January 26, 2008

Lost in Translation

If someone come up to me and tell me that translation is easy...I am going to bring out a gun and shoot endlessly at that person.

me: I am doing some translation work. Not free at that moment.
ML: Translation? Easy lah. Just go to Google and translate. What's the fuss?

me: Doing some translation stuff. Having headache...
PG: Go to Babelfish. Ain't that easy, just click and you will get the translation.

If life is that easy, people don't have to pay translators or interpreters to do the work. My gawd...translation work is never easy. Not only we have to translate the words with the correct grammar, syntax features, etc...we have to translate the culture aswell. Malay to german translation really send me up the roof. One side Asian and one side European. 2 different cultures and way of speaking and expressing. How am I going to translate the "lah", "mah", "lor"...etc? And there're loadsa words which don't exist in the german language and vice versa.

145 pages...in less than 3 months. Yes, and again I took the road less taken. Why? Because never in the history of my department...no one ever took the plunge to translate a book and get it publish. Serves me right. But if I put my mind into it, I can manage it right? Hopefully. Why am I doing this? Life is too short...I don't plan to live a meaningless one.

There're about 7 dictionaries beside me now. Accompanying me throughout the whole process of brain-frying, eye-toasting translation work. I swear I have never been so hardworking with books and dictionaries throughout my whole entire life journey since I came to this world 22 years ago. No one can save me now, I have to save myself.

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