Translation

Status
Not open for further replies.

HaraKiriBlade

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2005
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
Hello,

I am working on my translation skills in the hopes of becoming a professional interpreter / translator. I picked a random text from a blog and translated the opening paragraphs into English. My vocabulary / expressions are limited, so any help you are willing to give me would be much appreciated.


Let me begin with a story. There was a king in a kingdom. The king, upon hearing the advice that reading a lot makes a good king, decided to pay a visit to the royal library. The king was overwhelmed by the number of books in the library and ordered his vassals to summarize all of them into ten volumes. After the kingdom’s greatest scholars racked their brains out, they finally managed to summarize everything into ten books and submit them to the king. The king, however, thought even ten books were too much to read, and ordered his men to summarize them into one book. The scholars put their heads together and were able condense the books into one volume. This time around, the king did not even want to read this one book and demanded the book be summed up in one line. After much agony over the king’s order, the scholars at last pulled off the single-sentence summary. The scholars wrote the sentence on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope, and presented it to the king. What could possibly have been written? The king’s vassals and subjects, as well as the king himself, were all very curious and so waited with bated breath for the king to open the envelope and read the line. The king at last read the sentence out loud. It was said to be “Nothing in this world comes for free.”

The sentence may have been the scholars’ attempt to point out the king’s laziness, but it also holds true for us all. Not too many freebies have any substantial worth, but people still want things for free. These are the type of people swindlers like the most. They are easy targets for scammers because they want to take an easy way out and gain much without effort.
 

Gillnetter

Key Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Hello,

I am working on my translation skills in the hopes of becoming a professional interpreter / translator. I picked a random text from a blog and translated the opening paragraphs into English. My vocabulary / expressions are limited, so any help you are willing to give me would be much appreciated.

Let me begin with a story. There was a king in a kingdom (The more natural way to write this is either "There was a king", or, "There was a king in a certain kingdom".). The king, upon hearing the advice that reading a lot makes a good king, decided to pay a visit to the royal library. The king was overwhelmed by the number of books in the library and ordered his vassals (A vassal is usually thought of as a person who is granted the use of land by a person of superior status. The people the king went to were probably advisers of some sort) to summarize all of them into ten volumes. After the kingdom’s greatest scholars (Aha! They were scholars, not vassals) racked their brains [STRIKE]out[/STRIKE], they finally managed to summarize everything into ten books and submited them to the king. The king, however, thought even ten books were too [STRIKE]much [/STRIKE] many to read, and ordered his men to summarize them into one book. The scholars put their heads together and were able to condense the books into one volume. This time around, the king did not even want to read this one book and demanded the book be summed up in one line. After much agony over the king’s order, the scholars at last pulled off the single-sentence summary. The scholars wrote the sentence on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope, and presented it to the king. What could possibly have been written? The king’s vassals and subjects (Vassals are subjects of the king. It would be better to delete "vassals" here), as well as the king himself, were all very curious and so waited with bated breath for the king to open the envelope and read the line. The king at last read the sentence out loud. It was said to be “Nothing in this world comes for free.”

The sentence may have been the scholars’ attempt to point out the king’s laziness, but it also holds true for us all. Not too many freebies have any substantial worth, but people still want things for free. These are the type of people swindlers like the most. They are easy targets for scammers because they want to take [STRIKE]an [/STRIKE] the easy way out and gain much without effort.
 

HaraKiriBlade

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2005
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
Thank you for your corrections, Gillnetter. I guess vassals are not the kind of people the king can easily order around as he did in the story, eh?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top