Translators and Linguists

And which foreign languages would be best to learn? I’m thinking about Russian, Arabic, or an Asian language of some sort.

You are asking the wrong question and getting ahead of yourself. Number one question is, are you military material and which service do you think you identify with. next question should be why are you joining. After that, whichever branch you choose, they have to determine if you even have an affinity for languages. All branches of the military use the same school DLI west or east…depending on language THEY give you. your language is determined by the needs of the service you join and whatever score that obtain on the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery). If you don’t get at least 100 on that test, you can pretty much forget about being a linguist for the military. However, if you are a native speaker of something the military needs at the time, you can by pass DLI. One other thing, if you have a background that will prevent you from getting a top secret security clearance, you can’t be one either. Now if you would still like to be a linguist, the top five languages last I checked were: Arabic, Pashtu, Chinese, Korean and Farsi.

Do you think that translators should correct a mistake if they noticed it while translating from language into another? and why?

It depends, usually a translator and the client stay in touch during the translation process in case something is unclear. It is up to the client; in most cases they just want a correct translation, so without possible mistakes from the source language. If the translation has to be as accurate as possible (for legal reasons for example), they should do that. It’s like in any other job: the customer is always right!

Specifically for Japanese translations. I want to be able to translate an entire Japanese website into english. If it’s not a direct website translator, I would like something I could copy and paste a block of text into for translation.

Google is better, as is Altavista, but none of them are really any good. You’ll always get something really amusing and almost completely incomprehensible. The best ones let you guess the topic and some of the content, but they certainly aren’t smooth. If you want to experiment, and you have Firefox, you can get a Fox Lingo add on that lets you choose many sources for translations from many languages to many other languages. Your best option is to ask for a Japanese friend to help you and pay them a little bit, or, if it needs to be perfect, find a professional translator. Sometimes Japanese departments at universities can hook you up with someone who isn’t too expensive.

Depends on the language. Arabic/Farsi or Chineese 85-100K

The text is clear in the original languages. So how can Christians help others understand this fact?

Or as C. H. Dodd explained it:

"No one who has not tried it can know how an impossible an art translation is. Only those who have meditated long upon the Greek original are aware of the richness and subtlety of meaning that may lie even within the most apparently simple sentence, or know the despair that attends all efforts to bring it out through the medium of a different language." From New English Bible translation of the New Testament.

until everyone can read the original Greek and Hebrew for themselves… christians ain’t gonna be able to get others to understand squat

Where could I look? Perhaps find some kid in Latin America with e-mail who’ll translate for $10/story.
I can’t find some housewife in Honduras with great Spanish grammar and some free time?

I can teach you some spanish, if you want to. I’m uruguayan. Send me your e.mail

Now I know that Google has a translator and it works well, but I want to know the meaning of the word. So, on Google you type in the word (in my case it was Mitsu) in English and it translates it to how it would look in Japanese. But that doesn’t help me with figuring out what it means. Any suggestions?

I recommed this dictionary:

http://www.suteki.nu/translator/

Works!

Hope this helps ^_^

I have seen people major in languages like spanish before. but how practical is that. I know it can pay very well to translate. But it seems like the translation software could one day make this profession obsolete.

How long could it be until the software gets to the point where it is more practical to use it than to hire a human translator?

Software replacing human translation would probably never replace human translators, Although the technology is advancing, a person can provide a better, more accurate translation most of the time and the grammar is more likely to be correct. In the long run, a human is a better translator but for smaller tasks or businesses, technology would be more practical.

If you are bilingual I’m sure you understand that sometimes translation can be a little bit different. From hebrew and a lot of Jesus’s metaphors that he spoke in, could it be that the translations were altered a tiny bit?

Which translators are you talking about?

The Latin and Greek scholars King James paid to put the Bible into English? No. I know for a fact that there are hundreds of translational mistakes in the KJV, even though saying so gives some of my fundamentalist brothers apoplexy.

The translators of the Jerusalem Bible? Yes, pretty much. They were not only fluent in the Koine Greek of the Bible, but some of them were masters of the older Aramaic and Hebrew that the KJV scholars had no clue about.

Of course will any translation be perfect? Of course not. No 2 languages match up phoneme for phoneme, concept for concept.

1. I am on the path to a career change. How can I switch from a Structural Engineer to a Translator/Interpreter (Mandarine-English). I’d rather not go back for another 4 years of university study.
2. I’d also appriciate anyone who can give me any idea about the pay. I understand simultaneous court interpretation cost more than, say, a translation job for a travel brochure. I am located in Toronto, but any big/median city info is appriciated.
3. What is the difference between being a member of the ATA or CTTIC and being licensed by these organization?

You’ll get paid alot but you really should know the language well!!!