For Translation teams: Information, organization and discussions thread

ivy

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Dear Translator volunteers,

First of all let me start by thanking you all for volunteering and translating the information for the global fans. Initial reactions have been very positive. We get quite a number of visitors and a lot of thank you on twitter.

I started this thread so that we can discuss any issues you might have and make changes if needed. So if anything is not working and you want it to be changed please let me know.


Below is the list of our current translator teams

Ben with Bumper Snippet will do the French translation.

GiselaMJJ will do the Spanish translation.

Milka and Pace,MioDolceCuore will do the German translation.

Jmie and Morinen will do the Russian translation.

Cinnamongirl will do the Italian translation.

The Lost Child will do the Polish translation.

Bumper Snippet and giabaker will do the Bosnian - Croatian - Serbian translations.

Mariajoaosilva will do the Portuguese translation.

abigaillovesmj will do the Hebrew translation.

mkgenie will do the Chinese translation.
 
Re: Translation teams information, organization and discussions thread

Our current plan is do daily summaries of the trial. We are aiming to finish and post them by midnight USA time. In this way our hopes are that European translators will have the daily summaries by the time they wake up. We will see if we can maintain this performance goals when the trial starts.

And a request : Your translations are posted on MJJCommunity Twitter. (We are also arranging to post them on the main website). Can the translators please write short headlines about the translation subject. So that I can copy them when posting your translations on twitter? Thank you.
 
Could you make this thread "English Summaries - Easy reference for the Translator Teams" a sticky too, please?
 
Would it be possible that translators get an automatic pm when a new to-be-translated summary is posted?
 
I was just wondering - would it make sense to have threads for all the respective languages for people to post links to news articles in their languages?
 
I was just wondering - would it make sense to have threads for all the respective languages for people to post links to news articles in their languages?

We have the discussion threads for that. I think we should keep the translations threads clean of all other articles.
 
I am not against it, but wouldn't it be too much - three threads per language?

I don't know, that's why I was wondering. ;) If the discussion threads get very busy, the links might get lost. So far they don't look too active though. And then there is also the risk of people posting tabloid articles, and I don't think we need that. So yeah, I don't know.
 
Bumper, can you please post a link to that dictionary site? I can't find it... Thanks a lot! :)
 
Bumper, can you please post a link to that dictionary site? I can't find it... Thanks a lot! :)

Sure, it is not a dictionary site, it is a translators' site, but there are all possible languages. I believe that Russian translators are also quite active there. There are glossaries and possibilities to ask questions to other translators in KUDOZ section. There is also a forum in Russian.

www.proz.com

The site is huge, there are many things to discover.

p.s. There's a similar site to www.proz.com

http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/default.asp

p
.p.s. These links can be helpful to everyone, no matter from/into which language you translate.
 
@Ivy, I've just noticed, the Cuban/Mexican juror, how old is he? We have all jurors' ages except his.

p.s. Do we have any info about the 5 remaining jurors?
 
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will we have a summary for the defense statement and the first witnesses? I know it's too much to ask of Ivy and she needs rest as well. So does anyone have a good article describing what was said so that we could translate? Or should we wait for Ivy? What do you guys think?

Because I can't bring myself to listen to that again and I admire Ivy for doing that for all of us..
 
CNN summarizes the case as well, but I don't know what is MJJC policy on that. And if we continue like this we risk to seriously lag behind. Time is needed to do the summaries and the translations afterwards. In the meantime the trial goes on and on.
 
As for myself I was making notices during the testimony and opening statements and that's what I've posted right after the hearing is over.
I guess it takes time to write the summary and I don't want to stay behind, so as long as I'm able to I'll continue with my notes and maybe during weekends I'll update them with the summaries.
 
I don't think I will be able to write notes during the hearings... When they played that recording I couldn't bring myself together for about 10 min and missed what was said.. And it's only the beginning... :(

In my opinion, the best choice would be to have more people doing the summaries in English, we need people to help Ivy with that because it's too much work for one person. And the English summaries are important not just for the translators but also for English speaking fans who can't handle watching the trial....
 
