Nathan: 2008年6月アーカイブ

When I discuss how something should be written with my boss, we refer to "the Overlords" and "the other Overlords" quite often.  Of course, as translators we draw upon a variety of resources to figure out what the best English expression for a particular Japanese term is, but there are two sources that we probably use more frequently than any others.  "The Overlords," refers to Microsoft.  If Microsoft prefers a certain way of writing something, that's usually what we stick with.  But sometimes "the other Overlords" (Google) will reveal that Microsoft's preferred way of writing something is not in fact the norm, in which case we have to discuss which of these two mighty forces to side with.  Oddly, we also reference the Chicago Manual of Style quite often, but it doesn't get any kind of fancy name.  Since my boss is from Chicago, maybe he feels that saying "according to Chicago" is a powerful enough statement in and of itself.  

I remember that even in college, my Japanese studies used to influence the way that I wrote English, sometime for the worse.  Now that I'm a translator the danger of this happening is even greater.  I stumbled across a good example of this recently.  The verb "exists" is used sparingly in most English writing, but Japanese uses verbs that mean "to exist" much more frequently.  If I'm not careful I can find myself using it more often than I should.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

"When a signal disturbance exists..."
versus
"When there is a signal disturbance... "

I read an article recently that said that tea is supposed to be better for boosting brain performance than coffee, because it gives you a more steady supply of caffeine than coffee, which provides more of a jolt.

Since big translation jobs tend to require sustained concentration, I suppose that tea is the way to go.  But coffee is very delicious.  Maybe if I just sip it...