Last weekend I attended the IJET-19 translation conference held in sunny Okinawa, Japan.
It was an amazing site and there were translators there from all over the world. With all those overstressed translators, you can imagine just how freely the alcohol flowed (don’t worry, I practiced self-control)!
At any rate, I’m looking forward to making another trip to Okinawa when I can take some time to relax and just vacation.
Cheers,
Captain Adam
This year Santa came early to work and left us some nice gifts! Here is a picture of the loot.
The more translation that I do, the more that I am struck with the non-linguistic differences that need to be taken into account in order to do a good job. Sure, knowing what terminology is appropriate is important, but knowing how to arrange, modify, and truly localize a document is an art that few translators take the time to consider.
Most translators that I have come across are so concerned with increasing their output that they loose track of the fact that the original document probably went through multiple draft phases to make it work in the language it was drafted in. Now, I’m not asking for copy-writing level ability from a translator- only a little more care and respect for the purpose of the original document.
As professional translators with a world of information at our fingertips, there is not excuse for us to be producing half-baked documents.