you’ve got clients champing at the bit for first class translation at economy class rates; and on the other side you have a team of translators being asked to produce first-rate work—often under pressure of time—and expecting fair remuneration for their efforts. Then, as if being piggy-in-the-middle between these two wasn’t hard enough, don’t forget the friendly face of the finance director peering over your shoulder, reminding you to keep costs down so that the company stays in the black (thereby keeping project managers and translators in work!). But don’t get the impression that it’s all doom, gloom and despondency. There’s a lot of humour in the translation business—and that’s before you even start reading machine translations (always good for cheering one up in times of despair...). A quick scan of the local Council website where it talks about keenly contested “geometrical angle championships” (German translation of “angling contests”) or tells you that a particular town “lies” somewhere (translated into French as “tells untruths”), will soon have you smiling, whatever the day may bring. The fact that some companies (none of our clients, thank goodness!) blithely stick up machine translations on their websites without a thought for the often hilarious results, also provide a valuable reminder about the level of understanding of the translation process which prevails (or rather doesn’t)—none of which makes a project manager’s life any easier!
Understanding the issues So what is there to understand? To the outsider, it all sounds simple enough. Client sends text to project manager; project manager sends text to translator; translator sends translation back to project manager; project manager sends translation back to client. Easy as pie! So easy, in fact, that some clients are surprised to discover that there are dictionaries (shock horror!) involved in the process. I’ve lost track of the number of times that—daring to mention that I’d like to consult a dictionary—I’ve been asked “Goodness, don’t you know all the words—I thought you spoke fluent French?” That’s just one of a number of misconceptions held by those outside the industry. Another old chestnut is the “OK, so we’ve got the document we need translated, but we don’t need to contact the translation agency until the day before we need it”… Or the Spanish document (needed by tomorrow, por favor) which purports to be “just a couple of pages” but multiplies miraculously in cyberspace to become twenty pages. Not to mention the “oh, it’s not at all technical” text which, when it eventually sneaks its way into the Project Manager’s inbox, proves to be so jam-packed with jargon that it’s difficult even to identify the source language as English... And if all the above sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a good chance you’ll also recognize the “Friday Special” syndrome—you know, that legal document which the client has pushed around his desk all week, only to produce it triumphantly at 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon. Of course it’s highly specialised, is required as soon as possible, and they want it in Kikongo (isn’t that a dance?) and Chinese. By some freak accident of the international calendar, it just so happens to be the Chinese New Year, so you know—even before picking up the phone— that finding any sort of Chinese translator over the weekend is going to be like searching for hens’ teeth. And finding one who happens to be a legal specialist to boot, is going to make the hens’ teeth search appear an easy option. Not to mention that you’ve still got a competent proof-reader to find too… Meanwhile the kindly client, disappointed that you can’t deliver by 5.30 p.m. the same day, grudgingly accepts delivery for 9 a.m. on Monday morning, though he’s finding it hard to conceal his obvious frustration that you expect him to find out which sort of Chinese he requires (“Are there really two? Well, just choose the one that you think best…”). It’s going to be a long weekend…
Beware the “simple jobs”Another phrase which starts the warning bells ringing is: “it’s just a list of words”. Of course, thanks to Trados, SDL and the likes, lists of terminology can be fairly straightforward these days— consistency is no longer an issue, and at least you don’t need to make a list “flow” as you do with text written in a more conventional style. However, where there aren’t many repetitions and virtually every term needs to be looked up individually, a “simple” list can be a fiddly and unrewarding task, taking far longer than free-flowing text and sometimes stretching the patience of even the most forbearing translator. But the most insidious type of list are “word strings”—lists of “out of context” phrases which feature the additional “bonus” challenge of character restrictions. As anyone who’s been haunted by the spectre of character restrictions can testify, translators often have to perform a series of linguistic acrobatics to render even the simplest source sentence correctly within the specified number of letters and spaces. However, try explaining to even the most understanding of clients why you need to charge more for this and you sense immediately that even the reasonable ones reckon you’re over-egging the pudding.
