I was translating a speaking last week and am still woring on a cartoon at the moment. And hope that I will finish it early next week. That's what I have been doing in the office those days.
Besides that, one of our free lance has too many projects at hands and she has worked at least 15hours a day to meet the deadline. So she asked me if Icould help to translate a novel, even just one chapter will help. She is a very experienced free lance. Therefore, I take this oppertunity to learn and this is the area I'd never try. So, I had been working on one chapter after work last week. I worked 3 nights last week and 8 hours today.
So far, I have translate few different types of stuffs-interview, music programme, speaking,cartoon and then novel.
It's interesting as you translate different stuffs, you need to use different tone or languages. ex, screen translation has some form, the language you use has to be simple, clear and precise. Each line, you can only put 13 words. you won't make it too long that ppl don't have time to read but you also want it to be clear enough for ppl to understand in one line. Your language has also need to match the speaker's personal character and speaker's tempo.
When it is a cartoon, you need to use kid's language. I think it's very interesting, just I have to shift my brain from here to there when I work on different ptojects at the same time. Novel is another thing, it's not like screen translation. I was not farmiliar with the language when I first translated few pages last week. After the free lance gave me feedbackafter she proofreaded my translation, I think I have done a much better job today. Still got one pargraph need to work on and the final check but I am tired, will leave it tomorrow.
Basically, as a translator, I think you are not only need to be very good at Chinese but also need to be able to deal with the stress of deadline and of course, working hard and good health is also necessary. Working more than 10 hours a day seems nothing new in this field. @@.