On 02.05.10 08:11, Jorge G. Mare wrote:
That one is original work and the other is not is totally irrelevant. Writing a good translation style guide requires knowledge of the original and target languages, and at least some familiarity with the topic and experience. If you trust that someone meets these requirements to write a translation style guide, then you are in fact assuming that the person can translate too. Asserting otherwise is simply illogical. I have worked in the translation business for more than 20 years, so I know what I am talking about.
On 02.05.10 08:31, Marcos Alves wrote: > So I can say how the things are done, but I can't do the things myself? > Funneh!I still disagree with both of you. You simply do not need to be able to do a thing yourself to write style guides for the people who do. You don't need to be a technical writer to write a software documentation style guide, you don't need to be novelist to write a publishing house style guide, and you don't need to be a translator to write a translation style guide. Sometimes it helps, but sometimes you get caught up in the details of the process and don't see the big picture. You stop seeing things the way the intended audience will see them. And a style guide absolutely needs to take into account the intended audience.
I am also a professional translator, by the way. (Clarification: "professional" a strict sense - that is, I get paid. It is not my main occupation, as I am a student, and it is not my intended career. It just helps pay the bills.)
And Marcos, nothing I said was directed at you. It was a general comment. You may well be able to do both jobs, I have no idea. I didn't even know you were still on the list. You seem to be taking a lot of things as though they were meant as personal attacks on you, when they're not.
Also, your sarcasm is really annoying. I really don't see anything "funneh" in saying that someone may be qualified to set the rules without being qualified to do the work. It happens all the time in the real world. Before I went back to school, I worked as a programmer, and I can tell you that clients very often do tell you how they want something done, without being able to do it themselves. I suspect that your wife as a teacher often has to deal with rules and regulations that were not set by educators, but instead by administrators and politicians. And while the people underneath may chafe at those rules, they very often turn out to be the right thing to do, after all. (Although not, of course, always.)