Colleagues you can count onOne aspect of project management which must never be underestimated is the importance of a good working relationship between project managers and translators. Of course, this is an essentially a professional relationship, but there’s no doubt that a strong camaraderie can develop after working regularly with someone, and riding the highs (euphoria of completing a job on time to a rapturous client reception) and lows (nightmare job, nightmare client and deadline of yesterday— preferably the day before) of the translation business. The fate of project managers and the translators who work with them are inextricably linked. Translators rely on project managers to deal with many of the time-consuming administrative issues, manage (sometimes unreasonable) client expectations and to handle the multifarious queries which often pop up as work progresses; whilst project managers depend on the translator to flag up any problems or queries, produce work of (near!) perfection and deliver the final translation by the appointed hour. Make no mistake: skilled translators are the lifeblood of the industry. Indeed some appear to be veritable magicians, regularly conjuring miracles out of their bag of linguistic tricks within timescales that would appear literally impossible to those not blessed with magical powers.
Errare humanum estGood old Cicero certainly knew what he was talking about when he said that “to err is human”—and unfortunately not all clients subscribe to the theory that “to forgive is divine”. Despite the best efforts of translators and checkers and the most efficient project management in the world, mistakes can and do happen—for the translation industry is no different from any other. Fortunately complaints are relatively rare, owing to the fact that most translators are consummate professionals and to the fact that all reputable agencies have translations independently proof-read. Not that that is much consolation, of course, when you have a crazed client on the phone telling you that his German counterpart’s pet hamster could have done a better job of translating a particular technical document. The plot thickens when you speak to the translator and proof-reader who’ve worked on the job, only to hear that the source text was so poor it was probably written by the hamster in the first place, and that they’ve both done their best to make a completely incomprehensible source text rather more comprehensible in the target language. This leaves the project manager with the unenviable task of “translating” this information into suitably diplomatic terms to feed back to the client! Another helpful client is the sort who informs you that the terminology used in the 10,000 word report you’ve just had translated into French for his company doesn’t really correspond with in-house style and that his French contacts prefer the one translated by another company a few months before. Not that he mentioned a dicky-bird about the existence of the previous report when you invited him courteously—before starting work on the job—to forward any useful background material…
Getting a buzz from wordsThere’s no denying that translation project management is not without its stresses, yet it can be addictive too. It’s hard not to get a rush of adrenalin when you receive a call or email out of the blue from a high profile potential client, desperately seeking a lifetime partner to cover their massive—but incredibly straightforward—translation requirements. Granted, that particular “dream” scenario doesn’t occur all too often. But when it does, it sure helps compensate for a few of those Friday Specials!
© Christian ArnoDirectorLingo24 Translation Services About Lingo24 Translation Services—Much more than a traditional translation agency, Lingo24 Translation Services provides professional language translation and other services to blue chip companies and other translation agencies throughout the world. On time, on budget, to the requisite standard - and, generally speaking, with a smile thrown in for free!

