Life In General
You know how hot Facebook is when your conservative brother-in-law added you as his friend.
The same guy sms-ed me this morning and told me to read the papers today, saying that with my skills, I can get additional income. Turned out that it was a write-up about the growing demands for translation courses.
But not the growing appreciation of translators in Singapore.
In my experience, most Singaporeans (clients) still think that their second language Chinese is better than the original Chinese. When my senior (in my translation course, our company engage him on ad hoc basis) translated their English text, it came back with red marks all over. They have re-written the text in broken Chinese. And some were even infuriated that the translation "didn't make any sense" because they themselves do not know the proper phrases, and assumed their used-to-death versions are correct.
Sometimes, I was even horrified by the "in-house" English to Chinese translation done by some local corporations and organisations. I confess, even I commit the same mistakes too.
A wrongly translated script, title, product, or brand could make a laughing stock out of a corporation or organisation. We have seen countless examples in English to Chinese context on the net, so I need not mention any. The famous one being the promotional material by Singapore Tourism Promotion Board. The English name for Hungry Ghost Festival in Singapore was translated as the "Hungarian Ghost Festival" by a (supposedly) Chinese translator who has no knowledge of local culture.
But well, not all Singaporeans think it is important to have a good translation. Like what the article mentioned, it's a misconception that most thought being bilingual means being able to translate from one language to another. Hence, translators have a hard time getting projects from local companies, apart from the fact that local SMEs are "cat until the juice come out" (Niao Ka Choot Chap - a hokkien saying describing that a person is so stingy that you can juice it out of him).
Nonetheless, this is a good option that I could take if I want to move on in my career. In fact, I was very close to writing in to apply for a translator job with an organisation when the email came in from my school. But I cannot bring myself to imagine that I may crossover to translate punter's guides, even though the chances are slim (they are looking for financial reports translators). So I saved the email instead of sending it out.
Meantime, there has been no replies with the resumes I've been sending. The MD from the interview I went has not come back to me, I reckoned I better start looking and sending again.
Meantime, the job search continues.
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The same guy sms-ed me this morning and told me to read the papers today, saying that with my skills, I can get additional income. Turned out that it was a write-up about the growing demands for translation courses.
But not the growing appreciation of translators in Singapore.
In my experience, most Singaporeans (clients) still think that their second language Chinese is better than the original Chinese. When my senior (in my translation course, our company engage him on ad hoc basis) translated their English text, it came back with red marks all over. They have re-written the text in broken Chinese. And some were even infuriated that the translation "didn't make any sense" because they themselves do not know the proper phrases, and assumed their used-to-death versions are correct.
Sometimes, I was even horrified by the "in-house" English to Chinese translation done by some local corporations and organisations. I confess, even I commit the same mistakes too.
A wrongly translated script, title, product, or brand could make a laughing stock out of a corporation or organisation. We have seen countless examples in English to Chinese context on the net, so I need not mention any. The famous one being the promotional material by Singapore Tourism Promotion Board. The English name for Hungry Ghost Festival in Singapore was translated as the "Hungarian Ghost Festival" by a (supposedly) Chinese translator who has no knowledge of local culture.
But well, not all Singaporeans think it is important to have a good translation. Like what the article mentioned, it's a misconception that most thought being bilingual means being able to translate from one language to another. Hence, translators have a hard time getting projects from local companies, apart from the fact that local SMEs are "cat until the juice come out" (Niao Ka Choot Chap - a hokkien saying describing that a person is so stingy that you can juice it out of him).
Nonetheless, this is a good option that I could take if I want to move on in my career. In fact, I was very close to writing in to apply for a translator job with an organisation when the email came in from my school. But I cannot bring myself to imagine that I may crossover to translate punter's guides, even though the chances are slim (they are looking for financial reports translators). So I saved the email instead of sending it out.
Meantime, there has been no replies with the resumes I've been sending. The MD from the interview I went has not come back to me, I reckoned I better start looking and sending again.
Meantime, the job search continues.
Labels: career, facebook, translation
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