| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | How did translators manage in the pre-internet era? Thread poster: Zolboo Batbold
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TonyTK
German to English
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Kevin Fulton wrote:
... but I was inexperienced.
Weren't we all! The biggest difference back then was that you only had one go at the translation. You had to have the final version in your head – or on pen and paper - before you started typing, which meant banks of dictionaries in the office, lots of phone calls to subject-matter experts and endless hours spent in various libraries (including, in my case, the splendid Central Library in Manchester). And all of this was cutting-edge. The only game-changer was paper Tipp-Ex, followed by the fluid version.
To round off the picture: the first fax machine I used was the size of a small car. And back then, everything came by standard mail, so you could always tell the customer it took three days to get to you. I assume the story’s the same for anyone who’s been doing this since before Maggie Thatcher came to power and almost singlehandedly destroyed the social fabric of much of the UK ...
| | | | | Conferences, fountain pen and sometimes candlelight | Nov 8, 2021 |
My father would have been 100 years old this year (2021). I think he stopped actually translating a long time ago, but he worked on teaching material for Marathi-speaking students late in life, battled with a word-processor, and complained well into his eighties that there was only one alphabet on his computer... He still regularly read Greek and Marathi until he was about 90.
I have described several times on this site how he worked on the Marathi translation of the New Testament, ... See more My father would have been 100 years old this year (2021). I think he stopped actually translating a long time ago, but he worked on teaching material for Marathi-speaking students late in life, battled with a word-processor, and complained well into his eighties that there was only one alphabet on his computer... He still regularly read Greek and Marathi until he was about 90.
I have described several times on this site how he worked on the Marathi translation of the New Testament, and was very proud that his students did a better job of it a couple of decades later.
In my childhood I remember him sitting with his dictionaries and reference books, writing with a fountain pen, because he did not have a typewriter that could cope with the Marathi script. I assume he used the library at the college where he taught, and several times a year he would go for a week's conference with colleagues who were also working on the texts, to discuss their work and agree on a final version. He would occasionally call a colleague, but telephone calls were expensive, so he did not do it every week!
Translators sent notes to each other to compare, by post, which could take several days between different parts of India.
My father worked in the evenings, after his teaching day was over, and sometimes there were power cuts. Then he used to decide either to go to bed and get up at dawn to continue his work in the morning, or to light a candle and carry on wokring by candlelight.
It was a specialised kind of translation, but that was how it was done in the 1950s and 1960s.
I came to translating late myself - so the Internet was quite usable, although it was considered expensive and there was not so much available back then. I even heard it called the world's biggest wall of graffiti, but it was far more than that.
I started in-house and battled with the modem and faxes - the modem timed out if anyone sent a PDF with more than four or five pages!
But as a former librarian I knew and appreciated libraries... Those were the days, but I would not want to go back! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | you should be... | Nov 9, 2021 |
P.L.F. Persio wrote:
Well, Tuscans have a great sense of humour. And libraries are wonderful, I'm so jealous of your visits at La Normale.
I had a wonderful abnormal time there... 
| | | | texjax DDS PhD 
Local time: 14:08
Member (2006)
English to Italian
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| A fascinating story beautifully told | Nov 9, 2021 |
P.L.F. Persio wrote:
Many years ago, in a land not so far anyway – unless you live in Australia or New Zealand –, a young'un was minding her own business, when her teacher of Russian, an experienced translator herself, shook her from her daydreaming, and...
...the rest is history, as someone might say.
I enjoyed your post so much!
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:08
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| P.L.F. Persio
Netherlands
Local time: 20:08
Member (2010)
English to Italian
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| On the other hand ... | Nov 9, 2021 |
... you're no saint, Tom!
| | | | LIZ LI
China
Local time: 02:08
French to Chinese
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| Interpreters back in old times | Nov 10, 2021 |
If dictionnaries and librairies are the keywords for translators before PC & Internet, then what about interpreters?
Pen and notepad?
| | | | P.L.F. Persio
Netherlands
Local time: 20:08
Member (2010)
English to Italian
+ ...
| Interpreters are their own tools | Nov 10, 2021 |
LIZ LI wrote:
If dictionnaries and librairies are the keywords for translators before PC & Internet, then what about interpreters?
Pen and notepad?
In former times, maybe quill and parchment, hammer and stone. And, as ever, mnemonic skills, quick reactions, an ability to think on their feet, diplomatic skills.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:08
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| They got us here | Nov 10, 2021 |
However they did it, the translators of the past 2000 years got us here.
[Edited at 2021-11-10 14:50 GMT]
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:08
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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LIZ LI wrote:
If dictionnaries and librairies are the keywords for translators before PC & Internet, then what about interpreters?
Pen and notepad?
Not sure I get this question. Interpreters use pen and notepad today as well? There are several reasons why using a tablet/phone/laptop wouldn't work for an interpreter, from often times limited physical space around the interpreter, to risks related to low battery, not having access to power supply, etc. An interpreter needs to have a quick, secure and stable access to their notes, which digital devices are not.
I know people who relied on their phone GPS in a completely new city while traveling, and then their battery ran out in a critical moment. They have actual paper maps with them ever since.