Translating Desktop Publishing Formats: Fiendish Files and Funky Formats
By Jost Oliver Zetzsche August 26, 2005
About the author: Jost Zetzsche is an ATA-certified English-to-German translator and a localization and translation consultant. He co-founded International Writers' Group on the Oregon coast and sends out a free, biweekly technical newsletter for translators (see www.internationalwriters.com/toolkit).
Home / The How-To Library / Computers and Technology / Software
Generally, DTP programs can be categorized into two groups: those created for design-oriented publications and those intended for content-oriented publications.In the first group are programs such as:
Adobe PageMaker (see www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker),
QuarkXPress (see www.quark.com), and
Adobe InDesign (see www.adobe.com/products/indesign). The second group is home to applications such as:
Adobe FrameMaker (see www.adobe.com/products/framemaker), and
the almost extinct Corel Ventura (see www.corel.com/ventura). The design-oriented programs provide superior graphic and font management and processing. Text is handled in individual and independent text boxes that can be placed anywhere in the application. They are typically closely integrated with graphic applications, and they offer advanced methods of prepress setup.While the content-heavy applications also offer good graphics and prepress management (albeit not as advanced as the design-oriented programs), their main focus is on the processing of text, which shows in the advanced TOC (Table of Contents) and index generation, cross-references, page break management (widow and orphan rules), an independent character and paragraph setup, and the ability to output documents in a huge variety of formats. The latter is increasingly done through a tight integration into SGML and XML.While any of these formats is, of course, directly translatable in its own environment—i.e., you can overwrite the text of a PageMaker file within PageMaker—you will have to save these formats to a non-compiled format (i.e., text-based format) to process them in a computer-assisted translation tool.
Content-Oriented Desktop Publishing Any of the content-oriented formats—FrameMaker or Ventura—offers a fairly painless way of saving the original compiled format in an interchange format that can be easily processed. Because the emphasis for these files is on text and not on graphics, text is represented in one flow, and can be saved in a simple "Save as" process for each file (which is typically synonymous for one chapter). The very concept of these programs is that there will be as much automation in the layout as possible. This is achieved, for instance, through fairly sophisticated widow and orphan rules so that there is only a small amount of additional pagination.In general, these programs are very well suited for translation. There is no problem with non-Western languages even in Western versions of the system (provided that your operating system supports it). The size of the files tends to be relatively small because graphics are usually linked and not inserted, and all of these programs are exceptional in the ways they publish and re-publish text in a great variety of formats, including HTML, XML, PDF, or RTF.
FrameMakerOpen the .FM file within FrameMaker and select File> Save as to save the file as a text-based .MIF file. Usually you do not have just one file but a number of files that are all organized in one .book file. To avoid the individual opening and saving of each file, you can use the well-liked MifSave (see home.comcast.net/~bruce.foster/MifSave.htm) to do this as a batch process for a whole book. (And it's totally okay to ask your client to do this for you if you do not have FrameMaker on your computer.)Once all your files are preprocessed, they are supported in any of the larger CAT tools (Trados, SDLX, Déjà Vu, Transit), most of whose representatives will tell you that their FrameMaker processing is one of their strongest features—which only goes to show that FrameMaker is a very translator-friendly format. There are two differences between the way that Trados processes these files in comparison to its competitors. In Trados you need to convert the MIF files with the so-called S-Tagger for FrameMaker into RTF files before you can translate them in either Word or TagEditor. Also, Trados creates an additional file called ancillary.rtf, which contains background information that is repeated in each file. The other tools process the MIF files directly and translate the information that Trados places into the ancillary file individually for each file.
VenturaThe process for translating Ventura files is very similar to translating FrameMaker files with the exception that you need to save the files to a Ventura-specific text format rather than a MIF format. Trados is the only CAT application that supports the Ventura format (with the help of the utility S-Tagger for Ventura)—but don't worry, there are very few translation projects in that format.
Design-Oriented Desktop Publishing Because in these formats each text block, called a story, is saved in individual text boxes from which the text has to be manually exported into an application-specific text format and re-imported if you want to process it in a translation memory program. While this is theoretically not an issue, it is super time-consuming when you have to do this for tens or even hundreds of stories in one document. This means also that even if CAT programs claim that they can process the native export format of PageMaker, Quark, or InDesign, only a few allow the batch processing of all the text fragments involved.Another time-consuming task for any of these formats is that due to text-expansion, the stories will have to be resized after translation—so you need to make sure that you take that into consideration when accepting a job or quoting for a job in any of these programs!This is not where the problems stop, though. Especially QuarkXPress and PageMaker are still very "last century" when it comes to processing multilingual text. While Unicode is a widely accepted standard and the reason why it is so easy to mix and match different writing systems on web pages and all kinds of other documents, these programs are not up to par on this. As I mentioned a few months ago, Quark has now announced that its upcoming version 7 will support Unicode, but PageMaker most likely will not because the folks at Adobe have a better choice when it comes to processing Unicode: InDesign.But let's start from the beginning and go through each of the programs and the options that they present to translate. (This may all sound very tedious if you aren't familiar or interested in this, but you'll be glad to have this information when you need it.)
