What is post-editing exactly?

Alan Wang wrote:

先说“提取”

在200 转/分~300 转/分的低速搅拌提取5 -15min
【你的翻译】to carry out extraction for 5 to 15 min while being stirred at a low speed of 200 rpm to 300 rpm
【我的翻译】The mixture is stirred for 5-15 min. at 200 ~ 300 rev / min.

第一、 此处的提取应该只是指搅拌过程。而你的翻译，特别是这个【while】让人以为在这一阶段存在【搅拌】和【提取】两种不同的过程。

第二、 【提取】包括几个步骤，涉及的是整个发明的宗旨。你这样翻译是把【提取】用在了其中一个中间步骤上，这时，离提取成功还缺了一个步骤。所以这时不存在真正的提取【to carry out extraction】。此时，无论怎么搅拌，都还是搅拌液。如果这时存在提取，就必须指明提取到哪里去了？你没有指出。所以即使这时有提取，比如在液体混合液之间发生什么交换，也不能说。否则给人一种莫名其妙的感觉。

第三、 要成功提取，是在搅拌以后，【经水浴加热破乳后分出油层】，然后【所得水相即为博落回中总生物碱的溶液】。你在搅拌这一步就说在提取了，是不是过早了？根据字面翻译易落陷阱！

你说我漏译了第一个【博落回】，实际上没有漏译。我把它译为【the plant material】。指的是这种植物的干粉，即提取中实际采用的。因为前面提到了该植物的名称，这里无需重复这个怪名。的确，我喜欢不根据字面去翻译。

第二个【博落回】是彻彻底底可以省略的。所以一点都不客气。整个发明就在说这种植物的总生物碱。

先说这点，有必要再说。

不见得正确。所以多包涵。

Alan Wang wrote:

我们不妨做一个想象试验。

某人拿一根棍子，在一个大瓶子里搅动。嘴里哼着：我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取。

你不觉得好笑吗？

实际上，他只是在搅动而已！提取到哪里去了呢？


但是，提取在最后一步实现了，所以我们叫它提取器。

Rita Pang wrote:

And Alan, frankly, with all due respect, I really wouldn't talk too much about post-editing if I were you on a public forum. I am not here to judge your expertise or your ability to translate; my concern is mostly that your repeated insistence on the relatively superb ability of post-editing or MT might put you strictly in that field of work. If someone were to collaborate with you, found you on proz and did a search under your name, the frequent popping up of your name in a link related to MT might turn some customers away (who are, frankly, willing to pay more than $0.06 USD...) Just my two cents, I hold no personal nor professional grudge against your preferred method of work.

I gotta say though, I truly think you scored a deal with the 200 K job Kudos to you on that one.

Rita Pang wrote:

Hey Phil, can you elaborate a bit on why you use this particular dictionary the most often?

ysun wrote:

别让我有喘息的机会。

Alan Wang wrote:

至于吗？
不过是文字游戏而已。:D

wherestip wrote:

"Boiling tea leaves in water extracts the tannins, theobromine, and caffeine out of the leaves and into the water."

虽然一般人不这样想，但沏茶也是高温提取的过程。

The extraction process doesn't occur when the tea is ready and being served to you; it occurs after the tea leaves are immersed in the boiling water. From that point you wait about 5 minutes until the extraction process is over.

Phil Hand wrote:


The real reason I like it is a slightly silly one: when you open the nciku web page, it automatically selects the query field. This means you don't have to click in the query field with your mouse, you can just type. I've usually just come from a document/my CAT tool, so I've got my right hand on the mouse, my left hand doing the ctrl-C ctrl-V. The auto-selection of the query means that my look-up process has one less click in it. Over the years, that will give me an extra three days free of carpal tunnel, right?

Nciku does have a couple of nice features:

1) You can build your own glossaries in the site (and test yourself on them - I've used it for learning).
2) Words from people's glossaries show up in the basic search, so sometimes you get good user-generated equivalents.
3) It gives a definition from a Chinese-Chinese dictionary in the basic search results (very important!)

It doesn't have much unique or high quality content, it's just a usable, readable interface with a basic dictionary, that serves as a place to start. Like I say, we all have our little habits - mine aren't anything to be proud of, but they get me through the day!

I've seen some dictionaries on HK and TW sites that look better, but sometimes they don't reflect mainland usage that well, and sometimes the GFW just doesn't love me, so I prefer to have a mainland site as my first port of call.

Alan Wang wrote:

在200 转/分~300 转/分的低速搅拌提取5 -15min
【你的翻译】to carry out extraction for 5 to 15 min while being stirred at a low speed of 200 rpm to 300 rpm
【我的翻译】The mixture is stirred for 5-15 min. at 200 ~ 300 rev / min.

第一、 此处的提取应该只是指搅拌过程。而你的翻译，特别是这个【while】让人以为在这一阶段存在【搅拌】和【提取】两种不同的过程。

Alan Wang wrote:

第二、 【提取】包括几个步骤，涉及的是整个发明的宗旨。你这样翻译是把【提取】用在了其中一个中间步骤上，这时，离提取成功还缺了一个步骤。所以这时不存在真正的提取【to carry out extraction】。此时，无论怎么搅拌，都还是搅拌液。如果这时存在提取，就必须指明提取到哪里去了？你没有指出。所以即使这时有提取，比如在液体混合液之间发生什么交换，也不能说。否则给人一种莫名其妙的感觉。

Alan Wang wrote:

第三、 要成功提取，是在搅拌以后，【经水浴加热破乳后分出油层】，然后【所得水相即为博落回中总生物碱的溶液】。你在搅拌这一步就说在提取了，是不是过早了？根据字面翻译易落陷阱！

Alan Wang wrote:

你说我漏译了第一个【博落回】，实际上没有漏译。我把它译为【the plant material】。指的是这种植物的干粉，即提取中实际采用的。因为前面提到了该植物的名称，这里无需重复这个怪名。的确，我喜欢不根据字面去翻译。

第二个【博落回】是彻彻底底可以省略的。所以一点都不客气。整个发明就在说这种植物的总生物碱。

Alan Wang wrote:

我们不妨做一个想象试验。

某人拿一根棍子，在一个大瓶子里搅动。嘴里哼着：我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取、我一边搅动一边提取。

你不觉得好笑吗？

实际上，他只是在搅动而已！提取到哪里去了呢？


但是，提取在最后一步实现了，所以我们叫它提取器。

ysun wrote:


以 Steve 所举的泡茶为例，如果你不搅动，提取过程照样也在进行，从茶叶提取到水里去了。但如果你搅动，就会提取得更快更完全。借用沙家浜阿庆嫂的名言：这茶喝到这会儿，喝出点味儿来了吧？

Rita Pang wrote:

I am VERY new to "tools" in translation apart from my own brain and buckets of coffee. I started using wordfast (trial version) but find it slightly confusing; MemQ is not too bad, but I've really only looked at it a few times. In general, I don't work enough with the type of content which involves recall (or where recall will greatly assist my work). I wonder because I think eventually I'll need to equip myself more with these type of tools, seeing that more and more clients ask for them, but I do wonder about the necessity of these things.

In general, I stay away from Trados offers especially ones coming from Proz. I don't entertain the idea of getting that particular software anytime soon (but please do share your thoughts if you think I should know about them). Maybe that's why I am not making enough bucks as I'd like to.

ysun wrote:


以 Steve 所举的泡茶为例，如果你不搅动，提取过程照样也在进行，从茶叶提取到水里去了。但如果你搅动，就会提取得更快更完全。借用沙家浜阿庆嫂的名言：这茶喝到这会儿，喝出点味儿来了吧？

Alan Wang wrote:

汉译英，不能根据汉语的行文用词逻辑。否则就坏事。

如果在英语里套用汉语的行文用词逻辑，就如同把中国特色用到欧美国家差不多。