SO, (as anybody may not know), I'm currently pursuing a degree in translation and interpreting studies. Stream: Indonesian (of course!).
One time we had a tutorial, doing translation from Indonesian source text to English, as the target language.
As I always have this difficulty, to translate Indonesian text to English, I felt especially relieved when my tutor, an Australian lady who has incredible skills in Indonesian, thought that my English translation of Indonesian colloquial speech was veeery nice. Teehee.
Just so you know, this particular speech was from a Minister of Indonesia... so then, translating it was kind of, uhm, hard? Hard that his speaking was very LOVELY that my classmates and I had a terrible time understanding his messages... Duh.
Anyway, here is what I had done in that tutorial
The Indonesian source speech:
"Misalnya
ambil tema tentang sungai, sudah ada bahan IPAnya di situ. Sungai itu ada
airnya, rumusnya H2O, bisa mengalir kenapa karena ada perbedaan tekanan. Juga
memiliki derajat kejernihan, bisa wudhu, satu mata pelajaran bisa dikaitkan
kemana-mana, kotoran sungai tercemar, dan seterusnya. Dengan demikian anak-anak
memiliki kemampuan utuh. Anak-anak SD tidak mendapat pendekatan yang
terpisah-pisah, tapi utuh. Mudah mempelajari sesuatu yang kecil-kecil jika
sudah dewasa," paparnya.
The English translation:
“Take
a topic about river for example. The materials for the Natural Sciences are
already there. In the river, there is water. The water’s formula is H2O.
The water can flow, why, because there is a difference of water pressure. Water
also has degree of clarity. Water can also be used for washing before
prayers. So, one subject can be linked to anything. Say, there is waste in the river,
the river gets polluted, and so forth. Therefore, the children have a complete
competence. The primary school children will not get separate approaches, but
an integrated one. It will be easier to learn from small things when they grow
up,” he explained.
My tutor commented:
The translation was nice because I kept the colloquial feeling in the English translation, therefore, the translation is quite faithful to the source text.
My thought:
Phew! What a task!