| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Off topic: What do you absolutely hate to translate ! Thread poster: Ruchira Shukla
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There was a question in one of the forums recently .. Something on the lines of what our dream translations would be.
I have a slightly different question here .. What don�ft you like to translate?
As for me I hate translating Japanese patents into English! I find them too boring and feel that I am not really using my literary skills there.
I love doing literary translations. but alas they are rare to come by in India !!
Cheers
Ruchira
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ooh i pretty much dislike the patent thing myself-im always getting those from my company, in german as well.so many details...
| | | | | Enterprise consulting texts | Dec 7, 2004 |
Sometimes you get a good one, but mostly they are just a bundle of stupid lies and dreamdancing.
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| horses for courses | Dec 7, 2004 |
Harry_B wrote: Sometimes you get a good one, but mostly they are just a bundle of stupid lies and dreamdancing.
I don't mind them - it's icky medical stuff I would never translate. (at least not without a barf bucket beside my desk! )
| | | | James Calder 
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:39
Spanish to English
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| In a word ... | Dec 7, 2004 |
... menus. They're so fiddly and time-consuming.
Also extremely long sentences with countless clauses, whatever the subject area (unfortunately quite common in Spanish).
I don't mind patents at all, though.
[Edited at 2004-12-07 12:29]
| | | | Sonja Tomaskovic (X)
Germany
Local time: 07:39
English to German
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| Handwritten documents | Dec 7, 2004 |
I absolutely hate translating (well, first deciphering then translating) handwritten documents, no matter what area they are from.
They are not only time-consuming because handwriting is so difficult to read but writers usually make up abbreviations that can mean anything.
| | | | tazdog (X)
Spain
Local time: 07:39
Spanish to English
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| anything that's poorly written | Dec 7, 2004 |
...which unfortunately means a great many of my source documents. There's nothing worse than a text full of pretentious gobbledygook intelligible only to its author.
[Edited at 2004-12-07 11:54]
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Ruchira Shukla
India
Local time: 11:09
English to Japanese
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TOPIC STARTER | Illegible characters - Is there anything worse !! | Dec 7, 2004 |
Cindy Chadd wrote:
...which unfortunately means a great many of my source documents. There's nothing worse than a text full of pretentious gobbledygook intelligible only to its author.
[Edited at 2004-12-07 11:54]
Perhaps that�fs why hate doing patents !!
We hardly get the original here .. just a very badly scanned gif or pdf .. with half the Japanese characters illegible !!
I still remember spending over an hour trying to figure out an almost illegible Japanese characters! I think that was the last time I did a patent!!
Ruchira
| | | | LindaMcM
Local time: 07:39
Swedish to German
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| Software strings | Dec 7, 2004 |
Huge plain text documents with strange abbreviations between strange numbers and symbols and strange restrictions of charachters per line...
It's nearly impossible to keep track of it and after two hours I feel like knocked out.
Linda
| | | | | Yeah, software strings | Dec 7, 2004 |
I never think I got it right and I feel so annoyed, there's no possibility to just relax and let the text flow, but like I'm constantly jumping from one thing to another... ahhhh, exhausting!! But someone has to do that, too...
Thanks for reminding me why I should be happy today-- no software strings to translate!
Seadeta
| | | | | handwritten medical notes | Dec 7, 2004 |
as Sonja says, handwritten texts are usually illegible and full of meaningless abbreviations. Italian doctors are particularly guilty here... fortunately I don't get too many of them.
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IanW (X)
Local time: 07:39
German to English
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James Calder wrote:
... menus. They're so fiddly and time-consuming.
Also extremely long sentences with countless clauses, whatever the subject area (unfortunately quite common in Spanish).
I don't mind patents at all, though.
[Edited at 2004-12-07 12:29]
I'm with James on the menus! I don't know about Spanish, but it's nigh on impossible to get German menus to sound appetising in English.
The worst text I ever had was an arty text with over a hundred words per sentence and which not even native speakers understood. So, arty-farty texts which spend pages saying nothing.
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 01:39
German to English
| Text by non-native speakers | Dec 7, 2004 |
I just finished a job which had several procedures written by someone who wasn't a native speaker of the source language. This individual confused terms, spelled words the way he/she heard them, used shop slang, non-native syntax, etc.
A few years ago I had a massive job that was written by people of several different language backgrounds. It was interesting to guess the native tongue of the authors of the various sections by the syntax. That was the only fun, since the job was hell... See more I just finished a job which had several procedures written by someone who wasn't a native speaker of the source language. This individual confused terms, spelled words the way he/she heard them, used shop slang, non-native syntax, etc.
A few years ago I had a massive job that was written by people of several different language backgrounds. It was interesting to guess the native tongue of the authors of the various sections by the syntax. That was the only fun, since the job was hell to translate, due to the non-native flow of language. It took a couple of pages in each section for me to catch on to the unusual style.
In the same vein, I hate translating documents from one of the large automakers. The company apparently doesn't supply its tech writers with spellchecking software. Before I can use CAT tools, I have to correct the spelling of the documents. On a large doc, this can take a lot of time.
Kevin ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Parts listings | Dec 7, 2004 |
I feel faint at the sight of what always seem to be 1,000 pages of tables with nothing but names and sizes of screws, washers, bushings, flanges, etc, each with their own meaningless code (which you also have to type in if you are working with hard copy) and with lots of meaningless acroynms and abbreviations (lack of space, see) understood only by the author... give me software strings, despite the lack of context, hot-air docs written in corporatese or birth certificates filled with hieroglyph... See more I feel faint at the sight of what always seem to be 1,000 pages of tables with nothing but names and sizes of screws, washers, bushings, flanges, etc, each with their own meaningless code (which you also have to type in if you are working with hard copy) and with lots of meaningless acroynms and abbreviations (lack of space, see) understood only by the author... give me software strings, despite the lack of context, hot-air docs written in corporatese or birth certificates filled with hieroglyphs any day. ▲ Collapse
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