Chinese stories

Here’s one that has been stumping me recently: 器具 (qiju). It basically means 用具, ”something that is used for a certain purpose”, and there really is no single English word that can encompass all of its possible meanings. Some of the dictionaries say: utensil, appliance, instrument, apparatus, implement. But it can also refer to tableware like bowls and dishes and tools, among other things. The article juxtaposes this word with works of art, trying to figure out if there is a distinction between the two. I suppose I will have to settle for something ugly like ‘works of art’ and ‘objects for use’.

Comments Off

I attended my first ATA conference last week in New York, and I’m definitely glad I went. There was something interesting in most of the presentations I went to, and it was good to actually be able to meet some other translators. 

One thing I found out by attending is how incredibly under-represented Chinese translation is here in the US. There were tons of European languages represented, and even Japanese it seems had a bigger group than the Chinese one. In addition, I could probably count the native English speakers who translated Chinese that showed up on one hand. It still is puzzling to me why the most widely spoken language in the world had such a small turnout… perhaps it’s because most of the translators are located in China? Perhaps its the relatively short history of commercial Chinese translation? They are also trying to set up a Chinese to English certification exam, which is a tough problem, because they cannot find enough graders. I have run into this situation before–I have done trial translations for agencies who could not find anyone competent or willing to evaluate them (out of fear of competition I guess), or who sent me back evaluations that were pure nonsense, obviously not looked at by native speakers. 

The talks I liked the best were probably the ones by interesting people who I have never heard of, such as the guy who does most of the subtitling for Korean dramas into English, and a talk by Edith Grossman, a translator of spanish literature. I also despereately needed to listen to the ergonomics talk, as I have been hunched over a busted up laptop for the past two years, and I don’t think my neck is doing to well. The only dissapointing thing was there really was no talk that was targeted at Chinese to English translators, apart from a discussion on how to translate ‘zheteng’ 折腾.

2 Comments »