InDesignAs the only one of these programs that supports Unicode, InDesign makes it possible to write in all languages, even in its English version. This may not sound too impressive, but wait until we talk about its competitors. . . . After a fairly unsuccessful version 1, InDesign really gained traction beginning with version 2. Presently you will encounter InDesign files that are created in versions 2, CS (3), or CS2 (4). To efficiently translate in InDesign you will need a program that exports all the stories (the above-mentioned text boxes) into one large file that can be processed in a computer-assisted translation tool (of course, it is possible to translate directly within InDesign, but the emphasis was on "efficient"). Trados offers little plug-ins as part of all its versions of the Workbench product that support InDesign versions 2 or CS (the plug-ins are stored under C:\Program Files\TRADOS\Txx_xx\FI\IND— follow the instructions in the help file on how to install the plug-ins). Once you have installed the plug-in and opened the InDesign file, you will see a new Trados menu with all the necessary commands to export and re-import your file. The exported text can be translated either within Trados TagEditor or any other tools that support the InDesign export format. It works like a charm, and the import, once the translation is finished, works just as well. SDLX and Star Transit (with a separate plug-in) also offer the option of translating InDesign files, but again just for versions 2 and CS. SDL is working on the development of products that support CS2 files for Trados and SDLX, but these are still in the pre-beta phase. And the only way to down-save an InDesign CS2 file is by exporting it into an InDesign-specific XML format (INX) and importing this into the CS version—for this to happen you would need both versions of InDesign which is quite costly. . . So, the best bet with InDesign CS2 for now will be the filter that is offered by ECM-Engineering (see www.ecm-engineering.de). This application allows you to export into an RTF format that is supported by Trados, Wordfast, SDLX, or Déjà Vu. Napsys (www.napsys.com) also offers (a rather expensive) filter, but they only support CS2 on the Macintosh platform.
PageMakerTo translate PageMaker files (an increasingly rare occurrence as Adobe is trying to push InDesign over PageMaker), you could either use Star Transit with a separate plug-in with support for PageMaker 6-7 or a plug-in that comes with the Trados product called Story Collector for PageMaker and supports versions 6.5 and 7. To install the Trados plug-in, open the help file under C:\Program Files\TRADOS\Txx_xx\FI\PM for further instruction. Once the plug-in is installed, open the PageMaker file in PageMaker and you'll find the command Trados Story Collector under Utilities> Plug-ins. Export all the stories into one large PageMaker-specific text file, save the original PageMaker file (important!), and translate the exported text file with TagEditor or any other application that supports the PageMaker format. The import process is virtually the same as the export and should go seamlessly. Alternatively, you can write your own macro that allows the export and re-import of all stories in and out of PageMaker. Here are some instructions: tinyurl.com/762r8.All of the above is true for Western languages and to some degree for Eastern European languages. Any of the more complex languages, however, including the bi-directional languages (Hebrew and Arabic) or the Asian double-byte languages, are flat-out not supported in the Western versions of PageMaker. Though you can purchase language-specific versions for these languages, it would make a LOT more sense to convert to InDesign and take it from there. Because InDesign and PageMaker are both Adobe products, the upgrade path is relatively easy (both in terms of purchasing a less expensive competitive upgrade version of InDesign when you already own PageMaker and in terms of converting the files).
QuarkXPressHere are a couple of reasons why I think that the prize for the Greatest Localization Stinker should easily go to Quark: I already mentioned that the English version of Quark does not support double-byte languages (which means you have to buy Korean, Chinese, and Japanese versions of Quark if you intend to work in these languages) or any bi-directional languages (Arabic and Hebrew). But even for the common FIGS (French, Italian, German, and Spanish) languages, QuarkXPress goes so far as to force you to buy the significantly more expensive Passport edition if you would like to use those spell-checkers and hyphenation rules. And if you dare to not do that, it will refuse to start if you use any default keyboard other than the English keyboard. (I grant you, it's easy to switch your default keyboard back to the English keyboard, but it sends me through the roof every time!)OK. That being said . . .Quark is the market leader in desktop publishing so it's not too surprising that there is decent support for different versions of Quark among the CAT tools. Star Transit offers a separate plug-in that supports the batch processing of the English (and Passport) versions 3-6 for both the Windows and Mac platforms; Trados offers plug-ins for versions 4.1-6 for English (and Passport) and version 4.1 for Japanese; and SDLX offers a plug-in for the English (and Passport) versions 4-6 for the Mac. All of these plug-ins were preceded by a program called CopyFlow (see www.napsys.com) which, just like these programs, allows for the batch export and import of text from Quark files. It may still be worthwhile to take a look at Napsys' website—for instance, they offer plug-ins for Asian versions for Quark that no one else does. Also, users of some programs (I know of Déjà Vu but there may be others as well) are eligible for a discount on CopyFlow products.If you have the Passport edition of Quark and only work in and out of Western and Eastern European languages, you should be pretty well set with the help of any of the tools mentioned above. If you only have the (cheaper) English version, you need to make sure to ask your client to save the file as a "Single Language" file in case he uses the Passport edition—otherwise you will not be able to open the file.For Middle Eastern languages, there are plug-ins that can be used with the English or Passport versions (www.arabicsoftware.net) so you should be able to work with those languages as well. It becomes much more hairy with the Asian double-byte languages. While the Japanese version 4.1 is supported by the Trados plug-in and several others by CopyFlow, it at least means that you have to have several versions of Quark for different languages, plug-ins, and platforms.So, again, the easiest would be to convert to InDesign, right? Well, not so fast, my friend. Don't forget that Quark has just been awarded the Greatest Localization Stinker award, and true to its form it makes it very difficult to convert to InDesign. Adobe obviously has tried to allow for a conversion from Quark documents into InDesign and has actually published a guide on how to do it at: www.adobe.com/products/indesign/conversion.html. The problem is that the only version where that is possible is Quark 4.1. Both Quark 5 and Quark 6 have proprietary formats that InDesign cannot get to. While it is possible to down-save from Quark 5 to Quark 4.1, it is not possible to go directly from Quark 6 to 4.1. Instead, you need to first save to 5 and then to 4.1. Unfortunately, hardly anyone owns version 5 because it was not a good version and even Quark lovers rejected it. Not good.So what all this ends up meaning is that translations involving Quark and Asian languages are often done without the aid of computer-assisted translation tools and, once they are done, often saved as EPS files and then placed into an English Quark file. While to the outside spectator this may look good, it isn't, because even minor changes will cause great headaches.

