Poll: The longest it's ever taken me to translate a difficult word/term was... Auteur du fil: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "The longest it's ever taken me to translate a difficult word/term was...".
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A forum topic will appear each time a new poll is run. For more information, see: http://proz.com/topic/33629
| | | | | More than 48 hours | Nov 29, 2007 |
Sometimes it is really tricky. It was in 2004 when I first came across the term "очки труб" and it was only several months ago that I found the right translation - "spectacle blinds"!
| | | | awilliams
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 05:50
italien vers anglais
+ ...
| Still working on it... | Nov 29, 2007 |
My personal favourites are the French "valoriser" and "privilégié" (heck, might as well throw in their Italian counterparts "valorizzare" and "privilegiato" too). Translating them for the context in question is not too much of a problem, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming of the (unlikely) day when an English equivalent will exist that caters for their many meanings.
So, still working on it.
(If anyone has that English equivalent I will be more than happy to hear it...!... See more My personal favourites are the French "valoriser" and "privilégié" (heck, might as well throw in their Italian counterparts "valorizzare" and "privilegiato" too). Translating them for the context in question is not too much of a problem, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming of the (unlikely) day when an English equivalent will exist that caters for their many meanings.
So, still working on it.
(If anyone has that English equivalent I will be more than happy to hear it...! ) ▲ Collapse
| | | | Juan Jacob 
Mexique
Local time: 23:50
français vers espagnol
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| Compadre into French. | Nov 29, 2007 |
Compadre, in Mexico, has a very specific and tricky meaning... a lot of "¡Compadre!" in Mexican films... impossible into French... still working on it... any suggestion, welcome.
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Nesrin
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 05:50
anglais vers arabe
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| KudoZ excluded... | Nov 29, 2007 |
Kudoz questions excluded, I can't imagine myself sitting on the same word for longer than an hour!
Of course, if I posted the question on Kudoz, then it really depends on how long it took till I received the first answer.
| | | | | In the days before Internet... | Nov 29, 2007 |
I remember spending several hours searching through reference books at the natural history museum in Paris for the name of a particular fly. I don't remember what it was in French or English but I did get a buzz when I found it
| | | | Özden Arıkan
Allemagne
Local time: 06:50
anglais vers turc
+ ...
| I'm still working on it... | Nov 29, 2007 |
... with the help of 14 colleagues so far (11 Kudoz answerers + 3 peer graders)!
| | | | Henry Hinds
États-Unis
Local time: 22:50
anglais vers espagnol
+ ...
In memoriam
I've been in business for 36 years, so if you say "ever", then I would have to say that back in the early days it could take a number of days to find the correct term by hunting in the library, etc.
Now it takes me no more than a minute or two, and it's not often that I have any trouble at all.
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A. & S. Witte
Allemagne
Local time: 06:50
allemand vers anglais
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| Still working on it... | Nov 29, 2007 |
Still dreaming of perfect translations for certain German legal terms....
Astrid
| | | | | One of the things I love about translating | Nov 29, 2007 |
That is one of the things I love about translating, the search for the elusive term, except when I am just reaching the end of a long and arduous translation and running out of time...grrrr
| | | | | Unclosed KudoZ questions | Nov 29, 2007 |
I still have a few KudoZ questions that I never really got a satisfactory answer to, either from other translators or the client. So - still working on it!
| | | | | in translating novels... | Nov 29, 2007 |
... needing a couple hundreds pages to find the "right" way to translate that elusive word or phrase or sentence found in the first few pages used to feel quite normal...
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| the translator's burden | Nov 30, 2007 |
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
(T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets)
| | | | | Research is translation work | Nov 30, 2007 |
I'm happy to see all your answers.
I used to work in a company which had implemented a "time keeper". So you had to clock in in the morning, clock out for lunch, clock back in, clock out at night.
AND every time we had to do some research (on the Internet, in dictionaries), we had to click a button called "pause" because they didn't consider it as actual translation time.
Of course no one (i.e. no translator) was doing it. We tried to explain to them that r... See more I'm happy to see all your answers.
I used to work in a company which had implemented a "time keeper". So you had to clock in in the morning, clock out for lunch, clock back in, clock out at night.
AND every time we had to do some research (on the Internet, in dictionaries), we had to click a button called "pause" because they didn't consider it as actual translation time.
Of course no one (i.e. no translator) was doing it. We tried to explain to them that research was part of translating but to no avail. I don't know if they're still using this button...
Emma ▲ Collapse
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