[Edited at 2021-11-10 17:11 GMT]
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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| With a few incidents along the way | Nov 10, 2021 |
Like enabling future sectarian strife and even perhaps inadvertently creating standalone religions
Tom in London wrote:
However they did it, the translators of the past 2000 years got us here.
[Edited at 2021-11-10 14:50 GMT]
| | | | LIZ LI
China
Local time: 02:08
French to Chinese
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| Always pen & notepad | Nov 11, 2021 |
Lingua 5B wrote:
Not sure I get this question. Interpreters use pen and notepad today as well? There are several reasons why using a tablet/phone/laptop wouldn't work for an interpreter, from often times limited physical space around the interpreter, to risks related to low battery, not having access to power supply, etc. An interpreter needs to have a quick, secure and stable access to their notes, which digital devices are not.
I know people who relied on their phone GPS in a completely new city while traveling, and then their battery ran out in a critical moment. They have actual paper maps with them ever since.
[Edited at 2021-11-10 17:11 GMT]
Speech-to-text technology (and vice versa) is avancing so quickly!
I've seen conferences put up some big screens in each interpreters' booth, so that each one of them was able to see on that screen an AI-generated text converted from the speaker's speech, next to whom some transcriptionists were doing their job of LIVE captionning, actually post-editing from the speech-to-text source, for the media, mainly streaming ones.
As for the battery risk, I think the whole world is working on that, though Elon Must is selling his shares.
Worst scenario, 1 or 2 power banks along with the pen & notepad.
I'm not saying that interpreters don't use pen & notepad any more, but they are not going to use them the way they used to be for some occasions.
[Edited at 2021-11-11 05:33 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:08
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Adieu wrote: Like enabling future sectarian strife and even perhaps inadvertently creating standalone religions Tom in London wrote:
However they did it, the translators of the past 2000 years got us here.
[Edited at 2021-11-10 14:50 GMT]
But also enabling people like me to read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Lermontov, etc.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:08
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Science too, medicine, etc. | Nov 11, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote: Adieu wrote: Like enabling future sectarian strife and even perhaps inadvertently creating standalone religions Tom in London wrote:
However they did it, the translators of the past 2000 years got us here.
[Edited at 2021-11-10 14:50 GMT] But also enabling people like me to read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Lermontov, etc.
Science as well. Although international science development heavily relied on lingua francas, today it's English, it used to be French and before that Latin. But there's a great deal of translation as well.
LIZ LI wrote:
Speech-to-text technology (and vice versa) is avancing so quickly!
I've seen conferences put up some big screens in each interpreters' booth, so that each one of them was able to see on that screen an AI-generated text converted from the speaker's speech, next to whom some transcriptionists were doing their job of LIVE captionning, actually post-editing from the speech-to-text source, for the media, mainly streaming ones.
As for the battery risk, I think the whole world is working on that, though Elon Must is selling his shares.
Worst scenario, 1 or 2 power banks along with the pen & notepad.
I'm not saying that interpreters don't use pen & notepad any more, but they are not going to use them the way they used to be for some occasions.
[Edited at
The kind of conference you described takes at least 12 months to prepare. If the conference in November 2022, the preparations will start today, or even earlier. As there's so much technology and risk factors involved. Also the scenario you described in the booth seems unnecessarily complicated, and a trained interpreter would do it much quicker simply by taking notes (which they know how to do as they learned it at school).
In the real world, however, interpreters are routinely needed quickly, there is no so much time for preparations, and the more time it takes, the more expensive it gets. And believe me when I tell you, they want to save their money when it comes to interpreting.
For instance, this was happening in relatively recent history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nubnTcdY7kE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW4W_O7g9Wc
Do you really think they have resources and the time to organize all that technology around these two officials?
If your computer or power supply fails you in the middle of a meeting, guess who will be blamed? Not your agency, not star constellations for that day, you will be blamed that their meeting was interrupted/ruined.
[Edited at 2021-11-11 12:25 GMT]
| | | | | A special retro experience | Nov 11, 2021 |
Only recently this year in April I had to translate an EU standard, or let's better say, I had to find the exact German translation of certain parts of a technical EU standard you cannot look up on the internet for free because the content is strictly copyrighted (by the Beuth Verlag). I finally lost my patience after endless rounds of researching the internet, until I took my bicycle to ride 8 km to the library of the Technical University of Applied Sciences in Kiel, where they have one of the ... See more Only recently this year in April I had to translate an EU standard, or let's better say, I had to find the exact German translation of certain parts of a technical EU standard you cannot look up on the internet for free because the content is strictly copyrighted (by the Beuth Verlag). I finally lost my patience after endless rounds of researching the internet, until I took my bicycle to ride 8 km to the library of the Technical University of Applied Sciences in Kiel, where they have one of the few computers in Germany that grant you insight online-only into these standards that are exclusively published by that publishing company. I then had to photograph the wording, because even printing wasn't allowed, let alone using a USB stick or copying the phrases into an email client. Alternatively, I could have bought the standard, for about € 156. ▲ Collapse
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