Articles from www.translationdirectory.com

How To Get Published: Eight Surefire Steps For Writing Success
By Andrea Rains Waggener,novelist and book author, the creator of the Novel Writing Made Easy System,U.S.A.http://www.writinghelppartnership.com/
How to get published? That’s the big money question for writers. Writing is fulfilling in and of itself, but every writer ultimately wants to learn how to get published. A lot of writers think getting published is a matter of luck. Or it’s a matter of knowing the right person. Or it’s a matter of simply being born a brilliant writer. Although all of the above will help you get published, you don’t have to have any of these things. You can LEARN how to get published. When you follow The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers, you’ll no longer wonder how to get published. You’ll BE published. Here’s The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers: 1. Create a successful writer’s mindset. To have a successful writer’s mindset, you must know where you want to go with your writing. A goal of getting published isn’t enough. You must have a laser-focused intention. Use visualization to keep that intention at the forefront of your mind. You must also take an inventory of your beliefs about writing. Any negative beliefs about writing will get in the way of your publishing success. Turn any negative beliefs to their opposite and make them positive beliefs that will serve you. Once you have your intention, which you nurture with visualization, and your positive beliefs, you’ve established a success mindset that will help you get published. 2. Develop the habit of journaling regularly. Journal writing isn’t just for memoir writers. Every serious writer MUST keep a journal. It is a tool that will improve your ability to notice the events in your world. Good writers are good observers. It is also a tool that helps you mine your emotions and thoughts. Writing is revealing. If you don’t understand yourself, your writing will seem flat and uninteresting. Get to know yourself, and you create a goldmine of emotion and thought that will make your writing rich. Creating rich prose is a key to how to get published. 3. Practice writing daily. The other way to improve your writing daily is by doing a daily practice. Writing is like playing a musical instrument. You must practice in order to improve. The easiest writing practice to do is timed writings. Choose a length of time (at least 5 minutes; more is better). Set a timer and just write. The only rule to timed writings is don’t stop for any reason. If you can’t think of anything to say, write, “I can’t think of anything to say.” But KEEP WRITING! The flow of words limbers up your creative pathways. 4. Understand your strengths and weaknesses and write to your strengths. Every writer has specific strengths and weaknesses. For example, my style is spare and direct. I wouldn’t do well as a literary fiction author. I am better suited for genre fiction and direct nonfiction. Discover what you do well as a writer and be okay with what you don’t do well. When you know yourself as a writer, you can choose the projects with which you can have the greatest success. 5. Write with feeling. Writing is all about emotion. If your writing lacks emotion, it will be flat and uninteresting. You must know your own feelings about what you’re writing, and you must also know what feeling you want to evoke in your reader. Keep these emotions in mind as you write. 6. Fill your writing with just the right details. Detail is essential to great writing, but too much detail can bury good writing under a layer of distraction that turns the writing dull. When you learn to create the perfect balance of details—just enough, but not too much, you become a writer who can easily get published. You can choose the perfect details by knowing what it is you want your reader to focus on. For example, in a scene with a man and a woman in a bar, you could focus on the details of the brawl going on behind them or you could focus on the details of their fingertips touching. If it’s an action story, you’d choose the brawl. A romance story would be better focused on the fingertips. Some writers try and describe everything in a scene in great detail. This just bogs down the writing. Choose details carefully and then describe them well. 7. Make your writing hypnotic. “Hypnotic writing” is a term created by author, Joe Vitale. It’s a wonderful term that explains how a writer must be able to write in a way that grabs and holds a reader. You must have the ability to mesmerize your reader. You create hypnotic writing with the use of short phrases, the use of rhythm, and pacing. You also create it with perfect word choice and a constant awareness that your writing must be for the reader. Understand that the reader always has in mind as he or she reads, “What’s in this for me?” When you write with that awareness, you can make word choices that will make your writing hypnotic. 8. Always have a writing plan. An absolutely essential element of writing success is motivation. You must be able to stay motivated to start and finish your writing projects. Many writers fail for lack of motivation. Procrastination and writer’s block are two common writing career killers. You can avoid both procrastination and writer’s block by always having your projects planned out. Create a short term and a long term plan. List the projects you want to do this week, this month, and this year. Once you’ve created the list, get out your calendar and make a schedule for how you can complete your projects. Creative people have a tendency to resist structure, but the irony is that structure can actually enhance creativity. So be willing to structure your writing time. That’s it - The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers. These steps are not a quick-fix publishing solution. They won’t turn you into J.K. Rowling overnight. But The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers will, if you work the steps diligently, turn you into a quality writer. It is also the foundation of how to get published. About the Author: Andrea Rains Waggener, J.D., novelist and book author, is the creator of the Novel Writing Made Easy System. Her writing help includes 3 Free Reports on how to avoid common writing mistakes and how to avoid writer’s block and Weekly Writing Tips. Source: www.isnare.com Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=156255&ca=Writing

