I have to retranslate eleven paragraphs of my Theology of Woman essay because they are impossible for a Polish speaker to read and PPS's head almost blew up.
The Magic Polish Translation Machine is bad. Very, very bad. Apparently the paragraphs I did without the Machine are better than the Machine ones. There is no substitute for human + dictionary + verb book + grammar primer + 2.5 years of study.
But the other moral of the story is that a woman who decides to render her own English language essay into Polish has a fool for a translator. To quote B.A., "I cry."
When this is done, I'm not reading or writing anything above my grade level in Polish EVER AGAIN. I am sticking to Julek i Julka and memorizing the dialogues in the soap opera composed by my prof, and that is it. Well, hymns, songs and poems will still be okay, but no more translating myself. It hurts my brain and eats up all my time.
On the other hand, it can not be too widely known among English-to-Polish translators that I will find out if they are sloppy with my work.
(This is where you should all chime in, "Don't quit, Seraphic!")
8 comments:
So, don’t quit, Seraphic! If I were you, I would really try to do the same. Although I think I would give up at some point and then be disappointed about it later. I am only always reading texts in languages I never learned properly (French, Portuguese, Italian), and I like finding out new facts about those languages, learning new words, understanding the grammar and so on. There is no better way to study a language really well than to write texts in it yourself (and get them corrected by a native speaker), although it is tough, because your mistakes stand out so clearly. When you speak a foreign language, you can easily slur over your mistakes.
Wait, so PPS actually read some of the paragraphs translated by the evil machine? What happened to Polish resolve? Or did you break him by crying?
Well, I think he was only teasing that day. Besides, I invoked the Queen of Poland, so what else could he do? Still, the machine is bad, so I have to do 11 paragraphs all over again.
Don't quit Seraphic! It's all good practice. And future serious bragging rights.
Don't quit Seraphic! You'll be so proud of yourself when it's over.
Think about what all this self-translation is doing for your Polish language skills! Much, much better than those silly dialogs they try to have students memorize. You are taking your own thoughts and recreating them in a foreign language. Keep this up and in another 2.5 years you won't be writing in English and translating into Polish, you'll just be writing it in Polish! (And I'm sure it can't be worse than Attic Greek, if many bodies can suffer through Thucydides and come out intact surely you, Seraphic, can work with a beautiful language that is currently spoken and come out in much better shape than us Hellenists).
Well, that's true. I did six more paragraphs today. But it's like "The Neverending Essay."
Don't quit Seraphic! Think that in Poland there are about 60 women who still are looking forward to that essey. Be brave! And you see that when you finished you will be very, very proud of yourself. Polish women are with you Dorothy!
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