It's been a while (as always)
Well, I'm sure you know the drill by now. It's the same old, same old. I write, and make promises to keep on writing, but then something shiny swaggers by, and I'm distracted. So horribly distracted. Long unannounced hiatuses are pretty much par for the norm for me now, so I would be surprised if there's anyone out there still reading this. Xp
In any case, I make no promises this time, neither out loud nor to myself. Life's been busy, and I've actually been doing lots of writing, just not here and not drawn from my own creativity. What does that mean? Well, I'm currently a contracted translator. These days, my creativity has been limited to figuring out how to better transfer a phrase in all its glory from Chinese to English. Trust me, it's not as easy as Google Translate makes it out to be.
People think translation is easy, especially those who know more than one language well. Well, newsflash - just knowing two languages doesn't mean you can translate. Just like knowing a language doesn't mean you can teach it. The existence of Google Translate doesn't help that assumption. It's like, voila! Instant translation! Many people can see that GT doesn't translate super accurately, but they say that it's good enough, and they always wonder why human translators take so much longer to come up with a 'not that long' translation.
Well now ... just to give you context, 3000 Chinese characters takes me about 3 hours to translate properly with general editing. If you include finer editing, I can take up to 4 or 5 hours, depending. Sure, there are many others who can do it way faster than I can (probably?), and I'm kinda new to the field, but still, I look at my work ethic and feel like I'm not far from the average.
Where does all that time go? Reading, processing, actually translating, rewriting, and editing. Oh, and don't forget the publishing operations and interaction with readers after that too. I'm pretty sure I spend waaaay too much time on this job for the amount I'm paid, but I'm still having fun with it right now, so I haven't been too bothered by it. Haha.
So... anyway, that's what I've been doing. But I've missed this. Missed rambling on in my own words, missed dabbling in poetry forms and creative fancies, missed hanging out on LJ. This may be a tad dramatic perhaps, but my thoughts have not been mine own for quite a while. Oh. A quirky thought just popped into my head. Translation is like taking an alien baby and trying to make it pass off as a local. Yeeeeep. I've been carrying an alien baby around.
On that note, I shall end this entry. This was fun. I know I said I'd make no promises, but right now, I do hope I will be able to visit more often in between caring for this alien baby of mine. Till next time, whenever that may be.
In any case, I make no promises this time, neither out loud nor to myself. Life's been busy, and I've actually been doing lots of writing, just not here and not drawn from my own creativity. What does that mean? Well, I'm currently a contracted translator. These days, my creativity has been limited to figuring out how to better transfer a phrase in all its glory from Chinese to English. Trust me, it's not as easy as Google Translate makes it out to be.
People think translation is easy, especially those who know more than one language well. Well, newsflash - just knowing two languages doesn't mean you can translate. Just like knowing a language doesn't mean you can teach it. The existence of Google Translate doesn't help that assumption. It's like, voila! Instant translation! Many people can see that GT doesn't translate super accurately, but they say that it's good enough, and they always wonder why human translators take so much longer to come up with a 'not that long' translation.
Well now ... just to give you context, 3000 Chinese characters takes me about 3 hours to translate properly with general editing. If you include finer editing, I can take up to 4 or 5 hours, depending. Sure, there are many others who can do it way faster than I can (probably?), and I'm kinda new to the field, but still, I look at my work ethic and feel like I'm not far from the average.
Where does all that time go? Reading, processing, actually translating, rewriting, and editing. Oh, and don't forget the publishing operations and interaction with readers after that too. I'm pretty sure I spend waaaay too much time on this job for the amount I'm paid, but I'm still having fun with it right now, so I haven't been too bothered by it. Haha.
So... anyway, that's what I've been doing. But I've missed this. Missed rambling on in my own words, missed dabbling in poetry forms and creative fancies, missed hanging out on LJ. This may be a tad dramatic perhaps, but my thoughts have not been mine own for quite a while. Oh. A quirky thought just popped into my head. Translation is like taking an alien baby and trying to make it pass off as a local. Yeeeeep. I've been carrying an alien baby around.
On that note, I shall end this entry. This was fun. I know I said I'd make no promises, but right now, I do hope I will be able to visit more often in between caring for this alien baby of mine. Till next time, whenever that may be.