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To be or not to be a Chinese Translator


angeia

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Angelina,

 

The space between the comma or the period and the following letter. 
Like,this or like, this

It is important for English-speaking people. Just like we had to learn the difference between , and 、 .
What will you think if a foreign translator used , instead of 、? 
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Thanks a lot for ur advice.I get it.After all,I am a Chinese,my brain cannot works like English speakers completely,but I am trying.... :D

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But,I dont see any difference between these two,

逗号、冒号、分号、问号、叹号和句号后都要加个空格.

 

Also,I  <-- 逗号后没有空格

Also, I <-- 逗号后有个空格

 

Thanks a lot for ur advice.I get it.After

It seems you don't.  It should be:

 

Thanks a lot for ur advice.I get it.After  <-- Wrong

Thanks a lot for ur advice. I get it.  After <-- Right

 

While we're at it, unless you particularly want to come across as uneducated, avoid using things like 'ur' 'r' instead of 'your' and 'are'.

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陳德聰 ,imron?Your ron or.. I dont know.Anyway,thank you both.

 

I am a native Chinese speaker, I know how hard Chinese is it, I am so appreciated that you guys here are learning Chinese in China. Chinese is considered as the hardest languages in the world, but I assume you guys did a good job both at school and working. I know how much I've appreciated people being willing to help me practice languages, so I thought it'd be nice to offer to help others practice Chinese. I'm also interested in getting to know people with different backgrounds, so it's a win-win situation! 

 

I just double checked and put an space followed by every comma and period.

 

Thanks for all.

 

Let me know if you need any help.

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aaaaaaaaaah, nobody ever told me about that before, I just understand, why 逗号、冒号、分号、问号、叹号和句号后都要加个空格?为什么?

It's just the rule. That's how people write in English. And now you understand it, great! Keep it up!
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?为什么?

Because if you don't it feels too crowded and makes it more difficult to scan/read because the width of many of those punctuation marks is less than the size of a typical space.

 

I'm sure there were other reasons back in the day when punctuation marks started to be used in written language, but the above is how I feel when I see missing spaces today.  In any case, no native speaker would leave them out of normal written text.

 

And no, I'm not ron :mrgreen:

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In Chinese typing each character takes the same amount of space and the punctuation marks take up the same amount of space too. But that's not true for most English typing. So Chinese doesn't feel cramped, but English does, unless you add an extra space.

 

If there was at top 10 list of easy changes to make your English seem much much better, this spacing rule would be in the list I think. So would u->you etc.

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  • 8 months later...

I'm Aisu- an American accepted into the T&I (Chinese/English) program at MIIS and the CI/Translation program at Beijing Foreign Studies University. As a non-native Mandarin speaker (have been studying Mandarin for 6 years, 3 of which have been in Beijing), I am leaning towards BFSU so I can keep honing my Chinese skills in an immersive environment, while doing some translation work part-time. I am comfortable translating different types of documents for educators, and now hope to learn to interpret, in order to work as a conference interpreter in the US one day.  I’m fluent in Spanish, having studied the language for 12 years, so hope to offer Spanish interpreting skills as well.  Given this background, perhaps my interpreting/translating skills would be best marketed abroad?   

 

If I work or freelance as an interpreter in the US, will a degree from BFSU be recognized? Which school would be better for long-term career development?  Inspiring professors, curriculum quality, and opportunities for internships/networking concern me the most.  In a field where most end up freelancing, I am worried about accruing 50k+ of debt.  Financial concerns aside, can any professional interpreters who have attended either MIIS or BFSU speak to the strengths of each study environment?I'm Aisu- an American accepted into the T&I (Chinese/English) program at MIIS and the CI/Translation program at Beijing Foreign Studies University. As a non-native Mandarin speaker (have been studying Mandarin for 6 years, 3 of which have been in Beijing), I am leaning towards BFSU so I can keep honing my Chinese skills in an immersive environment, while doing some translation work part-time. I am comfortable translating different types of documents for educators, and now hope to learn to interpret, in order to work as a conference interpreter in the US one day.  I’m fluent in Spanish, having studied the language for 12 years, so hope to offer Spanish interpreting skills as well.  Given this background, perhaps my interpreting/translating skills would be best marketed abroad?   

