Saturday, April 09, 2011

Translating & Rewriting

I'm supposed to translate this chapter of a book for an International Organization. I was warned about the 'weirdness' of its content. Let's just say it's not up to standard for a publish book nor a scientific report even though it was written by a Ph.D. (I need to know where did he get his Ph.D. from) and was presented at a meeting somewhere.

At the moment I question myself: am I translating or rewriting the chapter? It's becoming more and more the latter, because some sentences are so jumbled up I cant even be sure what the author is trying to say. And I thought Bahasa Indonesia is my mother tongue! I guess it is not the authors' mother tongue.

BTW, there is this Indonesian saying 'tak kenal maka tak sayang' literally means 'if you dont know, you dont care', I have this feeling there's an English equivalent proverb for that but I cant recall the wording. Can anyone help? Thanks

5 comments:

colson said...

I'm sorry, but I have no clue ("Nothing ventured, nothing gained", is as close as I can get. )

I do know in Dutch though :) ( Wat de boer niet kent dat lust hij niet).

triesti said...

thanks opa! I'll keep it in mind.

Harry Nizam said...

Hi Triesti,

Sorry I don't know either.

colson said...

With the help of my smart daughter I might have found the answer:

"If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise"

triesti said...

That's great opa. thank you colson's daughter!