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dchenesYesterday morning my brain got mushy, or something, and what I thought was a good idea floated to the top of it. So, under the name I use for posting writing (by which I mean fanfic), I posted this:
I'm a French translator when I'm not a secretary or a fanfic writer. I've read a lot of fanfic, and there are a lot of fandoms that use languages other than English. And a lot of people, if they don't know somebody who speaks the language they need, will use BabelFish, and wind up with something that REALLY isn't what they meant. I saw one once that was supposed to say "I want my money back" in French, only "back" was translated in the sense of "the part opposite your front".
So I'm proposing that we all pool our languages in a community devoted to translations to be used in fanfic. We've got to be better than BabelFish, which can't parse context. Unfortunately I don't have the time to devote to setting up and advertising a community, but I thought I'd see if anyone else was interested.
An hour later, somebody had set up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fic_translation, and so far it's collected people for four or five languages, and everybody seems to think it's a wonderful idea. I'm amazed that I actually had the idea in the first place, and gratified that people seem to think it's a good idea.
I got email from Harvard again this morning, wanting to know if I could wait until next week to hear about the job. (I hope that means they're going to give it to me, and they're just making sure I haven't taken another offer yet. I'd like to think that if they weren't going to hire me, they wouldn't bother asking me if I could wait until next week to hear it.) I said I'd like to know one way or the other before Thanksgiving.
I feel, in general, like I'm on the edge of something here. I hope it's something good.
I'm a French translator when I'm not a secretary or a fanfic writer. I've read a lot of fanfic, and there are a lot of fandoms that use languages other than English. And a lot of people, if they don't know somebody who speaks the language they need, will use BabelFish, and wind up with something that REALLY isn't what they meant. I saw one once that was supposed to say "I want my money back" in French, only "back" was translated in the sense of "the part opposite your front".
So I'm proposing that we all pool our languages in a community devoted to translations to be used in fanfic. We've got to be better than BabelFish, which can't parse context. Unfortunately I don't have the time to devote to setting up and advertising a community, but I thought I'd see if anyone else was interested.
An hour later, somebody had set up
fic_translation, and so far it's collected people for four or five languages, and everybody seems to think it's a wonderful idea. I'm amazed that I actually had the idea in the first place, and gratified that people seem to think it's a good idea. I got email from Harvard again this morning, wanting to know if I could wait until next week to hear about the job. (I hope that means they're going to give it to me, and they're just making sure I haven't taken another offer yet. I'd like to think that if they weren't going to hire me, they wouldn't bother asking me if I could wait until next week to hear it.) I said I'd like to know one way or the other before Thanksgiving.
I feel, in general, like I'm on the edge of something here. I hope it's something good.
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Date: 2005-11-17 07:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-17 08:55 am (UTC)