Transaltion forum

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easybreakable

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I've been thinking how It would have been helpful if we had a translation forum. I 'm talking about help editing and giving suggestions and advice, tips for us, the non native speakers to develop our skills in this field.
 

5jj

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I've been thinking how It would have been helpful if we had a translation forum. I 'm talking about help editing and giving suggestions and advice, tips for us, the non native speakers to develop our skills in this field.
At present we get few responses in the Editing and Writing Topics Forum (where you are free to post your translations into English for comment) , and I think we'd get even fewer in a translation forum.

What members need to remember is that those of us who respond here do so in our free time, because we are interested in language. We are happy to drop in from time to time to respond to half a dozen questions or so about grammar or vocabulary, but we haven't the time, and some of us haven't the inclination, to spend a lot of time discussing longer pieces of work.

The administrators may consider your suggestion, but I don't think it will attract much attention from native-speaking members.
 

easybreakable

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You are right, I would never ask you for more than what you generously offer for free. I'm one of those who post translated pieces in the forum you mentioned and got helpful responses many times, but just thought that I could share something on my mind. Thank you for the reply, for your effort and everything.
 

TomUK

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Re: Translation forum

Even if people are prepared to help with translations, I am not sure how it could work. Assuming you post an English translation of a text in your own language and somebody tidies up any mistakes, how would anybody be able to say that it is a good translation if they don't have any knowledge of the original language?

TomUK
 

easybreakable

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Re: Translation forum

I don't agree with you on this, of course knowing both language would make it easier to judge the quality of translation, but also to some extent the instructor can guess how good the translated piece is and whether it makes sense in the second language or not.
 

TomUK

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Re: Translation forum

... to some extent the instructor can guess how good the translated piece is and whether it makes sense in the second language or not.

But the question is, if something makes sense in the second language, how do you know it makes the same sense in the first language?

TomUK
 

easybreakable

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Re: Translation forum

This is another issue, I think sometimes the translation can be better and more genuine than the original piece in of itself, The Rubaiyat of "Omar Khayyam" very famous example for this.
 
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