I have some questions that relate to translating stuff, and they don't really fit any of the categories in this forum... and anyway, most of the members are not interested in translating. I looked for a translator's forum on Google and came up with translatorscafe.com, but then the site, which is apparently more for job searches than for discussion, asks so many questions that makes the American tax authorities look like Mr. Nice, and at one point it expressly requires an email in a box which it says will be made public so that (the warning of the site itself) lots of spam will result. I want something more like The Writer's Forums, but including translator's issues. Any suggestions?
Sadly, most forums for translators are exactly what you describe. Job-hunt forums. It's a very competitive market and its always about getting that next gig. I belong to translatorscafe.com, and your concerns over spam are justified. I had to go back and set all my settings to not receive emails, which basically negates the use of the sight. There's proz.com as well, but be warned: It's still basically a job-hunt forum and the little bit of actual translation discussion that takes place in the forum is modded by ham-fisted moderators. I was actually banned from that forum for not showing the proper, dignified, monastic attitude towards the High Holy Moderator's preference for prescriptive grammarianism. There's also wordreference.com. It doesn't look like a translator's forum on the surface, but when you get into their forums, the citizenry is all translators. But you won't find much chat. It's mostly how do you say this? and what does this bizarre phrase from my Venezuelan land deed mean? etc. It's been the most useful forum-formatted venue I've found. These days I have honed my work down to just legal translation, so I have found two or three Facebooks groups that are specifically for my little slice of the translation pie, in my language, which have proven to be the most helpful venues currently.
Many thanks, Wreybies! Very good suggestion; I have therefore signed up for wordreference.com. Even though the subject line icon reads "Word or phrase", a giveaway for the fact that it is mostly an advanced dictionary, I see that others have posted questions which deviate from this, so I have posted a question, and I will see what sort of feedback I get.
Epilogue: here is the feedback I got from wordreference.com (with my corrections of the main grammatical mistakes for the sake of comprehension) "Hello, Welcome to the Russian forum! Unfortunately I had to delete your thread because it was far beyond the scope of our Forum, that is devoted to the difficulties of the Russian language and is intended for Russian learners. You may try to ask your question at All Languages or Cultural Cafe forums, because it actually refers rather to interlingual relations than specifically to the Russian-English pair. Regards Moderator of the Russian Forum" Sigh. You warned me. Back to the drawing board..... :-(
Hm, I'll give it a try, but in the past such specific questions have evoked little or no response. But, hope springs eternal, so: Suppose author researches something for his non-fiction article, using a source translated from English to Russian. She then writes an article in English (with the help of a translator). There are two arguments for the listing of the source in the bibliography or table of references: 1) cite only the Russian source , although this would mean nothing to most of the readers. 2) cite only the English original, allowing readers to check the original source, even though the author herself did not use it. 3) cite both, putting the Russian title and in brackets the fact that it is a translation from the original English, and then giving the data for the original English. Is there any convention as to what to do in such a case?
Thanks, NiallRoach. That is my feeling as well, which is what I did for an article I translated a couple of months ago. But the question is still relevant, because the same author wishes me to translate another article of his in a couple of months, and I will face the same dilemma. I myself am not a qualified or professional translator; just some people who want to publish articles which use scientific language (I will not go so far as to say the articles themselves are scientific..... but if pay me to translate that the earth is flat, I will translate that the earth is flat) who know of my scientific background and my knowledge of other languages (not as a linguist, just enough to read stuff in the original) come to me through the grapevine, and so I end up with questions like this.
This topic is quite old but still handy for someone there. I don't know how I managed to enter this thread, but all those suggestions you left are excellent thanks. Right now, I profoundly understand how I should use these [spam link deleted] At least now I know that learning and translating a language isn't that difficult anymore. Especially google translate is doing a big job there. All those beginners are running for it.
