from Paul B. Gallagher, KLD Administrator<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
When I tell people I\u2019m a Russian translator, they often, ask, \u201chow long did it take you to learn Russian?\u201d I answer, \u201cI\u2019m not done yet.\u201d Then I add, \u201cI\u2019m not done learning English, either.\u201d After 12 years of higher education and 35 years as a full-time professional, I still have a lot to learn. And that\u2019s one of the things I love about our translation business\u2014that every day, on every job, and even in my spare time, I\u2019m constantly learning.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
When I accepted my first paid freelance translation job in May of 1985, I was still in graduate school, and I was in way over my head. Even after studying Russian for 12 years in college and graduate school, I was challenged by every sentence of \u041f\u0430\u043c\u044f\u0442\u043d\u0438\u043a\u0438 \u0434\u0440\u0435\u0432\u043d\u0435\u0433\u043e \u0418\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0430<\/em> (\u201cThe Monuments of Ancient Iran\u201d) to look up unfamiliar words and sometimes even parse unfamiliar grammar. I learned the English word stele<\/em> (\uc11d\ube44, \u77f3\u7891) for the first time. And that $300 job took me a month. But I took it seriously, I did my best, and I did all the research needed to understand the terms and concepts and express them faithfully and naturally in English. That approach has stood me in good stead ever since.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n So how do I learn now, with all that experience?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The most obvious way is by looking up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary, sometimes in several dictionaries. But that isn\u2019t always a complete solution. The best dictionaries usually offer several options for any given word, because different languages divide up the world in different ways. If the English text says \u201cwife,\u201d should the Korean say \uc544\ub0b4, \ucc98, \ubd80\uc778, \ub9c8\ub204\ub77c, \uc9d1\uc0ac\ub78c, \uc640\uc774\ud504, or something else? And if the English says \u201cbetter half\u201d or \u201cball and chain,\u201d what then? Of course, Korean isn\u2019t my target language, so I don\u2019t face that particular challenge, but any language pair presents similar ones. For my pair, an excellent source is https:\/\/dic.academic.ru\/<\/a>, which is a dictionary aggregator: it submits my search to hundreds of online dictionaries and collects the results in one place. Is there something like that for Korean? Tell us in the comment section.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n My second choice, when dictionaries fail me, is to consult professional colleagues whose native language is Russian (if I\u2019m having trouble understanding the source term), or whose specialization is the particular subject field (if I\u2019m having trouble finding a good target term). In both cases, I also search for the source term or candidate target terms in natural texts written by practitioners of that field, so I can see how the word is used in context. And of course the client can sometimes be an expert resource as well: if I\u2019m working for a mapmaking company, they will know cartographic terminology very well.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Another technique I use regularly for English is to look up words in the Online Etymology Dictionary<\/a>. Knowing a word\u2019s roots and how its meaning has evolved over the centuries helps me understand what the word truly means and how it\u2019s used. It\u2019s also fun recreation. Is there something like that for Korean? Tell us in the comment section.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n