Summer Semester 2018
editThis is our semester project page. This is where we'll coordinate and communicate with one another during the term.
Members
edit1. Chill2Day
3. TheKitzi
4. RushBDontStop Mainau
5. MeoCB
6. Amphitrite181 Mainau
7. ShyGirlTranslator Mainau
8. Superpanda55
9. Tidsoptimist2018 Mainau
10. FlaschenLicht
11. MyMyosotis Mainau
12. BlueAhoi
13. LaPracTransla Mainau
14. 16bienchen06
15. Demiguise246
16. Pananass Mainau
17. küssdeinauge123 Mainau
First project
editAs a group, divide the text into (at least) 18 sections. Working individually, translate your section. When you're finished, proofread the section directly after your section. As a group, put the individual sections back together and, also as a group, go over the entire text.
This will be our workspace for this project
Or just click here: Unendlich
Session 3, May 17th
editPotential ways to improve:
- Checking the page more frequently to improve communication between members.
- Setting a deadline all members are aware of and agree to stick to, preferably in class.
- Email reminders to ensure that members who forgot the deadline or didn't attend class know what to do and when to do it.
- Whatsapp etc. as other means of staying in touch (class decided on a Whatsapp group, if you aren't yet a member of the Whatsapp group please reach out to one of your fellow classmates).
- Each time there is a deadline / "job", a different member is assigned to it to ensure no one has to do all the work.
- Don't be shy! Contact the people you need to contact, take charge!
- Having a separate page for the project makes the session page less cluttered, but also makes finding the project page (and potentially working on it) more complicated.
- Putting source text and translated text closer to each other / on the same page.
Translation:
- When tranlating specific terminology or names, it makes sense to have a list of frequently occuring words / names etc., a kind of separate vocabulary list.
- How should direct quotes be translated, how true should we stay to the source text:
-> Translating direct quotes can be difficult due to the threat of unintentionally misrepresenting the original message, BUT
1. If standard translations of the quote already exist (for example with Shapespeare) those can be used.
2. The untranslated version of the quote can be put into the text itself, followed by its translated version.
3. Straightforward quotes ("I love Super Mario Bros!") can simply be translated. adding the untranslated version is pretty much redundant.
- When translating a text, the original facts and the original message need to remain unchanged but it isn't as important to stick to the original word for word (especially not if doing so would compromise the quality of the text). It's OK for certain small things to be "lost in translation".
- Not all pieces of information are equally relevant. The question is: Who is the target audience, what do they want to know and what would only decrease their understanding of the text?
- In some cases, we have to find the English equivalent of what is being said, not the word for word translation ("Ostfriesenwitze").
Proofreading:
- When proofreading the text, it's good to look at both the English used in the translated text (spelling errors, grammar) as well as the integrity of the translation (does the meaning come across).
-> First proofreading: Is it basically correct.
-> Second proofreading: Does the translation work as a whole text, are words translated the same throughout.
- How should the proofreader signify that they've made changes, where should they make said changes (via Email, on the page)? How can we make proofreading more efficient?
-> The proofread version could be added underneath the original version (on the project page).
-> The proofread version "replaces" the original, but the original one can always be accessed via the edits made tool.
-> Create different segments (== before and after the segment title, the fewer = there are, the higher up in the hierarchy of segments it is) for each part of the translated text, which adds a whole new section that can be edited separately and multiplies the number of people who can work on a text page at the same time.
-> Different font styles / colors for the proofread and the original versions.
What needs to happens next:
- Finish translating your part of the text. Proofread and correct your assigned part of the text (text section below your own). Deadline: Saturday, May 19th.
- Consolidate the text. Deadline: Monday after the break.
- Add new segments to the project page for the full version of the text.
- If you're feeling adventurous (and aren't afraid of feedback), put the text up on Wikipedia.
- BY JUNE 7TH: 200 additional words translated / person.
Ideas for future projects:
- Alte Synagoge (4954 words)
- Platz der Alten Synagoge (already has an English page, 2810 words)
- Loriot (2000 words)
- St. Blasien (2000 words)
Project No 2:
1. Mainau (roughly 8000 words) Workspace: Mainau
2. Die drei ??? (5000 words) Workspace: TheThreeInvestigators
(Each project group has its own WhatsApp group chat)
Session, 7th June
edit- finding better ways to improve out proofreading
- Who finalises the writing?
- third person proofreading?
- First person looks over their own text again?
-> problems with both = More organisation in the first suggestion
Alternatives?
- commenting in the Proofreading section and bolding which is good!