 

If I work or freelance as an interpreter in the US, will a degree from BFSU be recognized? Which school would be better for long-term career development?  Inspiring professors, curriculum quality, and opportunities for internships/networking concern me the most.  In a field where most end up freelancing, I am worried about accruing 50k+ of debt.  Financial concerns aside, can any professional interpreters who have attended either MIIS or BFSU speak to the strengths of each study environment?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Dilemma 1

 

I have an internship where I'm doing some translating and some interpreting. I find that while I like interpreting, I also like doing subtitles... I was wondering if I should do a full MTI at BFSU or find a niche and go to a training center while in China. Especially since my dream city is 成都 and they have centers there. haha Has anyone gone the training center route here?

 

Dilemma 2

 

I lost confidence when I arrived in March and thus did not apply to BFSU for this fall. I've opted to do a full year of language first instead. So, do the year in Chengdu and then ride off to Beijing? or stay in Shanghai (currently interning here) and then ride off to Beijing? I think I lost confidence because I haven't found my niche and I was in Korea for three years. I'm pondering interpreting for conferences, law or medicine.

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  • 1 month later...

I see I'm not alone. lol. I decided to apply for a MA in translation and interpretation, haven't narrowed down the schools but thought it'd be cool to chat with other like minds, and possibly get some feed back from this amazing forum.

 

I'm interested in Shanghai because it's a city I haven't been to yet, but worry because the only school mentioned in this thread is the awful Shanghai one. I'm still researching other programs though.

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Wait a sec. I will post some info later.

You have to know one thing though. You have to be ready to learn Mandarin really well, near-native level. Even if you decide to interpret from Mandarin into English only, it is almost impossible to work as a conference interpreter when you can't understand what is being said. I have never worked as an interpreter, but my training was rigorous. Many people could not learn the techniques simply because their English was not good enough. It's not impossible. You just need to make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. I don't have much experience with Mandarin.

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I find it rather disheartening that the English in those introductions has so many small mistakes. It's pretty good English, but it clearly needed a native speaker to check it and apparently nobody realised that.

 

As a translator, I prefer interpreting into Chinese over from Chinese, counterintuitive as that may seem. If you interpret from your A language and there is a word you don't know how to say in your B language, you can talk around it and still get the meaning across. You can also prepare by learning a list of relevant words in your B language that you might need. If you interpret from your B language, you can't listen around the difficult words, if you don't get 99,9 to 100% of what is said you immediately have a real problem. You can prepare by learning vocab, but you can't control whether the speaker will use that exact vocab or something slightly different.

 

If Yueni still frequents this thread, I'm curious about her take on this.

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I find it rather disheartening that the English in those introduction has so many small mistakes. It's pretty good English, but it clearly needed a native speaker to check it and apparently nobody realised that.

The 北外 version is the best, which seems to be in accord with their reputation.
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Lu, as I have begun to do more interpreting, I find that I also feel more comfortable interpreting into my B language. Naturally I prefer translating into my A, I feel like that is a given, but for exactly the reasons you stated I feel most comfortable when I understand 100% or even what I like to call 105% (when you can predict what the person is going to say next) of the input. Problem is in theory you're supposed to be at 100% both ways, but there's no harm in asking for clarification if you're not in a conference setting.

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The problem is that if you are interpreting into the language you are less familiar with, the chances of making a mistake*- saying the wrong thing even when you understand what is being said- are higher. With all the homophones in Mandarin, who knows what you might end up saying.

In theory you are supposed to be at 105% both ways. All the people interested in interpreting should know this before they sign up. All interpreters make mistakes, those who make less mistakes than others, and who don't make any huge mistakes, work as interpreters.

*"When President Carter traveled to Poland in 1977, the State Department hired a Russian interpreter who knew Polish, but was not used to interpreting professionally in that language. Through the interpreter, Carter ended up saying things in Polish like "when I abandoned the United States" (for "when I left the United States") and "your lusts for the future" (for "your desires for the future"), mistakes that the media in both countries very much enjoyed."

http://mentalfloss.com/article/48795/9-little-translation-mistakes-caused-big-problems

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Yeah you should not be working into a C language ever if you can help it. That interpreter should have declined the job.

But we're talking about A to B, where B is still a language you have near-native fluency at a very high level. I don't really see the risk you bring up since I don't ever use terms I don't know and understand... Maybe some people do this to sound more important, but why would anyone do that while interpreting? When I say less familiar, I'm talking the difference between being university educated in one language and getting a diploma in the other. The problem described above is pretty much a non-issue for anyone with training.

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