Translation Techniques

This is simply to share what I have experienced regarding translation work. This note is upon my translation experience, if you find this note to be in contrary to what you have experienced or learned, please do excuse me. I am ready for any constructive feedback. I also would like to hear from you for suggestions.

In general,

I use many web-based resources like:

http://thefreedictionary.com

From this dictionary, you may search for any words with clear explanations and you may search for antonym or even more specifically, you may search in http://thefreedictionary.com/laws

I also use :  http://dictionary.reference.com

For English to Khmer, I normally use: http://dict.ant.com.kh  and http://english-khmer.com

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If you cannot find the word you’re wishing for, you may go to google and type :

eg, ” define:  coenzyme” – from the first link, you may find the definition of the word. If not, you will have to read for general understanding of the word itself. Wikipedia.org might help.

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Translating Technical Document:

Let say you are translating Legal Document.

The resource you might need here is Law in both English and Khmer. For example, “Traffice Law [En] and Traffice Law [KH]“,

Look for Article 1 in the English version and compare with the Article 1 in the Khmer version; then, you may find the word you want to use.

It’s pretty easy to do so, since those files are in PDF files, you only need to type the word in the Search box at the up right inside the Adobe Reader.

Last but not least, don’t forget វចនានុក្រម ជួន ណាត xD.

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I am looking for feedback xD. Please share !

High Risk for No Benefit

On June 15, 2011 at 5:15PM, while I was working on a translation of Minute of Interrogation by a prosecutor, without any notice, my bosses asked me to get in a car; and I did get in without knowing what is going on. When I first got in the car, I asked the driver where we are heading to and why my present is important. He responded “I cannot speak English very well and I need to get our client home”. When I first heard this, I thought yeah.. I can help with that. However, it was really went out of my expectation. The client was a criminal. He was accused of breach of trust and he’s been hiding at my place since the afternoon. I actually knew nothing about that !!!

It is the moment that I hate my boss the most. However, I am not going to say anything about this to them. I know for sure that I was cheated and fell into the trap. It was my luck that no police followed us. What if he got caught while I was also on the same car? I am an innocent.

I will remember this. I risked my life for a hundred-dollar-salary job. It’s a life-long lesson. It’s fucking stupid. I’ll be smarter !!!

Reasons to Work for Government

For this post, I want to illustrate about working for the government under the perspective of people from a foreign country and the belief from some people in Cambodia. All of them are idea-based. Therefore, please excuse if it happens to be a complete different from what you think the fact is.

What Americans believe about Government job

“Reason No. 1: Flexible Qualifications Years of experience can frequently replace college education in a government position. Senior level government positions may not require a college degree at all, while similar corporate positions do. Plus, the government hires people at all levels of experience and education: inexperienced high school graduates, college students, retiring veterans, GEDs and Ph.D.s. The government is also more likely to hire older qualified workers.

Reason No. 2: Pay and Benefits Government salaries are comparable to corporate counterparts. The government offers locality pay, so your salary reflects your area’s cost of living. Plus, the government is known for strong employee benefits, which are the same for every employee. They receive, among other benefits:

Thirteen sick days per year that roll

Ten paid holidays and vacation time that increases over the years;

Flexible work schedules and teleworking options;

Options for extending healthcare coverage to parents, adult children and other family questions. Some agencies offer public transit subsidies, recruitment bonuses, student loan repayment and relocation assistance. The government’s retirement benefits are secure, unlike the private sector. Government pensions are based on salary and years of service, and health insurance continues into retirement.

Reason No. 3: Job Security While today’s corporate jobs are more subject to downsizing, job security is one of the most noteworthy advantages of government employment. Though the government is known for its strict hierarchal structure and strict guidelines/procedures, these protocols protect your job from elimination. Thus, government jobs offer the luxury of planning for the future.

Reason No. 4: Hiring Outlook The government is always hiring. In fact, there may be up to 18,000 job vacancies at any given time. Employees are always retiring, being promoted or moving to the private sector. So despite national trends toward downsizing and budget cuts, the government always has job openings due to turnover. “

Source: http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-1047-Job-Info-and-Trends-4-Reasons-to-Work-for-the-Government/

What Cambodians believe about Government job

As a Cambodian, What do you think about Government job? What are your reasons beside the basic 4 reasons as mentioned above?

Wireless Network at NWI

Last few weeks, I was wondering if teachers can use the Internet at NWI. I went to the management office and seeked for the password and what I got in response was that teachers are not allowed to use the Internet. The wireless itself is reserved for Diploma teachers, diploma teachers, IT staff, and the management team. It finally lead me to asking my GM through e-mail:

” Hi Mr. Bunty,

There are a few suggestions I would like to express…

- When I recall of the activities I did at high school, it makes me doubt if we should adopt the idea for NWI. When I was at high school, the school required smart students from each class to write an article (NEWS writing or something which is contemporary and useful), for students as a whole. After they gathered all the writing, they publish them into newspaper, and each individual get an issue. You might want to make change to the process so that it fits NWI. But I really think it’s a good alternative for creating Project..
- As the name of the school NWI is really important, We cannot ignore some copies without the school name on it. What I mean is that we should advertise in whatever way we can. Whenever I type a new handout, I always put NWI in the header section and my name in the Footer part. However, whenever I copy the handout from original book, there will be no NWI or my name on it. So do you think we should make a big stamp with a big heading “New World Institute” ? and we stamp it on the no-name copy?

and one question….

- I really wanted to know why teachers cannot use the NWI wireless network? As I see at PUC and at AII, they would allow students and teachers to use the Wireless. But what they do is to ban some sites and downloads. For example, they cannot access to Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, and they cannot download any mp3s.
But of course, they can access to educational sites. Therefore, it would be fruitful and teacher needn’t wait in line for the time to use the computer.
Maybe it is not the right time for students to use the Wireless as NWI will need to spend for that, so we should keep the password safe among the teachers? We can change the password any time we think it’s hacked.

I’m sorry for any inconvenience I’ve made, All I’ve mentioned above is only for one purpose and it is to better NWI. I know every school has different policies but I believe that we need to change in some ways to compete with the other schools. Thanks for your time reading this e-mail. I hope some of it would be useful for the institute.

Best wishes, ”

It’s been days that I never get his response. But I never seek for the response, until recently I found a new picture in his facebook profile:

and with his comments with his fellow friends:

So, now I get some ideas on why the management team never allows teacher to use the Internet….

UNV Online Volunteer

I’ve been looking for a place to volunteer when I first graduated from the universities. However, I couldn’t find volunteer work. I found a job as an ESL teacher at New World Institute. But today I’ve come across an UNV website which is about Online Volunteer.

Please check out the site http://onlinevolunteering.org, if you have free time. Just devote some of your free time for global development. It always worth to do volunteer job.