"You can not live by this job" - this was what the interviewee told me.
He's a translator. He translate German books to Vietnamese. He had a lot published, even one was a best seller for children last year, yet he can not live just by being in his job.
It was a nice chance to talk with a man like that because he was frank. He told me what a Vietnamese would not normally tell should they know their stories would be posted or even printed. Most Vietnamese people would not go again and again about publishers (big ones) as being slow and effective, or about Vietnam Literature Association as "stupid" and "ridiculous". I just thought: "Wow, I did a real Gig"
His talks revealed a lot of thing: that training at school was not proper enough for language students to do the job (this failed me considerably as I used to think language was one of the competitive advantage students in language departments of Hanoi university possess); that translators struggle because of fake books and no one has nothing to do with it.
I remember the old time, it was precious how to be given a book. Seems like books' value deteriorates in terms of quality. So many books regardless of suitability and content was translated and published. Last week, I went to a book shop and pick up a book with the title: "How to plan for your wedding" and it said about church or things that were not applicable and traditional in Vietnam. I realized that it was a translated book. I wondered was it a dilemma for translators: to translate what they want but hard to sell or to do easy reading type and earn an amount from that.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Friday, 15 October 2010
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