Translators' Attitude to Badly Written Texts: Freedom and Limitations

By Omar Jabak,
Binnish, Idlib, Syria

It stands to reason that translators should be responsible for and faithful to source texts. Sometimes they face badly written texts containing grammatical mistakes such as wrong choice words, misspelled words and the like. Similarly, some other poor texts are crammed with swearwords, misstated facts or misleading overgeneralizations. In such situations, the translator should interfere to improve these texts by setting right what is wrong because it is his/her ethical and professional duty to convey correct information. However, as translators must be faithful and impartial, they are not permitted, under any circumstances, to alter the content of source texts.
Professional translators should be expert linguists who know quite well the correct grammar of both the source language and the target language. Consequently, when they spot any grammatical mistakes in the source written text which they are about to translate, it becomes their ethical and professional duty to correct these mistakes. If they do not do that, they not only distort the meaning of the source text, but they also jeopardize their career in the long run. For example, if a professional translator is to translate an Arabic text into English, and there happens to be a grammatical mistake in the source text, he/she must correct it before translating the text. An invented example of this might be the following Arabic sentence dharaba arrajulu alwalada, which corresponds to the English sentence: the man hit the boy. Let us suppose that in the source Arabic sentence, there is a slight grammatical mistake in the diacritical marks or diacritics, and the Arabic sentence reads dharab arrajula alwaladu, which is equivalent in English to the boy hit the man. We notice that the meaning in both English sentences is quite the opposite. Similarly, spelling mistakes or word choice mistakes in English may completely change the meaning of a given sentence. An invented example of this type of mistake might be in the sentence: he took his usual bath, where the word bath is mistakenly used instead of path. By the same token, mistakes in the choice of words which are either synonyms or closely related words should also be spotted and corrected by the translator. Let us consider these advertisements:
Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your ass?
Doctor's office, Rome:
Specialist in women and other diseases.
(Frankie's ESOL Worksheets, Whoops!, (2005) Available: URL: http://www.geocities.com/frankie_meehan/FunnySigns.htm )
If translators overlook such errors in the source text and decide not to correct them, then they choose to part with both their ethics and professionalism.
Moreover, professional translators sometimes feel they are under moral constraints to use a refined language when they translate passages littered with swearwords or vulgar phrases. Of course, the translator realizes that the target audience or readers will be offended by hearing or seeing too many swearwords. Accordingly, he/she should reduce the number of these words into a somewhat presentable string of polished, formal equivalences that give, more or less, the same effect as the source phrases and sentences. For instance, if the translator is translating an Arabic text, and then he/she comes across some sentences full of swearwords, he/she can put these into one short sentence like the following invented sentence: the speaker here uses a lot of cusswords to show extreme anger. This manipulation on the part of the professional translator shows a greater respect for the target audience and culture. Likewise, the translator may annotate his/her translation of a source text if it includes significant dates and events not recognized as such by the target audience. An interesting example of this strategy is a piece of writing in Thinking Arabic Translation (James Dickins et al 2002, 50). The Arabic text talks about an event with dates that are recognized by most Arabs because of its significance. However, to do justice to the target text and audience, a good translator should add some explanation to his/her translation to make the text clearer. The source sentence is "walaqad harabnahu wantasara alayna, thumma harabnahu wantasarna alayhi fi 6 oktobar." (2002) The English equivalence to this sentence is: he fought and defeated us, and we fought and defeated him in 6 October. Before doing any translation, the translator can add some dates to the original text to make it more intelligible for the target audience. Eventually, he/she may say: walaqad harabnahu wantasara alayna fi (1967), thumma harabnahu wantasarna alayhi fi 6 oktobar (1973).
Another situation where the translator has to interfere to improve a badly written text is when the text presents factual errors either because of a lack of knowledge or because of an oversight. In either case, the translator must correct these errors as it is his/her duty to convey facts as they are, or else the target audience will not forget or forgive that. In this respect, Newmark (1981) observes:
When extra linguistic reality is wrong in the source text, the translator must say so. Misstatements must be either corrected or glossed. This responsibility is more important than monitoring the quality of the writing in the source-language text. (1981, 128-129)
Let us suppose that the source text contradicts a proven scientific fact, and the translator is aware of such an error. He/she should first get this error corrected before he/she embarks on his/her task. An invented example of factual errors might be as follows: no one knows for sure what the hardest natural material is, and the translator knows that this overgeneralization is scientifically untrue because diamond proves to be the hardest material. Such errors must be corrected. Another invented example might be the following: before America was discovered, there were no people living there. A good translator should not translate this sentence before questioning its historical validity and thus correcting it, unless he/she lacks both historical and professional knowledge. Whenever translators are unsure of the accuracy of the ideas expressed in a given text, they have to do a lot of research and set right what is wrong in order to convey only accurate information.
Just as there are specific situations where the translator has to amend a badly written text, there are also limits to the translator's intervention as he/she must be faithful and impartial to the original text. In this respect, translators should not aspire to improve the content of any text, omit or add anything when especially they do legal translation. Catriona Picken (1983) suggests:
At the other end of the scale, there are some types of document which require rigid translation of the original, omitting and adding nothing. Legal texts belong to this group and patents. In such cases the translator has the minimum of freedom. (1983, 93)
To conclude, it can be said that translators should correct grammatical mistakes, wrong word choices and other linguistic defects in a badly written source text. They should also polish the translation of texts which include swearwords and take note of any omission of dates or distortion of facts because it is their moral and professional duty to translate correct information. Yet, translators should not change the content of source texts no matter how they feel about it.
References
Mehan.F 2005 "Frankie's ESOL Worksheets, Whoops! That's what I meant! English Language Errors around the world", Available: URL: http://www.geocities.com/frankie_meehan/FunnySigns.htm/ (Accessed:2006,November21)
Newmark.P 1981/1988 Approaches to Translation, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall, pp128-129
Picken C 1983 The Translator's Handbook, Dorchester: Dorset Press, p 93.
London, quoted in ((newspaperالشرق الأوسط in،فكرة. September1995 6مصطفى،أمين
Dickins J et al 2002 Thinking Arabic Translation: A course in translation method: Arabic to English, Oxon: Routledge, p50

Céline’s 10 Tricky Situations Translators Might Find Themselves In and How To Get Out of Them

