If you can stand to read one more post by me about the Isla Vista Killer (aka Psycho Single), then off you go to Catholic World Report. The big tragedy for the killer is that he could have turned from his sins and asked for forgiveness at any time. In fact, he managed to kick his video game addiction, so he was capable of saying "yes" to good and "no" to bad. Grace was waiting. Grace is waiting for us, too, if we're in need of it. All we need is to say yes to the voice that prompts us to realize "These sins I commit are rubbish!"
Meanwhile, I shall be working with my head down over my Polish translation all day. Although I complain, it's very rewarding, like Pilates for the intellect. If you are feeling bored and restless, and miss university or even just the fun of learning, I heartily recommend taking up, or improving, a second language. Language is a bottomless well of sweet water.
7 comments:
Fantastic article.
Wow. Yes.
Dorothy, thank you very much for this translating. We are looking forward for it with gratetude. I support you strongly! Greetings from the Brave Women from Poland!
Alicjo, I hope to send it to you by June 9th! Serdecznie pozdrawiam z Edynburga!
Great article. Thank you for writing it.
Dorothy, you don't have to be hurry. We can wait. All the best for you!
It's late but maybe you'll read it.
Self-translation is not actually a good language exercise, compared to some other kinds. That's because translation is kinda difficult to do well at all. As in, people with a degree in a foreign language aren't always good translators.
If you want creative exercises, directed and free writing is better (i.e. writing directly in Polish, first with aids and a set topic, then freely). In translation, you start with a source text in a language you know very well, so you're going to complicate stuff and probably won't be able to match that level of complexity in a language you're just learning. Writing directly in Polish would hinder you form doing that as much.
Ad yes, machines are almost universally bad at translation. There are some very specialized attempts to make machine translation sensible, but that usually involves feeding the machine a bunch of very similar text that is translated by qualified humans (appliance manuals, contracts or other boilerplate documents) and then hoping the machine can do other translations of boilerplate. Then, you still give it to a proofreader. Translating creative writing via machine is going to go very, very wrong.
If you actually need something translated, I might be able to help just for the fun of it (doing work for fun means I don't work for a strict deadline - it's done, when it's done).
If you want to continue doing translation exercises, by all means go ahead - whatever exercise you like is good. But I'd gently advise still doing it only if you LIKE it. Otherwise, writing directly in Polish (mistakes and all) might be better.
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