Simple Technique to Save your Time and Energy while Translating

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 »  Articles Overview  »  Art of Translation and Interpreting  »  Simple Technique to Save your Time and Energy while Translating

Simple Technique to Save your Time and Energy while Translating

By Ahnan Alex | Published  07/3/2010 | Art of Translation and Interpreting | Recommendation:RateSecARateSecARateSecARateSecIRateSecI
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Quicklink: http://www.proz.com/doc/3016
Author:
Ahnan Alex
Indonesia
English to Indonesian translator
Became a member: Sep 4, 2010.
 
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Simple technique to save your time and energy when translating.

Translating can be a waste of time, boring and even tiring if you do not know how to cope with. It is not about the difficulty level of words you are encountering. It is merely about the time you take to resolve them. One spends minutes or even hours thinking of words, and forgets the rest words also needing translating. This, of course, is not effective at all. This will lead you to the boredom and tiredness, even to the illness. This may not happen to you, for it will be disaster to you. The deadline can’t be met, and you will probably lose your potential customer due to the illness you are suffering. How can you translate well if you are unwell?

I still remember what my English lecturer told me how to cope with the waste of time TOEFL questions when I was still at university. He told me to pass them, and did ones I thought they were easy. I realize that translating, in this case, is absolutely different from answering TOEFL questions, but I am convinced that both need very effective techniques to cope with. I can’t imagine what will happen to the one trying to complete TOEFL questions in a scheduled time without having effective technique to take. Can he/ she complete them on time if he/ she is only stuck by one question he/ she thinks it is difficult? I think he/ she will miss other questions when the bell rings. This is likely to be the same to what you are supposed to do when translating. You need to pass the words you think that they take minutes or hours to resolve while you continue translating the rest words and get back to them after the whole words have been completely done. This, of course, will save your time and energy, and you can meet the deadline on time in the end. I have done this technique many times and it really helps!

Here are the tips on how to cope with the difficult words you are encountering without having to lose your time and energy.
1. When you are on the way translating and happen to find the difficult words, leave them and highlight them in color you like to make them traceable.
2. Translate the rest words needing translating.
3. After all words have been surely done, get back to the words you have highlighted, and take your time to think of what the words really mean.
4. After minutes or hours of thinking of them and you find no results although you have gone to your most reliable dictionary, try to ask your friend you think he/ she is capable of the field. Never ask your client!
5. If you find no answer after you asked your friend, try to search them in the internet and find the most suitable equivalents. I think internet can be one of the solutions as it is the biggest electronic library in the world.
6. After you find the most suitable ones for the difficult words you are encountering, do not forget to review all of the results. Make sure that all words have been well handled, and none of the words misses. Also, make sure that the punctuation has been well made, and none of the grammatical errors is made. When all has been fixed, send it to your client directly, and take a long rest afterward! Have a nice try!


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