博文
Found in Translation
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You may have seen “Lost in translation” (a movie), or have read “Lost in translation” (a novel); the two are unrelated though.
I did both, therefore my title for the Blog: Found in translation. Yes, I found out recently that I can be pretty good at translation (of a research paper in a field that I have some knowledge).
In the past, I repeatedly said to my friends and clients that I would not do translation (Chinese to English) for them, no matter what … Then, I was forced to translate a research paper for an old client. The main reason was the deadline, because he did not believe any translation company can do a good job, which means the translated paper needs to be edited by me afterwards. I agreed with him (and I could use the income), so my brain was called to action.
First, I asked for an assistant from the co-author list. Then, I marked all the jargon in red and sent the annotated file to my new assistant, asking him to translate each into English, in addition to preparing figures, tables, and reference list in English.
The first thing I did was to familiarize myself with the research topic. I quickly read a couple of published papers in English, which I picked from the reference list. A couple of hours later, I had learned a bunch of jargon on the subject. I worked on the paper for 2-3 hrs each day, and I was getting better and better each day. I expect to finish translating this paper of 8000 Chinese characters in 20 hrs.
As much fun as I have had working on this task, I still prefer NOT to translate for my clients. Why? It’s mainly the cost. I want to do a decent job, which means I need time to learn new things (including jargon), to understand the paper itself, and to present the work in my own words that can be understood by people in that field (which may NOT be my own field).
My final request to my client: This is your work, so please read my translation very carefully and point out any mistakes I made. After all, I am only a ghostwriter.
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-372353.html
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