By Céline Graciet,Brighton, UNITED KINGDOM www.nakedtranslations.com
Being a freelance translator isn't just about having the ability to take language from one culture and turn it into another. As I allude to elsewhere in this blog, there are aspects of this career which require negotiation skills and business awareness. When you start off, for example, or have a new agency contact you promising a juicy contract, it can be tempting to bend over backwards to get the job. Experience has shown that there are a few important issues to consider before taking on a new job/client and I’ve put them together below. This is shamelessly inspired by Mark W. Lewis’s Top 10 Lies told to Naive Artists and Designers (via lifehacker) and is called Céline’s 10 Tricky Situations Translators Might Find Themselves In and How To Get Out of Them.
1. "We’ve a got a huge project coming in next week. Make sure you don't take on any work in the meantime."If you haven’t received a purchase order specifying timescales, wordcount and price, do take work in the meantime. A lot of projects get delayed and even cancelled, and you might find yourself twiddling your thumbs and regretting turning down other jobs.
2. "You need to take a free test so we can make sure we want to work with you."If you’ve got experience and credentials (nevermind references), surely this demonstrates that you are a seasoned professional who can be trusted to do a good job. If you’re a beginner, be careful. What some unscrupulous agencies might mean is "Do a section of this for free, we’ll put it together with all the other "tests" we’ve sent round and voilà! Our project is done for free". However, don’t dismiss all tests that agencies may ask you to do. I agreed to do a free test this year because the person who wanted to work with me sounded extremely professional, was offering interesting projects and didn’t haggle over rates. This has turned into a mutually beneficial work relationship. Trust your gut feeling on this one.
3. "We’ve got this 2,000 word really easy document to translate, can you deliver tomorrow?"Before agreeing to deliver a translation at a certain time, even verbally, you must have a look at it. The 2,000 words might magically turn into 20,000 words (it has happened to me) and the "really easy" prose may be full of technical jargon that only 8 years of study in space science could prepare you for.
4. "Hello, we’re agency X calling out of the blue and we’re great, can you do a translation for us?"Maybe. First of all, ask for their details and carry out a quick Internet check to make sure they actually exist. Next, use translators’ lists on payment practices to ask colleagues whether they've worked for that agency and what their feedback is. Lastly, trust your gut feeling: is the tone of the email/phone call professional? Do they mention terms? Do they give details of the project?
5. "Lower your rate for this job and we’ll give you much more work."No self-respecting professional would try and get another professional to cheapen themselves. You won’t be respected as a translator by devaluing your own work.
6. "Hi, we’ve got this 5,000 word document, but there are lots of brand names and repetitions in it, so can you not charge us for those words?"Of course, no problem. I just won’t include those words in my translation, and you can just add them yourself after delivery. Seriously, a text is an entity, and it is not practical or fair to ask a translator to not charge for certain words just because they appear more than once. We still have to type them, and they're an integral part of sentences. Besides, "can" might well appear lots of times in your document, but just because I translated it a certain way the first time I came across it doesn’t mean that it should be translated in the same way in its subsequent occurrences.
7. "Your rate is too high. We normally pay our French translator xxx."One colleague’s rates and business practices are nothing to do with me. I charge a fair rate, which allows me to live decently and stay in business. Lowering my rates might mean having to take on another job, which would impact on the quality of my translations, or stop translating altogether and chose a more lucrative career.
8. "A Purchase order? We don’t do purchase orders. Don’t you trust us?"Business relationships aren’t personal relationship and have to be regulated so that both parties agree on some basic terms. A purchase order protects the client (you’ve signed a paper specifying when and how you’ll deliver your translation) as well as the translator (you have proof that you got commissioned to do work in case of payment delays or problems).
9. "Our proofreader has been through your translation and has spotted lots of mistakes. You must do the translation again."Can you please send me the proofread translation with annotations from the proofreader? I am fairly certain I sent you a decent document and I would like to discuss any problem that arose at the proofreading stage before I accept to redo the translation.
10. "We can’t pay you because the end client hasn’t paid us yet"This is none of my business. My business relationship is with you, not the end client. If you agree that I delivered a quality translation on time, then stick to the terms of our agreement and pay.
The article was originally published at: http://www.nakedtranslations.com/en/2006/10/000689.php

QUOTES ON TRANSLATION

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What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
Jonathan Miller 1934-, British Actor, Director

As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. translation is very much like copying paintings.
Boris Pasternak 1890-1960, Russian Poet, Novelist

Translator A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.
Ezra Pound 1885-1972, American Poet

Critic Laughter translates into any language. Graffiti Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing. It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift. Harry Mathews 1930-, American

NovelistWhen one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.
John Donne 1572-1632, British Metaphysical Poet

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
John Donne 1572-1632, British Metaphysical Poet

The original is unfaithful to the translation.
Jorge Luis Borges 1899-1986, Argentinean Author Prayer is translation.

