Showing posts with label article. Show all posts
Showing posts with label article. Show all posts

7/11/2017

Oriental medicine - translation

A patient of mine - who also tries to establish himself as a writer - wrote an article about me and somehow convinced an editor at the Japan Times to publish it. For people interested .. here the link to the electronic form.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/07/05/our-lives/unorthodox-acupuncturists-point-make-sure-never-come-back/#.WV2kJelpzcF

Most of it refers to my work as an acupuncturist. However, I am also working as a freelance translator. And if it comes to the translation of materials related to oriental medicine, or acupuncture in particular, just being a "native speaker" is not a sufficient qualification for the job. MUCH of the terminology used in this field is VERY unusual and often NOT understood without some additional explanation. Many attempts at a "standardization", or even the creation of glossaries, still have many problems to solve.

As a practicing acupuncturist with over 30 years of clinical experience I believe, I may be better "qualified" to handle this kind of material than many native speakers.

Personally, I would love to translate whole books and just articles for magazines. I presume, it would be much more gratifying than just articles. AND .. there are many very good Japanese books about acupuncture (or oriental medicine in general).
But the West has no access to this information, because the Chinese are deliberately trying to dominate the market - and to my dismay the West allows the Chinese to convince them, that they are the ONLY ones with any "authorative, genuine" knowledge about oriental medicine. I pity the people, who voluntarily choose to a "tunnel vision" perspective of the world.
 
Please feel free to contact me, if you do need/want to translate anything in this field.

Thomas Blasejewicz

9/29/2016

Femail???

You have heard of "email" or "e-mail", right? (who hasn't)
But do you also know what "femail" is?
No. Of course not!

This appeared in a Japanese professional journal related to acupuncture, in an article written by Japanese researchers in Japanese about Japanese patients for a Japanese audience. I have absolutely NO IDEA, why a questionnaire for the patients had to be in "English".
It is supposed to be an ACADEMIC journal. There I think it would be appropriate to expect something with some degree of an "academic level".
What they wanted to express was: male - female.
Apparently incapable of using a dictionary, this "female" mutated into "femail".
Elementary school students would be scolded for that.

Naturally, paired terms come in certain predetermined sets, like here: man - woman / male - female.
But no, it had to be Man - Femail.