nothing like reading other people's bitching

[insaneneko]

Another amusing article by a translator. I laughed at this part:

There is an opposite problem: the in-house Japanese employee who has all day, every day, to putter about, painstakingly taking apart translations commissioned to an outside company and done by competent native speakers. When the part-time checker comes in, he proudly hands over 12 pages of native-speaker translation—with 45 to 50 of his footnotes objecting to the English.

I've been reading the Mirage doujinshi I had bought in Japan (finally). OMG, they are so damn amusing. Must share when have more time. ^_^

Comments

[sargraf.livejournal.com]

I've had a few days like that. Only... well, you couldn't call me 100% "competent", but rather "in training" as a manufacturing interpreter at my last job? I didn't mind them correcting my Japanese, not at all, especially with all those manufacturing terms. But there was this one Japanese guy who would take my assignments from me and translate them himself (despite having engineering stuff to do), using BabelFish and such. And then later, American workers would approach me with this fellow's translations and ask me to make sense of them. =__=;

Things like that really made me appreciate those who'd give me a chance and then point out where I'd made a mistake. (It's rather amazing how much you can learn, even without having officially studied kanji.) And it made me feel really guilty, too, despite my annoyance with him. I kept wanting to become more competent, so he'd not have to worry about it... but how could I? :/

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I don't know how I'd take that Japanese guy using Babelfish...I mean, he must be in total denial as to just how bad his English translations are to subject it to others. >_< People should stick to what they are capable of doing, like in his case pointing out where your Japanese is wrong, and leaving the English part to the native.

[sargraf.livejournal.com]

Yeah... you know he should probably let someone else do the translating when he comes back with sentences that use "it" instead of "I" and so on. =_=; Let alone the more complicated phrases..

I love learning, and loved it when my boss would challenge me with something that was a little bit out of my reach, so I had to work hard to get to that level. He knew exactly how to do that; I so adore him for it. ^^

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Well, that's what happens when you use something like Babelfish. I've stuck things in there just to see what came out. Total babble.

Wow, your boss sounds cool. It is nice when they can provide assignments that will let you grow, but not be too much of a reach.

[sargraf.livejournal.com]

It's a well-named site. :P

He was absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, he's gone back to Japan now (and I can't follow, drat!), but he taught me some invaluable lessons that I'll never forget.

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

*cracks up* That was a great read, thanks for the link. XD

(Naturally, now I feel paranoid about my style. Um.)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* And you weren't paranoid about your style before? I am and always will be. It's nice to read about the troubles others have, though.