A few weeks ago, we were watching a show on TV Japan about bottle rockets. They profiled some grad students in an aerospace engineering program at a university in Hokkaido.
The students were working on a design for fixed wing aircraft but using bottle rockets for propulsion. We got to see them go down a lot of blind alleys in their design, which I can totally relate to, and crash a lot of rockets. At one point, they tried to read a journal article about the physics of airflow over the surface of wings. The article was in Japanese and the students were native Japanese speakers, but they stared at it blankly for a while, then scurried away mumbling.
And I laughed at them! (Because I am heartless.) Those are the kind of articles I translate, although I handle material more in my area of expertise, like image processing and data analysis algorithms. When you're a translator, you can't stop with the blank staring. No, that is just your starting point. You then have to knuckle down and read it till you understand it. Or until your brain bleeds, whichever comes first.
The students' solution to their problem was more fun than sweating over the article. They consulted a paper airplane expert and ended up with a nice bottle rocket and a beautiful flight.
I wish translation problems could be solved with a little judicious folding.
236 words | April 11, 2006 08:58 PM | Lost in translation