| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Poll: Do you replace your dictionaries when new editions are published? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Ventnai 
Spain
Local time: 05:52
German to English
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| Plenty of resources online | Feb 18, 2014 |
There are plenty of good resources online, especially for my main language pair DE > ENG. You won't find some terms that are difficult to translate in a dictionary anyway. I use a lot of termbases - my own and ones that clients provide - which are very useful.
| | | | Nikki Graham
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:52
Spanish to English
| Here's an answer | Feb 18, 2014 |
No.
I love dictionaries. I have quite a few which I do still consult, some of them only once in a blue moon, but I'm still glad they are there when I do need them. I have the three main Spanish to English and vice versa dictionaries on my desk for easy access at all times. For some jobs I never open them, for others I look in them all the time. There's a Thesaurus on the floor beside me (seems to be its permanent home now) because it doesn't fit on the desk. I quite often use that t... See more No.
I love dictionaries. I have quite a few which I do still consult, some of them only once in a blue moon, but I'm still glad they are there when I do need them. I have the three main Spanish to English and vice versa dictionaries on my desk for easy access at all times. For some jobs I never open them, for others I look in them all the time. There's a Thesaurus on the floor beside me (seems to be its permanent home now) because it doesn't fit on the desk. I quite often use that too because -shock horror- I don't know everything. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Blast from the past | Feb 18, 2014 |
I discarded paper dictionaries in the mid 1990s together with a typewriter
| | | | Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 06:52
Turkish to English
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| I don't see why | Feb 18, 2014 |
Chris S wrote:
Isn't needing to use a dictionary a sign of having taken on a job you shouldn't have?
I don't see why at all. I might as a legal specialist take on the translation of a judgment in a breach of contract case and come across a technical term such as 'kazan taşı giderici' which a subcontractor is accused of negligently failing to apply. According to my technical Turkish to English dictionary (containing around 150,000 terms) this means 'boiler disincrustant' and I refuse to accept that not knowing this term, or many others from among those 150,000, disqualifies me from being a competent legal translator.
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I had all my paper dictionaries, at least the indispensable ones, ripped open and scanned into electronic versions for ease of travel
Whoever buys new paper dictionaries these days? Everything's online. And new coinages, by the time they get published, can already be researched online.
| | | | | I find most bilingual dictionaries | Feb 18, 2014 |
hopeless (at least in my language pairs-- both the paper versions and online), so the ones I have --I have quite a few plus some really rare old dictionaries--no, I will not be replacing them. If there is a new word--just recently coined, I can always do some research on the internet. I was taught (some years ago) that a translator should only use monolingual dictionaries. I personally like Oxford and Webster. Bilingual dictionaries might be good initially--for language learners.
| | | | | This question | Feb 18, 2014 |
Chris S wrote:
Isn't needing to use a dictionary a sign of having taken on a job you shouldn't have?
can only be expected from a layman or a linguistic genius.
| | | | Nikki Graham
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:52
Spanish to English
| My goat has been got | Feb 18, 2014 |
LilianBNekipelo wrote:
I was taught (some years ago) that a translator should only use monolingual dictionaries. I personally like Oxford and Webster. Bilingual dictionaries might be good initially--for language learners.
This type of sweeping generalisation really gets my goat. I think students should be taught a wide range of strategies to find the meaning of words they don't know, don't you? Surely all of us in this industry should be aware by now that how we go about the task of translation depends on the languages involved, the field in question, context, available resources, etc. There is no one size fits all.
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Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 23:52
English to Spanish
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LilianBNekipelo wrote:
hopeless (at least in my language pairs-- both the paper versions and online), so the ones I have --I have quite a few plus some really rare old dictionaries--no, I will not be replacing them. If there is a new word--just recently coined, I can always do some research on the internet. I was taught (some years ago) that a translator should only use monolingual dictionaries. I personally like Oxford and Webster. Bilingual dictionaries might be good initially--for language learners.
Your comment seems to disqualify bilingual dictionaries as useless for translators.
Whoever taught you that a translator should only use monolingual dictionaries has no idea about bilingual terminology, lexicography or lexicology.
Have you considered who author the dictionaries we use, particularly the specialized dictionaries of good repute? Translators, editors, lexicographers and a few other specialists in a variety of fields (not amateurs, but doctors, engineers, technicians, architects, etc.).
I find your comment quite astonishing.
| | | | Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 06:52
Turkish to English
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Nikki Graham wrote:
There is no one size fits all. [/quote]
Precisely. Nobody can know all the words out there, so one aspect to being a competent translator is knowing how to do terminological research. We do not all have to go about this in precisely the same way. Perhaps partly because of my age, having grown up with paper dictionaries, I am most comfortable with stretching out and picking up the most relevant dictionary to begin with. If I can't find the word I need there, I will use other recources. All roads lead to Rome eventually.
| | | | | Hi. You just turned my statement around. | Feb 18, 2014 |
Nikki Graham wrote: LilianBNekipelo wrote:
I was taught (some years ago) that a translator should only use monolingual dictionaries. I personally like Oxford and Webster. Bilingual dictionaries might be good initially--for language learners. This type of sweeping generalisation really gets my goat. I think students should be taught a wide range of strategies to find the meaning of words they don't know, don't you? Surely all of us in this industry should be aware by now that how we go about the task of translation depends on the languages involved, the field in question, context, available resources, etc. There is no one size fits all.
Of course students are encouraged to use monolingual dictionaries as well. My point was that bilingual dictionaries are not enough for a translator, as the sole reference source.
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I have a dictionary obsession. Can’t get rid of an old one and keep on buying new (paper) ones… I have been friends with some of them for a long time. I do have a few digital dictionaries but I don’t have any sentimental attachment to them, they are just useful tools.
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Mario Chavez wrote: Chris S wrote:
Isn't needing to use a dictionary a sign of having taken on a job you shouldn't have?
Unless you are being facetious, do you really think that not having to open a dictionary is a sign of a competent translator?
Thing is, in one of last week's polls everyone agreed that the key requirements of a translator are to understand the source language, know the subject matter and have a good grasp of the target language. In that scenario, why would you need dictionaries?
In reality, obviously I have to look stuff up. But not when I'm properly in my comfort zone, which is where in theory all of us should always be. And even outside my comfort zone a dictionary is rarely my first port of call.
| | | | Jon Hedemann
Denmark
Local time: 05:52
English to Danish
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| Online dictionaries | Feb 18, 2014 |
All my dictionaries are online dictionaries, which are updated automatically. I even send the publishers term corrections and suggestions from time to time.
| | | | Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 05:52
Member (2009)
English to German
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Tim Drayton wrote: Nikki Graham wrote:
There is no one size fits all.
Precisely. Nobody can know all the words out there, so one aspect to being a competent translator is knowing how to do terminological research. We do not all have to go about this in precisely the same way. Perhaps partly because of my age, having grown up with paper dictionaries, I am most comfortable with stretching out and picking up the most relevant dictionary to begin with. If I can't find the word I need there, I will use other recources. All roads lead to Rome eventually. [/quote]
Dictionaries, also those online, are a tool to be used as required, either to look up an unknown term or to verify the one the translator has in mind.
If all translators knew all the words, and I do mean each and every single one by heart, even those in one's comfort zone, then they'd be... two-legged dictionaries.
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