- everyone goes through the proofreading comments and makes sure to give feedback to everyone!
- problem again is the organisation of everything...
(Pros: Everyone gets to have a say what is the final version of the group text | the text as a whole gets better, less mistakes get overlooked etc)
(Con: Group size and text length has to stay small!)
Or
One person gets assigned to to proofread the whole text
(which is a lot of work for one person)
IMPORTANT
Inconsistencies!
- Names might have to be changed!!
- Group Vocabular list at the bottom of the text section!
(Has to be checked by everyone to work!)
- draw attention to it (Problems, differences etc.) via Whatsapp once created
-> Speciefic Translation Issues
- Mainau Text more difficult with terminology, more specific vocabulary (difficulty finding the meaning of words even via Google)
- Problems with translating Names (see John the Baptist VS Johannes der Täufer) | type name into Wikipedia and then change the language of the page?
for technical terminology
Example:: Die Küvette -> transl.: "cell" (But looks like a square test tube)
- it helps to look at the thing and learn what it is for!
- we need to constantly learn about things we don't know when they appear in texts
- asking somebody | or looking on Wikipedia for pages in other languages
- research! spending and dedicating some time to look for what the term means! Sometimes specialized dictionaries help!
Quotes
-> book quotes: (??? Group) looked for the corresponding quotes in the published text
-> see notes on Session 3 for alternatives
punctuation (??? workspace pt. 5)
-> [ ] <- these are meant In English: needed for grammatical reasons (personal pronouns or tense indications)
Usually inferred, usually simple, no extra information (This is true for German as well)
differences in punctuation:
-> Commas: in English fewer commas! (because of the difference in relative clauses)
- German: ALL clauses are separated by commas!
- English:
- Non defining relative clauses (added information): -> John, a barber, went to ...
- appositions
- British English has even fewer commas
- American English has exceptions: in the beginning of a sentence | Adjuncts (Time Adj. etc) before the main clause
- Oxford Comma (SPECIAL CASE) -> Lists! (A, B, and C) (bold is the Oxford Comma in this case) BUT this can change the meaning in sentences
-> colons ( :) are less frequently used in English as well
-> quotation marks are different as well
- GER: "_____",
- ENG: "_____,"
-> Semi colons ( ;)
- ENG:
- Separating main clauses
- list of lists! A, B, C ; X, Y, Z ; and 1, 2, 3
-> hyphons VS dash
- hyphon: word-word
- dash: is indicating a break in the writing | to set something very important apart from the rest of the text
What are we going to do now???
- putting a text online!
-> problem with copyright! (copying the content is an infringement of the copyrights!!! Even just copying and pasting!)
-> BUT internally it's not usually a problem.
HOWEVER! as soon as we put anything onto a real page it WILL cause problems
(prepare for getting scathing reviews or nasty comments)
HOMEWORK for 14th June
edit- putting texts online
- include template: { { Translated | de | NAME OF ARTICLE IN GERMAN } } + information about how much of the text we worked with etc
->This is our copyright disclaimer!!
- Include disclaimer that We have just translated the text, describing from where to where, which text etc to the German text (?) AND the above template
- react cautiously to people, ask them for their help
- "Hey, we are just focusing on the translation and haven't learned the technical stuff yet, could you help with adding the references? :) "
SO:
- Finish proofreading so there is one cleaned up version of the text!
- One person at least has to include the TEMPLATE
- Put text online
- THEN we will start our next project!
-> The goal is our last project which we will do with minimal supervision, translation and presentation (This will take up the last 2 weeks)
-> next project in 3 Groups
-> Last project in 4 Groups! (2 groups presenting in each week of the last two)
-> we will work mostly on our own in our groups! -> projects will be presented to the rest of the class only in the presentations!
-> look towards next projects, put more suggestions on your page
- the word count needs to be ~1600 words again! (Add word count to your suggestion!!!)
-> look towards your final project now, gathering topics SECRETIVELY ;)
Session 4, June 14th
editStatus Report
Mainau
- Upload went well (so far: no unhappy messages)
- Template was included on the artile page but was moved to the Talk page by a bot
The Three Investigators
- Upload went well (so far: no unhappy messages)
- Certain parts of the original translation was changed to fit the original text (vocabulary etc.)
- Template was included on the Talk page
The Neverending Story
- Upload didn't happen
- Text not fully translated
-> Until next week: Upload The Neverending Story translation
Future tasks and important dates
- 14th of June: Pick second to last project and groups
- 28th of June: Show second to last project, pick groups for final project, begin working on final project
-> 200 words per person, 100 words per week
- 5th of July: Pick the date for the final presentation
- 12th of July: Deadline for final project
- 12th and 19th of July: Final project presentation
-> What we learned, why we chose our project, what interests us, what issues came up, etc.
