Translation competition

[roddy]

The Writing Chinese project at Leeds University and Paper Republic are having another translation competition. The details are here - you've got a little over 2,000 characters of reportage by Li Jingrui to tackle, looks quite interesting. Due in by March 9, winner gets a bursary to a translation summer school in London, plus publication. 

 

If you're interested, the text and translation from last year are available.

 

Anyone in?

[陳德聰]

I will check it out for sure.

[歐博思]

Hot dog... I would've been in...

[roddy]

And again (and also presumably in 2017 and 2018, but I missed those). Text is 3000 characters long. There's no mention of the prize (apart from getting published in Pathlight) but it is traditionally a bursary to a translation school in London in the summer. 

[Tomsima]

i was planning on entering...

On 2/15/2016 at 5:09 PM, 陳德聰 said:

I will check it out for sure.

ok well thats me out of the running. at least publius hasnt stepped up (yet...)

[陳德聰]

Lol well my literary translation has been rather awful so you should still give it a shot.

[somethingfunny]

Yes, likely more of a test of your ability to write non-fiction, than your skill as a translator.

[li3wei1]

I'll give it a go.

[Lu]

Well, the non-fiction has already been written, so I'd say it's about knowing how and where to depart from the source enough to make the sentences flow well (or at least as well as in the original), and about finding just the right word through a jungle of synonyms. It's fun though, I recommend it. (I don't do literary translation into English, my English is pretty good but not good enough for that.)

[roddy]

Read the story over lunch - very readable.

[Tomsima]

Wow I only just noticed the original post was from 2016…so did anyone here enter this or win in the last three years?

[roddy]

I'll bump this rather than start a new topic. There's a new-translators-only event running, but unfortunately I'm telling you about it very late and you'd better get typing quickly. 

[Tomsima]

Just knocked my translation together, was really good fun actually, especially as the content was so similar to my own experiences back at the time it was written. I remember the night we heard Huanggang had been locked down, palpable fear. Now it seems pretty disproportionate considering how much people don't seem to care back here in London. If they end up doing more competitions (does it count as a competition?) like this I think I'll definetly get involved. I know its probably obvious, but I can't believe how much more fun translating this style of writing is than what I'm normally doing!