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31st translation contest: "A translator's life" » English to Arabic

Competition in this pair is now closed, and the winning entries have been announced.

Discussion and feedback about the competition in this language pair may now be provided by visiting the "Discussion & feedback" page for this pair. Entries may also be individually discussed by clicking the "Discuss" link next to any listed entry.

Source text in English

[...] Translators just didn't get recognition, they didn't expect to make much of a living, just get by. Very few people were actually trained as translators, but most had a solid college education and a solid knowledge of languages, at least their own language. I had a friend who fell exactly into that category and my circle of friends expanded to include other translators. I found them to be much more interesting as people, and discovered that we often had similar life experiences. I never had trouble making friends, but I always felt "different" and I'm sure they felt it too. When my friend retired, she recommended me as her replacement. I now entered the realm of Reinsurance, of which I knew nothing. I was also the only translator there, and didn't have much to fall back on. However, it was another notch up....

On my new job, I started looking through the files, asking questions and got the company to enroll me in Insurance courses. The College of Insurance was across the street, and I consulted fire codes, insurance policies and fire extinguisher catalogs in their library. I was learning what I had never had the luxury of being able to do before: research. The first time I had to translate a proposal for purposes of insurance of a nuclear plant, I got a call from the head man in that department, congratulating me on the job I had done. "Compares favorably with what we are used to," he said. What an upper! What happened was that I consulted a document in the files similar to the one I was tackling for guidance, but when I saw that my predecessor had used the word "nucleus" instead of "core", I realized that the files were useless to me. I went across the street to the library and looked up "nuclear plants." I immediately found all the terminology I needed.

It takes a great deal more than that to be a good translator these days, of course. [...]

The winning entries have been announced in this pair.

There were 14 entries submitted in this pair during the submission phase, 4 of which were selected by peers to advance to the finals round. The winning entries were determined based on finals round voting by peers.

Competition in this pair is now closed.


Entries (14 total; 4 finalists) Expand all entries

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Language variants:
Entry #36316 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Arabian (MSA)
Winner
Voting points1st2nd3rd
448 x45 x22 x1
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.753.78 (9 ratings)3.71 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 5 users entered 9 "like" tags
  • 2 users agreed with "likes" (2 total agrees)
  • 2 users disagreed with "likes" (2 total disagrees)
-1
+1
لم يجرِ العرفُ على أن يحوز المترجمون التقدير، ولم يخطر ببال المترجمين يومًا أن يكسبوا وافر لقمة العيش من وراء الترجمة، وإنما أرادوا من خلالها أن يُسيّروا أمورهم فحسب
Flows well
Mosaed Rumman
دنى شكّ
Flows well
mona elshazly
-1
ولكن كانت تلك خطوةً للارتقاء للأعلى
Good term selection
Mosaed Rumman
عكفتُ في عملي الجديد
Flows well
Saad Althobaiti
أدركتُ أن تلك الملفّات كانت غير ذات فائدة
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
حثثتُ الخُطا
Flows well
mona elshazly
في موضوع
Good term selection
Ayman Massoud
وفي لمح البصر وجدتُ جميع المصطلحات التي كنتُ بحاجة إلى معرفتها
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
+1
1
بارعًا
Flows well
Saad Althobaiti
Entry #35222 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Arabian (MSA)
Winner
Voting points1st2nd3rd
4410 x42 x20
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.413.38 (8 ratings)3.43 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #36341 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Arabian (MSA)
Finalist
Voting points1st2nd3rd
295 x43 x23 x1
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.453.89 (9 ratings)3.00 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 4 users entered 6 "like" tags
  • 5 users agreed with "likes" (6 total agrees)
  • 1 user disagreed with "likes" (2 total disagrees)
-1
+4
وخلاصة الأمر
Flows well
Marwa Mohamed
ل كفافًا يقيم الأود ويسد الرمق
Good term selection
Heba Aboulfotouh
-1
1
وإنما
Good term selection
Majdal Moghrabi
+1
معهد التأمين
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
+1
لقد كنت آنذاك أتعلم ما لم يتوفر لي قط رفاهية تعلمه ألا وهو: البحث.
Flows well
Heba Aboulfotouh
أكثر من ذلك بكثير
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
Entry #35308 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Finalist
Voting points1st2nd3rd
181 x44 x26 x1
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.313.33 (9 ratings)3.29 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 3 users entered 4 "like" tags
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
تُعِينُهُم
Flows well
Mostafa Goubail
+1
ينطبق عليها تمامًا ما ذكرتُ آنفًا
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
وحين تَقاعَدَت صديقتي من عملها، أَوصَت بي خليفةً لها.
Flows well
Assem AlKhallouf
من التراجم التي اعتدناها
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98


Non-finalist entries

The following entries were not selected by peers to advance to finals-round voting.

Entry #34922 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Arabian (MSA)
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.022.89 (9 ratings)3.14 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 3 "like" tags
بوالص التأمين
Good term selection
Ayman Massoud
وماذا فعلت لأستحقه؟
Flows well
Ayman Massoud
فقصدت المكتبة
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
Entry #36344 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.002.71 (7 ratings)3.29 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 2 "like" tags
لن أظفر منها بطائل
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
عن موضوع
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
Entry #35317 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.892.78 (9 ratings)3.00 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 4 "like" tags
  • 1 user disagreed with "likes" (1 total disagree)
ليس إلا
Flows well
mona elshazly
متينة
Good term selection
mona elshazly
زكتني
Flows well
mona elshazly
-1
1
يضاهي
Flows well
mona elshazly
Entry #35315 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Arabian (MSA)
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.842.67 (6 ratings)3.00 (6 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #36311 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Moroccan
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.672.14 (7 ratings)3.20 (5 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #35818 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Iraqi
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.612.38 (8 ratings)2.83 (6 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 4 "like" tags
  • 2 users agreed with "likes" (2 total agrees)
+2
لسد الرمق
Good term selection
mona elshazly
الرصينة
Flows well
mona elshazly
مرارا
Flows well
mona elshazly
عديمة النفع لي
Flows well
mona elshazly
Entry #36113 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Arabian (MSA)
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.572.56 (9 ratings)2.57 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #35323 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.372.33 (6 ratings)2.40 (5 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 3 users entered 4 "like" tags
ألقي نظرة
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
وبوالص التأمين
Good term selection
Ayman Massoud
تلقيت اتصالًا من
Good term selection
معلش أسفة ​لو أسلوب ا​لكومنت كان​ غلط
ShaimaMohamad98
سلفي
Good term selection
Ahmed Almadani
Entry #35548 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.352.50 (6 ratings)2.20 (5 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
جعلت الشركة تُسجّلني
Flows well
ShaimaMohamad98
Entry #36125 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Tunisian
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.221.83 (6 ratings)2.60 (5 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags