I’ve noticed that several people who post here, including myself, seem to be translators. What about starting a translator’s forum, similar to “learning Chinese,” but focused at a higher, more technical level? It could be used for posting obscure terms or for common terms that just don’t translate cleanly as well as for discussing other professional issues. Just a thought.
Second that motion. Given all the Taiwanese influences in the Mandarin spoken here, such a Taiwan-specific translation forum is an excellent idea.
While we wait for Oriented to get started, there is a very good list for Chinese to English translation called Fanyi at http://cits.hawaii.edu/fanyi/ Scroll down the front page and you’ll get the subscription instructions. I’ve been on it for quite a while, and it’s definitely worth it.
I was recently recommended a China-specific BBS (i.e. the language as used in China as opposed to Taiwan and other places) by one of the subscribers to the Fanyi list. I haven’t used it very much yet, but it seems to be excellent as well. I’ll have to check the URL when I get back home tonight, and then I’ll post it here.
Another forum about language?!? In my mind, there are already 2 and a half places to post about language (the ‘half’ being Teaching in Taiwan) – not to mention the OPen Forum and the Misc forum.
How large or significant would a translator forum be? Besides, there are forums more specifically about language at zhongwen.com and tealit, right?
Sign me,
When is ‘enough’ enough
I agree with the last poster int at I think the (learning) Chinese forum should be wider than just learning and could incorporate translation discussions.
Last I looked the forums on zhongwen.com were closed though.
Bri
Hey, translators, come and join my Taiwan Foreign Language Editors’ Corner. The URL is http://communities.msn.com/taiwanforeignlanguageeditorscorner - just click on it and away you go. Must just stress that this is not a community just for foreigners, but for people of any nationality whose job involves editing (or translating into) foreign (non-Chinese) languages. There is a chat room which nobody has actually ever used, so far, but it could be fun.
There is a good translators’ forum on http://www.bilinguist.com - The standard is very high. You need simplified Chinese (GB) display and input to participate fully - Microsoft Windows users can get the input method by doing Windows update. The English forum on Taiwan Kimo-Yahoo is also pretty good. The URL is http://tw.bbs.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/ListFrame.cgi?board=english - I think you’ll need to get yourself a Yahoo ID to view it and post messages. The medium is traditional Chinese (big 5)
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