-> 5-7 minutes per person, 15 minutes per group
-> If you do well, Mr. Woodfin will cry
Next project
Suggestions:
- Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus (1682 words)
- Student protests in Austria (6000 words)
- Heimat (5000 words)
- Loriot (2000 words)
- Das Boot (Film) (1200-1500 words)
- Freiburg im Breisgau (15000 words)
- Staufen (2000 words)
- Feldberg (2780 words)
- Platz der Alten Synagoge (2800 words)
- Pina Bausch (2000 words)
- Bad Waldsee (3000 words)
- Franckh Kosmos (1500 words)
Articles and groups:
- Das Boot (Film)
-> Workspace: DasBootFilm
- Platz der Alten Synagoge
-> Workspace OldSynagogueSquare
- Heimat
-> Workspace: Heimat
Session 5, June 28th
editThe Neverending Story:
- Mr. Woodfin checked whether the English in the text was correct
- Mr. Woodfin checked whether the English translation actually matched what was said in the German version
-> Example correction: "However it soon turned out" was generally changed to "It quickly turned out, however,..." because however sounds / feels better in the body of the sentence rather than the beginning. The however should be added at the back of whatever it is meant to contrast
- The "citation needed" added to the page creates a template that shows that citations are still missing from the text
- Most sections were well translated and didn't require a significant amount of proofreading
-> You can always go back to your translated articles and view the changes made to the page!
Group 1 - Platz der Alten Synagoge:
- Chapter 1.5 of the article was split into 6 sections, each group member translated one section (group members randomly picked the sections they translated)
-> The chapter was chosen due to how interesting it was to the group, the lack of an English translation, as well as its word count
- The translated sections were proofread and corrected by the group in class
- Street names as well as "Ämter" were generally left untranslated, place names were translated
-> The name of the artist group "Amt für ungewöhnliche Maßnahmen" was initially translated as "Office for unusual measures" but eventually changed back to "Amt für ungewöhnliche Maßnahmen" because the group decided it didn't like the translated version
-> This could make understanding the text difficult for native English speakers!
-> Other Wikipedia articles could be used to understand the full meaning of certain names and translate them in a way that makes sense (example: Tiefbauamt) and short explanations given to avoid any confusion (example: Amt für ungewöhnliche Maßnahmen)
- The German text was "unnecessarily complicated" / "unnecessarily beautiful" (featuring, for example, extremely long sentences) and the group had to decide which parts were actually important and which parts were confusing and should be left out
-> When simplifying the text, it's possible to also make the original German text less complicated before translating it, changing the structure without changing the content (for example by shortening the sentences) AND keeping in mind the target audience
- Getting together as a group and talking face to face made figuring out the translation a lot easier for the group
Group 2 - Heimat:
- The group picked random sections of the article based on their word count (the definition, several dimensions of the word "Heimat", "Exil und Utopie", added the sections to the workspace. Every group member picked the section they wanted.
- There was debate within the group about whether to use "Heimat" or the translated version "home".
-> "Heimat" was considered a concept and explained in the definition section of the article. The German word was kept. The English articles "Home" and "Homeland" don't redirect to the German article "Heimat", which implies that these concepts aren't exactly the same thing.
- When translating tricky concepts such as "Heimat" it's possible to explain the term and then use its untranslated version, but this creates problems when encountering compound words in the text.
- Some quotes were left untranslated but kept in the text, others were translated. The translated versions were added underneath the original versions. With the latter, it can appear as though it's actually two different quotes which is why footnotes or other visual cues could be added to make things clearer.
Group 3 - Das Boot:
- Not everybody was able to show up at the first day
- Translation of the movie’s plot and characters, cuz interesting
- Plot in the German version way too colloquial
- Nautical terms (came unexpected despite this film is literally about a boat)
->(Very funny.) Our problem was that the nautical terms did not always line up with the expected equivalents or we found multiple possibilities for the term which was why we were having trouble translating or finding the right equivalent for a term such as "Erster Offizier" (As it can translate to First Mate or Chief Mate) Serpent s tooth (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
- Translation of difficult terms with actual Wikipedia articles
- Nobody watched the movie
- Which or not which? Maybe re-write that whole sentence.
Articles and groups:
- Privatbrauerei Rothaus
-> Workspace: Privatbrauerei Rothaus
- 2009 student protests in Austria
-> Workspace: 2009 student protests in Austria