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Lilongyue (Offline)
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09-12-2007, 09:36 AM

In regards to the human vs. machine translation question, something to keep in mind is that you're not just learning a language, but also a culture. The two are inseperable. A machine will never be able to understand culture. MMM is also right in saying that you should study a foreign language in it's country of origin. If you apply yourself, you will learn at an extremly accelerated rate. Couldn't hurt to get some of the basics of the language in your home country, and then afterwards go to Japan. I'd tell anyone seriously interested in learning a foreign language to do it abroad.

Few words of advice about studying a foreign language abroad:
1) Get a local girlfriend, or boyfriend - this is the best way to learn a language, hands-down
2) Make sure all you friends ARE NOT other English speaking foreigners. Last semester I had classmates who spent all their time with other foreigners and never used Chinese outside of the classroom. They all flunked out.
3) USE IT! Being in the country of origin in the best opportunity to learn the language. Everywhere are people speaking it, so you can practice speaking or listening everytime you go out. The language is also written everywhere, so you can always practice reading. Despite this being true, I've met people here in China who find crazy excuses not to speak. Talk about a waste of time and money.
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09-12-2007, 09:56 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin View Post
That reminds me...
I translated a bunch of garbage disposal pamphlets for our area.
I did it for very little money, thinking it would be a good example for a sort of portfolio.

Unfortunately the office TOTALLY screwed it up. For some horrible and mysterious reason, they decided that for any part that didn`t fit perfectly in the box, they could just randomly remove words to make it fit.

*sigh*
Oh yeah...I know that feeling. I did a school pamphlet, and the school song in English was twice as long as it was in Japanese...so the principal cut it in half.

Thinking about pamphlets:

Trying to fit 18-letter-words into 3-kanji-boxes is a real toughie!~
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09-12-2007, 10:35 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM View Post
Oh yeah...I know that feeling. I did a school pamphlet, and the school song in English was twice as long as it was in Japanese...so the principal cut it in half.

Thinking about pamphlets:

Trying to fit 18-letter-words into 3-kanji-boxes is a real toughie!~
What made it worse is that I worked with them up until the very end of it - if it didn`t fit, we worked on making it fit, and we`d gotten everything nice and lined up, etc.

And then someone comes along and decides that about 1/4th the words were unnecessary. Who needs "the" or "this" or "in" or "at"? I`m seriously embarrassed to have my name on it now.

ETA: I just looked at the thing again, and it seems like they took the extra "the"s and "a"s and just stuck them in other bits where there was leftover space.


If anyone is trying to find me… Tamyuun on Instagram is probably the easiest.

Last edited by Nyororin : 09-12-2007 at 10:39 AM.
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09-12-2007, 05:40 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilongyue View Post
In regards to the human vs. machine translation question, something to keep in mind is that you're not just learning a language, but also a culture. The two are inseperable. A machine will never be able to understand culture. MMM is also right in saying that you should study a foreign language in it's country of origin. If you apply yourself, you will learn at an extremly accelerated rate. Couldn't hurt to get some of the basics of the language in your home country, and then afterwards go to Japan. I'd tell anyone seriously interested in learning a foreign language to do it abroad.

Few words of advice about studying a foreign language abroad:
1) Get a local girlfriend, or boyfriend - this is the best way to learn a language, hands-down
2) Make sure all you friends ARE NOT other English speaking foreigners. Last semester I had classmates who spent all their time with other foreigners and never used Chinese outside of the classroom. They all flunked out.
3) USE IT! Being in the country of origin in the best opportunity to learn the language. Everywhere are people speaking it, so you can practice speaking or listening everytime you go out. The language is also written everywhere, so you can always practice reading. Despite this being true, I've met people here in China who find crazy excuses not to speak. Talk about a waste of time and money.
I had studied for four years, before I moved to Japan, and, thankfully, I was the only English-speaking foreigner in my neighborhood. A lot of my English-speaking friends spent a lot of time together, but I only saw them occasionally...for hanami or that kind of event. I hung out with Japanese people that WEREN'T interested in learning English, and my Japanese skyrocketed.

I knew a man that was a University professor in Japan for over 11 years. His three-year-old daughter spoke better Japanese than him. So you don't get it through osmosis, but by using it! You are so right...
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09-12-2007, 05:42 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin View Post
What made it worse is that I worked with them up until the very end of it - if it didn`t fit, we worked on making it fit, and we`d gotten everything nice and lined up, etc.

And then someone comes along and decides that about 1/4th the words were unnecessary. Who needs "the" or "this" or "in" or "at"? I`m seriously embarrassed to have my name on it now.

ETA: I just looked at the thing again, and it seems like they took the extra "the"s and "a"s and just stuck them in other bits where there was leftover space.
Wow...how frustrating...
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09-12-2007, 08:11 PM

couple of questions -

1. what is the demand for translators for the boring stuff, manuals and whatnot?
2. do you guys know what sort of company would like multi-lingual people? I had learned french in HS, but I'm way out of shape on that...I was thinking about brushing up on it and then taking some more classes. would that help me get into the field at all?



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09-12-2007, 08:30 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaelyn View Post
couple of questions -

1. what is the demand for translators for the boring stuff, manuals and whatnot?
2. do you guys know what sort of company would like multi-lingual people? I had learned french in HS, but I'm way out of shape on that...I was thinking about brushing up on it and then taking some more classes. would that help me get into the field at all?
Good questions...

I don't get the sense there are any shortage of translators... for Japanese, for example, the amount of material coming into the US from Japan is much much higher, but the amount of people that know Japanese is also much much higher than is was. I am not really sure...

You are talking about a multi-language translation company. These are the bigger companies that corporations are going to trust their manuals, board meeting minutes, contracts, etc. to because if they want it in multiple languages, they don't need to go to multiple companies, they can trust thier confidential information with them, and they often can also do layouts for advertising and brochures in-house.

