When am I going to learn?
Feb. 28th, 2009 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI have to get in the habit, when people ask me to accept an assignment, of asking whether they'll be supplying me with "glossaries." I seem to be noticing, lately, that nobody wants to mention glossaries or references until after I accept the work.
It's not that glossaries and reference documents are, in and of themselves, bad. One of my clients consistently sends glossaries and references that are real time-savers. The norm, however, is being on the receiving end of a two-column mishmash of information that contains everything but the kitchen sink (typically, for a document about kitchen sinks), and sets of "references" that having nothing to do with the assignment at hand.
As it turns out, the "glossary" I was sent for this most recent job consists, actually, of six "glossaries," two of which are big enough (13,000 and 16,000 words) to be called "dictionaries." All packaged in two Excel files.
Yum.
Moreover, not all of the entries are what you'd normally expect to find in a dictionary or a glossary. To wit, the following:
Ye gods.
A long time ago, when I worked full time at NASA, I successfully led an effort to create a compact bilingual "lexicon" of essential terms having to do with the ISS. In one meeting, though, one of the NASA managers expressed his excitement about the project by predicting the expansion of the Lexicon into a full fledged dictionary, so that eventually translators could be required to only write translations using the entries in this dictionary. (Presumably, document originators would also be required to confine themselves to the words in this dictionary.)
This might sound like an attractive idea if you don't know anything about writing (and most techies don't), and especially attractive if you don't know anything about translation (most people don't, even among those who are bilingual). I mean, imagine taking a Webster's Collegiate and handing it to a subordinate with the instruction: "Use only the words defined in this dictionary when writing your reports." At best, it will absolutely kill your subordinate's productivity; at worst,... well, at worst your subordinate will ignore your instruction.
Now lobotomize the dictionary, because you want to make it more "compact." The result will have huge conceptual holes in it. Delete "horse" and retain "hoarse," because the amateur you hired either doesn't realize there's a difference, doesn't care, is working under a really tight budget or schedule, or whatever.
And now have your subordinate try to write a piece about equestrianism.
Thank Providence for computers. It's going to take me a little while to consolidate these individual word lists into one, but it will save me time in the long run. I hope.
Cheers...
UPDATE: Well, after only two hours of mucking around, which included Word hanging twice, I have a shiny new 36-MB Word file with 35,441 "entries." I'm thinking this might form the kernel of a presentation at the ATA Conference in New York this October... And now, to work!
It's not that glossaries and reference documents are, in and of themselves, bad. One of my clients consistently sends glossaries and references that are real time-savers. The norm, however, is being on the receiving end of a two-column mishmash of information that contains everything but the kitchen sink (typically, for a document about kitchen sinks), and sets of "references" that having nothing to do with the assignment at hand.
As it turns out, the "glossary" I was sent for this most recent job consists, actually, of six "glossaries," two of which are big enough (13,000 and 16,000 words) to be called "dictionaries." All packaged in two Excel files.
Yum.
Moreover, not all of the entries are what you'd normally expect to find in a dictionary or a glossary. To wit, the following:
Kv - коэффициент пропускной способности клапана равный потоку воды через клапан (в м3/час) при перепаде давления через клапан 1 бар и температуре воды 5-40 0С. Сv = 1,16 KvI mean, this is a nice explanation, but it's not a glossary entry. Nor does it really provide guidance to the translator as to what to do upon running across "Kv" in a text. Are you supposed to multiply whatever the value is by 1.16 and call the result "Cv"?
Cv factor is the number of U.S. gallons per minute that will pass through a valve with a pressure drop of one (1) psi. This 'factor' is determined by physically counting the number of gallons that pass through a valve with one (1) psi applied pressure to the valve inlet and zero (0) pressure at the outlet. Cv is a mathematical constant. For a pressure drop other than one (1) psi, use the formula in answer number 10 below.
Ye gods.
A long time ago, when I worked full time at NASA, I successfully led an effort to create a compact bilingual "lexicon" of essential terms having to do with the ISS. In one meeting, though, one of the NASA managers expressed his excitement about the project by predicting the expansion of the Lexicon into a full fledged dictionary, so that eventually translators could be required to only write translations using the entries in this dictionary. (Presumably, document originators would also be required to confine themselves to the words in this dictionary.)
This might sound like an attractive idea if you don't know anything about writing (and most techies don't), and especially attractive if you don't know anything about translation (most people don't, even among those who are bilingual). I mean, imagine taking a Webster's Collegiate and handing it to a subordinate with the instruction: "Use only the words defined in this dictionary when writing your reports." At best, it will absolutely kill your subordinate's productivity; at worst,... well, at worst your subordinate will ignore your instruction.
Now lobotomize the dictionary, because you want to make it more "compact." The result will have huge conceptual holes in it. Delete "horse" and retain "hoarse," because the amateur you hired either doesn't realize there's a difference, doesn't care, is working under a really tight budget or schedule, or whatever.
And now have your subordinate try to write a piece about equestrianism.
Thank Providence for computers. It's going to take me a little while to consolidate these individual word lists into one, but it will save me time in the long run. I hope.
Cheers...
UPDATE: Well, after only two hours of mucking around, which included Word hanging twice, I have a shiny new 36-MB Word file with 35,441 "entries." I'm thinking this might form the kernel of a presentation at the ATA Conference in New York this October... And now, to work!
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 04:07 pm (UTC)C in Cv should be the same for coefficient.
As I was taught, in this case translation of Kv should be Kv. No calculations for a translator! Perhaps the simple explanation 'Kv=Cv/1.16' may be given twice - at the end of the page and at the end of the whole text.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 04:40 pm (UTC)What I was trying to point out is that the illustrated item is not suitable as a glossary entry.
Cheers...
P.S. You are right about calculations. Translators ought to be kept as far as possible away from such mischief!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-03 07:35 am (UTC)Since you only translate in one direction, you might find Multiterm useful, its a part of Trados suite. Unfortunately for me, it only works well in one direction, doesn't "flip" the words. The useful thing is that its possible to load excel spreadsheets into its dictionary and then use them. Also, if you are familiar with ABBYY Lingvo dictionary system, its quite easy to create custom dictionaries out of Excel glossaries for it - very convenient, it looks up words with 1 click of mouse wheel.