What is really best in any book is translatable -- any real insight or broad human sentiment. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist

Poetry is what is lost in translation.
Robert Frost 1875-1963, American Poet

Source Unknown Humour is the first gift to perish in a foreign language.
Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, British Novelist, Essayist

It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
Voltaire 1694-1778, French Historian, Writer

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.
Voltaire 1694-1778, French Historian, Writer

Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information -- hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.
Walter Benjamin 1982-1940, German Critic, Philosopher

In theory, only poets should translate poetry; in practice, poets are rarely good translators. They almost invariably use the foreign poem as a point of departure toward their own. A good translator moves in the opposite direction: his intended destination is a poem analogous although not identical to the original poem. He moves away from the poem only to follow it more closely. . . . The reason many poets are unable to translate poetry is not purely psychological, although egoism has a part in it, but functional: poetic translation . . . is a procedure analogous to poetic creation, but it unfolds in the opposite direction.
Octavio Paz (Mexican writer)

MY TRANSLATION PROCESS

2007-12-26T04:24:00.000-08:00

1. Skimming or Reading in order to get the general idea of the text so that we can decide what kind of text and subject, and/or genre that we will translate. Each different text will need different treatment.
2. Text Analysis in which we decide the aim of text, the purpose of writing, the orientation of the translation, and anything related to the text.
3. Data gathering in which we collect as many as information we can about the text and/or the writer we are dealing with. The source of information can be from our schemata, reading materials, audiovisual materials, online materials, and/or the client’s information.
4. Translating, the process which is in some literatures called as restructuring, that is the process of the transferring of messages and/or the meaning of the text from the SL to the TL.
5. Terminology checking, that is checking the difficult words or terms in specific subjects. It can be done by looking up the dictionaries and/or glossaries (hard copy, soft copy, online, or offline), checking on the google, and/or consulting other translators/professionals.
6. Revision which covers editing (checking the sentences, structure, and consistency), and proofreading (checking spelling).
7. Final Review that is review the result of the translation once again to avoid any mistakes.

***Abdul Mukhid****

CURRICULUM VITAE

2007-12-24T23:52:00.000-08:00

ABDUL MUKHID

Jl. Effendi 82A Kepanjen Malang 65163

East Java, Indonesia

Telp. : 628179614773

E-mail : mukhid_translator@yahoo.com

SPECIALTIES

Literature, Education, IT, Business (Human Resources, Recruitment, Organization Development, Management Information System & Finance), Social Scienced (History, Religion, Cultural Studies) and Legal.

SKILLS

Computer Skills: MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Paint Brush, Basic HTML, Acrobat Reader, WinZip.

Typing Speed and Accuracy: 60 words per minutes

Highly interpersonal and analytical skills

Good at oral and written Indonesian, English, and Javanese.

Mother Tongue: Indonesian

Good at writing skills in Indonesian and English (some of literary works have been included in Indonesian as well as English publication.

SOFTWARE: Transtool, TRADOS. Microsoft Office, Acrobat Reader etc.

EDUCATION

Graduate from English Dept. of State University of Malang, East Java, Indonesia with GPA 3.06 (4 scale system)

EMPLOYMENT

Full-time Translator of English - Indonesian v.v for 6 years for many subjects

- Translated 24Lingo Ltd., A translation agency based in Scotland.

- Proofreading for a Thai Agent

Have translated some books, e.g.:

Magic Water by Mary Murin (published by Mitra Media)

Introduction to Contemporary Social Science by Brian (published by Jendela Press and Tadarus Press, 2002)

Gender Voices by David Graddol and John Swann (Pedati Press, 2003)

Introduction to Sociolinguistics by Ralp Wardough (not yet published)

Rabrindranath Tagore: A Critical Introduction by K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar (Pedati Press 2003)

The Soul in Love by Deepak Chopra (in press)

Theatre of Absurd by Martin Esslin (still working on)

Nietsche for Beginners by Roy Jackson (Bentang Budaya, 2003)

English Teacher in Indonesian-American Friendship Foundation Malang Branch (about 5 years)

REFERENCES:

Ahmet Apak
Lessons For Life International

info@lessonsforlife.net

Ninie G. Ngasyrikin

House of Creatuve Writing

508 G Street Washington D.C.

Email: info@houseofcreativewriting.com

Lingo24 Ltd - Professional Translation Services

Email : austin@lingo24.com
Landline: +64(0)3 351 3565
Mobile : +64(0)2 1158 5200
Fax : +64(0)9 353 1680
http://www.lingo24.com

Intac Vision, Co Ltd, Bangkok Thailand

Siriphan Suwanchandee

Translation Coordinator

siriphan@intac.co.th

Remco Verheul, Translation Coordinator

House of Translation

www.houseoftranslation.com
remcov@houseoftranslation.com

Song's International Ltd

Jeff, song_intl@etang.com

Pedati Press,

M. Najib.

najib_ar@yahoo.com

ASIAL10N (THAILAND) CO., LTD.

3703 B.B. Building, 54 Sukhumvit 21 Rd.,

Klong Toey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110 Thailand

Phone: 66.2.6644326, Fax: 66.2.6644327

Sue Copas >>Lingo24 Ltd - Professional Translation Services

e. s@lingo24.com

t. +44 (0) 8707 654 646 >>t. +44 (0)207 952 7582

*Please note my new phone no. from Monday 15th August!* >>f. +44 (0) 8701 209 814

w. http://www.lingo24.com

Translation India <translationindia@gmail.com >

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Declaration as a Translator:

I, hereby, certify that I will do my job as good as I can. I will also hold the secrecy of my customer, especially for legal translation.