28-Jul-2006, 15:02
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| Newbie | | Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 2
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 Re: Second Language
Dear language teacher,
I have a question on how to become a translator. I am educated completing Presecondary school and university education in English. I completed a postgraduate study. At high school level I read English grammar books. I read many English grammar books besides text books. I read newspaper and several internet resources. It is not important to mention the number of books I read regarding biological science. That is full of technical terminologies specific to the science. I knew several sayings, poems and puzzles. I have my own papers in English. Since my childhood I wrote several exams in English.All the exams are English demanding. If one can not understand the English, it is hardly possible to answer examinations. The other thing is since high school I was instructed in English. That means teachers and lecturers never speak my own language. In primary school, I also took English as one subject. The way I read is not different from what other people do. Right now I have no problem of understanding a literature or a book without a dictionary. That means I attained a skill to understand things from a context. But I have a habit of checking the meaning of a word from a hard copy dictionary or an online dictionary. I belief in the defintion of words as given by a standard defintion. Some people crticise me as a graduate student you do not have to use dictionary. I say glossary is important. In my MSc study every course in a blackboard has a link to glossary. I liked it. I feel like I went out form my main subject of interest. Now my main problem is to translate English documents in my own language. My first language is Amharic, one of the Ethiopian language. In our high school we do not have a dictionary published in Amharic. There were only one dictionary not containing that much enough words. I used this in primary school. Otherwise my favorites dictionaries were Oxford and longman. Although I never used it I bought a dictionary containing about 10, 000 translation of Amharic to English during my postgraduate study. I never used that for my postgraduate study as my postgraduate study is full of molecular biology terms. I rather used Oxford and online dictionary when I needed it besides technical glossary. Now my problem is how to translate English to my own language. I was trying to translate my thesis to my own language but I can not do that. What is your advise?. I am also good in my language like English. Therefore, please help me the best way on how to become a translator. So far after I finished my undergraduate study, I was trying to provide governmental reports by translating in to my own language. It is not as good as the English. The translation contained both Amharic and English. it can never be pure Amharic as there is no Amharic equivalent for many of the English words. So from where I can start to become a translator. I can buy a dictionary, but the problem is how to become efficient in it. About my English I do not bother as there is no way to become perfect in the language. We all know language is one field of study. Anyway help me on how I can be a good translator. |
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