I think I'll take notes too. Otherwise it wont work. Ivy can't do it all by herself. The translations take a lot of time too, and we will fall behind.
 
I think we should stick with ivy's summaries, otherwise we'll have a big mess with everybody translating different things, etc. ivy should just try to keep them as short as possible (I know that's not an easy thing to do), also, maybe they will get a bit shorter during the trial, the opening statements are quite important and shouldn't be shortened too much.

Have a bit more patience, this was just the first day, things will sort themselves out all right with time, I guess.
 
OK, spent most of the day translating. I'm beat, and the 2d day starts in less than an hour... lol I think I'll take notes today, and then rely on Ivy's summaries to complete and cross check. Otherwise, it cant be done. As a teacher, I cant show up at work hands in my pockets either. Got less than one hour to get ready for tomorrow.
 
ivy, would it be possible, next time you post pictures, to not lock the summary thread for a day or something? So that we can quote the post and just copy the images from there?
 
You can right-click on a photo and copy the URL and then use it in your post.
 
You can right-click on a photo and copy the URL and then use it in your post.

That still takes a while, adding the img-tag, etc., especially if your computer is a bit slow. Getting the pictures into the post took me about 20 minutes.
 
Guys unfortunately the summaries are taking a long time. and yes we are at least half a day behind but try to catch up.

I also realize that the summaries are getting longer and making it harder to translate.

So I'm recommending as of now you all start translating a shorter version of the summaries - basically a summary of a summary. Use summaries as a guide and only translate important parts and/or what you can do.

Also if you wish you can translate a media story (if you don't want to fall behind) and then do an additions from the summary translation that you feel relevant.

In short we are changing the rules of the game. Reality is that summaries and translations are a harder task then we predicted. Just adapt your translations to what you can do and what you think is reasonable. We would appreciate if you can still continue to do at least a major important points updates in your languages.

Thank you.
 
Guys unfortunately the summaries are taking a long time. and yes we are at least half a day behind but try to catch up.

I also realize that the summaries are getting longer and making it harder to translate.

So I'm recommending as of now you all start translating a shorter version of the summaries - basically a summary of a summary. Use summaries as a guide and only translate important parts and/or what you can do.

Also if you wish you can translate a media story (if you don't want to fall behind) and then do an additions from the summary translation that you feel relevant.

In short we are changing the rules of the game. Reality is that summaries and translations are a harder task then we predicted. Just adapt your translations to what you can do and what you think is reasonable. We would appreciate if you can still continue to do at least a major important points updates in your languages.

Thank you.

Translating itself is not a real issue here. I think that the problem is the length of some text to translate compared to short deadlines we have on the one hand, and the pace of the trial on the other.

Also, summarizing the trial day by day by only one person is a full time job, something that no one can really afford.

Another thing, the objective of the translations was to be coherent and to provide the most accurate and neutral info we could. In order to avoid chaos of translators doing their own summaries and in order to make it easier for those who make summaries, couldn't we agree on providing the same frame of the info in our translations? For example if you go on CNN you will see the summary of the case day by day. Now I am not advocating for CNN necessarily, it could be Reuters or BBC or any other respectable news source?

In short, I suggest to agree on selecting one media which is already daily summerizing the case. We translate those media summaries (that way Ivy will be relieved from the heavy burden) while Ivy's job would be to add important info --which we will also translate-- that is not mentioned in the selected mainstream media. What do you think?

For example:

1 = CNN summary English text->translation into other languages
+
1 = Ivy's addendum ->translation into other languages
=
2 = CNN summary translation & Ivy's addendum (day 1)

We repeat the same every day for day 2, day 3, day 4, etc.
 
What I suggested above is mainly to remain coherent.

Now, if we want to privilege the speed of the info, we could also simply let translators post all the news that has already been published in their respective languages and filter unnecessary info or innuendo.
 
I will still try to translate the summaries in full because I think it's important for non-english fans to know as many facts as possible. I can change something here and there (omit something, or add something I remember from the testimony that I think is interesting), but I personally don't want to translate press articles. In fact, since the start of the trial I avoid all media altogether, I don't even watch TV. We have the first-hand info and I don't want to turn to secondary sources.
 
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