Another day another dam. Wait, that’s not how the saying goes. In any case, it seems I like doing dams as well as pottery articles! We’ll see how the trend goes from here, but this time sees me doing a volunteer Wikipedia article about Futai Dam in Niigata Prefecture, Japan.
Futai Dam’s Retention Basin
Translation Process
Owing to the fact that I have some experience translating articles about dams from my previous project on Chiya dam, it should come as no surprise that this article was a bit easier to translate than the first. While the dam type was different and the contents of this article deviated from the other, it was still possible to leverage my past knowledge to make the translating process smoother. In addition, I was able to use proper glossaries for the first time, cutting down a significant amount of effort when it comes to searching for technical vocabulary.
Using a New CAT Tool and Glossaries
Since I had recently purchased a ProZ premium membership, I was given access to a new CAT tool, CafeTrans Espresso, for free. While the tool is undoubtedly less rough around the edges than OmegaT, I found that there were several bugs with the user interface (including one where I could not edit my document at all) that ultimately forced me to go back to OmegaT, which is open source and never gave me any issues. Additionally, I was able to get my hands on a bunch of glossaries, which saw extensive use in this project. While I consider myself to be pretty good at Japanese, there are of course going to be some terms (especially in technical fields such as this) that I do not know in Japanese or English.
Thoughts Moving Forward
As I move forward with my translating work, I’m getting to a point where I think I can start looking to apply for paid jobs and not just volunteer ones. While I do enjoy expanding the knowledge base on places like Wikipedia, it does take time out of my day to do so, and having some sort of remuneration, especially in today’s economic situation, would be extremely useful in staying afloat.