Thử thách Việt-->Anh

Hì anh cũng định nói cả cái này nữa.Vì vốn Tiếng Việt của chúng ta rất yếu
Hôm sau anh đưa vài bài dịch lên thử sức hen. Hiện nay vẫn đang hơi bận.

I think the solution suggested by someone in page 12 (What is your birth order in the family?) is not very correct. This Vietnamese question can be simply translated as "Are you the first or the second child in your family?". I am fully convinced that, on hearing this question, the listener will easily understand what you really want to know and, therefore, give you the correct answer. By the way, I want to give you my superficial ideas on translation and interpretation.
In my opinion, being a translator or an interpreter, you serve as a bridge linking the two languages. It means that you must not only have great command of English but speak excellent Vietnamese. This is pre-requisite for translation/interpretation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa. Besides, you must also have good knowledge of history, culture, religion and the specific field you are dealing with. When you are doing a translation, you yourself must understand it thoroughly first if you do not want to mistranslate it. And if you want to do that, you have to base on the context, the style, and the tone of the writer (and even the gesture of the speaker in case of interpretation) to get the message hidden in every sentence and in a paragraph as a whole. Hence, I believe it is impossilbe to translate correctly a single sentence from a language into the other without knowing the context in which it is written/spoken. When you have got the message or the gist of the sentence then try to paraphrase it in an easy-to-understand way, ie. try to re-word it so that the listener will easily catch what you want to mean. It is unnecessary to follow every single word when you translate. It is of great importance that you can make the listener understand the way you do, so just try to use your own words.
In short, translation/interpretation is a big job. If you want to fully accomplish this job, you must have great command of English and Vietnamese, and good knowledge of history, culture, religion as well as the specific field you are facing. Besides, practical experience is also of great significance.
Ps. It is irrational and impossilbe to compare translation/interpretation from English into Vietnamese and that from Vietnamese into English just as you can not say whether literature or history is more diffucult. These two jobs are in close relations but different. They are equally difficult.

The Soul of NgheTinhIIR

Ờ,Xin lỗi mọi người vì đọc ko kỹ nên ko biết câu này đã dịch rồi nhưng cái câu What is your birth order in the family? nghe chừng ko ổn vì ko hợp với cách nói chuyện giao tiếp mặc dù đúng.Mọi người xem câu này thế nào: "How do you come from?"
câu này do ông giáo ở ĐNHN chỉ giáo,ông này có tiếng là giỏi

to Natna,
I agree with you on translating so that the true meaning of a phrase/word in context is brought across. I am not calling myself a real translator otherwise I''d be fired, j/k .
Translating is a difficult skill to acquire because one would have to be knowledged of both cultures in order to accurately translate. However this forum is just a group of amateurs trying as a hard as possible to assist one another in translating messages from English to Vietnames or vice versa. At times it can become very complicated because of the differences in the two cultures and the way some phrases/words don''t exist in any other language than the one it derived from.
For example, going back to my post regarding the translated question: "What is your birth order?" i believe that it is grammatically correct, but it''s just not part of the American culture to ask that. I too have never asked that question before, but when I recently posed the question to some of the members in this forum they all understood what I was asking for. It''s all a matter of getting the point across in the most comprehensible form. In my opinion, asking a person, "What is your birth order?" is most polite way to phrase that type of question; it avoids any embarrassment for the person asked, because if I were to ask you "Are you the first or second born?" and you say, "I was the tenth." there would be some discomfiture. .
The object is to find it''s true meaning in context, not a close definition. But I don''t agree with you when you say a person would have to be fully educated in both languages'' culture, history, and religion, all those things are just excess knowledge. A person would only need to know both languages'' culture (attitudes to certain things) to grasp a phrase''s meaning and it''s connotation when translating the everyday messages/conversations. Anyways, I appreciate your sharing of your opinion.

To Gerbich and Natna,
=) It seems the current issue at hand is the argument of the definition of ''translating", whether it means to get the point across in the most comprehensible form, or to convey your translations with pretexted messages, emphasising your knowledge on culture, history, ect, and all that jazz.
I find this topic profoundly interesting actually, considering I''ve been a little confused myself.
I''d like to offer my own defition of ''translate'' (with the aid of my favourite tool of course, Microsoft Encatar ^^ )
- To turn words into different language: to give an equivalent in another language for a particular word or phrase, or reproduce a written or spoken text in a different language while retaining the original meaning.
In which case, both of your translations sound rather fine to my (unrefined ^^ ) ears. What on earth am I on about? ^^
I have no idea. Just ignore me. ^^
<-- crazy nut
"Gomen nasai....demo..A****erui Sayuri-san.."

Chào các bạn,
Mình đang bối rối khi chuyển các câu sau đây sang tiếng Anh, nhờ các bạn giúp hộ. Xin cám ơn trước.
1/ Phải chứng tỏ khả năng lãnh đạo.
2/Cần mạnh dạn góp ý, phê bình ( nếu cần thiết phải có biện pháp cụ thể)

G . không hiểu nghĩa " cụ thể " là gì ?
dịch câu thứ nhất nhé :
Phải chứng tỏ khả năng lãnh đạo.
Must demonstrate solid leadership skills .

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR ALL
YOU SEEM TO BE TOO FOND OF SURPASSING THE OTHERS. HOWEVER, I DID NOT MEAN TO DISPARAGE YOUR WORK OF ARTS . I JUST WANTED TO TAKE YOUR SOLUTION AS A PRETEXT TO SHARE MY VIEWS ON TRANSLATION/INTERPRETATION WHICH HAD BEEN BEING HOTLY DISCUSSED BY BRITNEY AND MARADONA84.
PS. WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY "TO BE BROUGHT ACROSS"? THIS PHRASE MAKES NO SENSE, I AM AFRAID. HEHE, I GUESS YOU WANTED TO SAY "COME ACROSS", WHICH MEANS "TO BE UNDERSTOOD OR COMMUNICATED". RIGHT?
[red]
The Soul of NgheTinhIIR
Được britneybritney sửa chữa / chuyển vào 22:11 ngày 06/01/2004

Nhân dịp cô Brit, mod của box này lên xe hoa, các bác dịch thử câu này xem nào. Vui duyên mới không quên nhiệm vụ (nhiệm vụ làm mod!)
[red]Phen này ông quyết đi buôn cối
Trên ... mạng bao nhiêu đứa giã trầu. (Xin lỗi cụ Tú)[/red]

Don''t for get! you''re on your duty.
Hê thiếu phần vui duyên.
Sáng nay đọc TTVH thấy Brit sáng cưới thì chiều bỏ. Miễn bình luận