I have no idea what the market is like for French translation.
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09-13-2007, 12:46 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaelyn View Post
couple of questions -

1.  what is the demand for translators for the boring stuff, manuals and whatnot?
2.  do you guys know what sort of company would like multi-lingual people?  I had learned french in HS, but I'm way out of shape on that...I was thinking about brushing up on it and then taking some more classes.  would that help me get into the field at all?
I've been doing a lot of research for translating/interpreting positions (Chinese-English though, not French), and there are websites where people post "translator wanted" ads.  If you google it you'll find them.  Might help you get some idea of how great the demand is.  You can also look into government positions that require fluency in a foreign language.  For example, the Foreign Service Officer positions that come through the U.S. Department of State is one option available to people who are multilingual.  If you want to work in U.S. embassies abroad you first have to become a Foreign Service Officer.  For this kind of work you need to go through a battery of tests, past background checks and be able to have top secret clearance.  Check out www.usajobs.com as well, it's the U.S. federal government's website for job openings.  The U.S. government also has listings of "high need" languages, but I don't think French is one of them.  Languages like Arabic, as well as other Middle Eastern languages, and Chinese are the sorts of languages that are classified as "high need."

If you're interested in being an interpreter, you could look into court interpreting.  This kind of work is much more demanding than translating.  You have to have an extremely high level of fluency, and will also need to learn legal and medical jargon, as well as technical language from other fields (whatever is being used in the courtroom during the case you're interpreting for).  It's usually part-time work, working on a "as needed" basis.  You're also required to pass the Court Interpreters Exam for whatever state it is you plan to work in.   There are actually a lot of hoops you need to jump through to be a court interpreter, but a degree isn't required.  People I've contacted about these kind of positions all said that translating and interpreting are different skill sets.   People who are good translators aren't necessarily good interpreters, and vice versa.

If all you have is a high level of French, you're probably going to need to do a lot of extra study before you'll be ready to translate, simply to be competitive in the job market if nothing else.  If you don't study French in college, or go and live in the country for a few years, your level of French probably isn't going to be high enough for translating either.  Also, most countries have an internationally recognized proficiency test that you should consider taking if you're serious about this.  You would need to score high on that test and show it to prospective clients, especially if you don't have a degree in the field.  

A lot of people who get into this kind of work have a minimum of a Masters Degree.  However, the more challenging the language, which means a smaller percentage of people that are able to master it, increases the demand and can in some cases eliminate the need for a high level degree in the subject.  But wanting to translate from a language like French, which actually is quite similar to English (compared to Asian languages) will probably mean that you'll need to get at least a Master's degree in the field.  

I have friends who translate classical Chinese poetry as well a Buddhist texts from Chinese into English, and they've told me how hard it is to break into the field (in terms of being published).  One ugly truth about translating material other than technical manuals is that you have the academic community to deal with, i.e. the university professors and people holding PhD.s in the field.  A friend of mine has established himself as a translator despite having only a Bachelors degree, but then again he's been at it a long time.  He is also ignored by the academic community, and is seen as a translator for "practitioners," meaning fellow Buddhists, and not "scholars."  Academics probably won't take you seriously if you don't have a level of education equal to their own.  Experience in translating can help overcome these obstacles, but getting published isn't that easy, especially if you don't have a high level of education in the field.    Anyway, I say all this as food for thought for people considering being translators, and it applies to everyone, regardless of the languages you speak.
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09-13-2007, 07:23 AM

This Japan language proficiency test (or whatever it is called)
*Is it hard?
*Can you re-take it to get a better score?
*How much does it decide your career?

And...
*Is there a program like the JET Program that helps jump-start into translation?
*Is translating for manuals and that sort of thing different in experience than translating manga and video games? Or does one help for the other?
*Is this more of a part-time job or a 50+hour work week? Or is it like an at home job that requires as much attention as I would like to make money?


Also,
*You need to be in Japan to fluently learn the language.. you need to fluently learn the language in order to get a job.... but you have to have a job to have a visa to be in japan right? So isn't it kind of a catch 22?
I really can't afford to vacation there just to learn the language every few months....

Last edited by pandayanyan : 09-13-2007 at 07:32 AM.
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09-13-2007, 05:39 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by pandayanyan View Post
This Japan language proficiency test (or whatever it is called)
*Is it hard?
*Can you re-take it to get a better score?
*How much does it decide your career?

And...
*Is there a program like the JET Program that helps jump-start into translation?
*Is translating for manuals and that sort of thing different in experience than translating manga and video games? Or does one help for the other?
*Is this more of a part-time job or a 50+hour work week? Or is it like an at home job that requires as much attention as I would like to make money?


Also,
*You need to be in Japan to fluently learn the language.. you need to fluently learn the language in order to get a job.... but you have to have a job to have a visa to be in japan right? So isn't it kind of a catch 22?
I really can't afford to vacation there just to learn the language every few months....
I have only taken a lower level proficiency test, and generally level 1 is considered the standard. I imagine it is quite difficult.

You can retake it.

I have never taken it, and this is what I do for a living, so...

I don't think there is a program like the JET program that gives you a jump start...but the JET program is a jump-start, in a way.

Regarding manuals vs. manga. The first thing you think of in a translation is "who is reading this? what do they want to get out of it?" For a manual, they want to get the instructions to use thier whatever, so there isn't a lot of consideration about cultural issues. For a manga they are looking for an comprehensible and entertaining story, so you are on the other end of the scale in terms of cultural language. So "yes" there is a real difference, but they certainly help each other.

I know people that do it part time, and people that do it 50+ hours a week. It is an at-home job, and you make your own schedule.
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