Reflection+Report+2+by+ERAY+AKTAŞ

AŞK DÖRT HARFLİ BİR KELİMEDİR.
By Alev Bulut

====In her article, Alev Bulut is talking about a very serious and critical issue related to translators and their works. She is basically talking about up to what point do the comments of critics on translations of particular translators can go. She is also directing the questions such as " Çevirmenin mesleki kimliği neler içeriyor", "Çevirmen, çeviri kararlarını vermek ve bu kararları savunmak için hangi olanaklara sahip?"====

====In first part of her article, she is talking about the translation as a second job. She says that mostly, translators do not do this as their first professional but as a second job. She adds that there are people who are doctors, teachers, academicians, editors, writers, poets, etc. Later on, she mentions the importance of oral translation as well as the written one. She says that it is almost impossible to make a living by only translating written works. However, it is very hard to be a professional oral translator. On the other hand, although it may look a high paying job, the stress and the workload of this job can be very challenging to people. In terms of technical translations, there are so many lawyers, engineers and doctors involved in these areas. Consequently, that the number of these people is higher than professional translators, it gives the latter ones a low reputation. Thus, also the number of the translators is going higher. This may be due the lack of conditions for translation as an occupation and as the income they could barely gain as well as the lack of the union among the translators.====

====What I have been discussing in the previous paragraph is the main cause of the field specilizations which is a big increase. There is also a group which is not aware of all of these going on. Thus, it is always them who get the worst comments by the critics. Then they feel useless as a result. However, if they could make a living by translating a book once in 3 months, they would love their jobs.On the other hand, the ones who do this job as a hobby, makes it look very difficult to be a translator and they raise the bar.====

====In the next paragraphs, the writer is discussing the importance of academic translation studies and their contributions to this field. Dating back to 80s, translation studies have been thoroughly looking at any type of works to analyze and interpret a conclusion for the work. Furthermore, they making comments which are far away from subjective contexts, manners and attitudes.====

====Although what I have been talking about makes the translators feel better in terms of their creativity in their jobs, it is not the same with the real readers, because they may find the translator not be loyal to the actual meaning of the context but sticking up to the original text since "Aşk dört harflidir" would not make sense in Turkish. In fact, in the process of translation, it is a very demanding thing to be loyal, to change, to replace and to edit things in the text.====

When we look for the translators who can face the hard critics made by the commentors, it is not hard to spot them. They are the ones who carefully thought about the process and decisions he/she made while working on the project. For example, in 2003 when Mr. Özdemir was questioned about the "idealogic" means in the book, he told that he choose the word "Simyacı" by taking everything and anything into consideration rather than using a word such as "minare" for "tower" and "ezan" for "song" which were suggested by commentors.

**WHY MACHINES GET LOST IN TRANSLATION**
By Christian Arno http://www.languagerealm.com/hplang/lost_machines.php

====He starts his article by saying that the technological revolution is now in full swing and people are cherishing the recent changes more than ever before. For example, the use of the internet, i-phones, handheld games consoles, tiny notebooks are on a huge increase. Then he adds that technology is everywhere and it makes our lives much easier. However, he questions whether there are any aspects where machines and technology may fail?====

====He argues that aside the fact that humans produce all of these machines in the first place, there are still areas where we can never be replaced, yet. He asks can we ever get our computer to write a poem or try our notebook's talents in song composition; the results won't be too positive. Machines are good, however they're not that good.====

====In the next paragraph, he claims that language is something that only humans are able to fully understand and translate from a language into another. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have managed to bring automated translation to very impressive levels, however, he adds, machine translation will never be able to compete with human translators. The different styles, contexts, cultures and nuances in languages are just a few essential details that machines are not able to understand.====

====In the rest of the article, the writer is giving examples from various foreign languages in order to support his ideas. To begin with, Écoeurant, for example, is a French word that means nauseating, but the term is used mostly for food that is too sweet or rich and doesn't necessarily make one throw up. English has no single word that means the same thing and would therefore require a much more explicit translation requiring the linguistic dexterity of a human being.====

====Another example is from German.Torschlusspanik, which is a word used to describe the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages and is most often applied to women involved in a race against the biological clock so as to wed and bear children.====

====He then gives a further depiction for the differences between languages. He says that it does not stop with quirky words that are difficult to translate. For example, Indo-European and Semitic languages (most European languages plus some other languages from the Middle East, Africa and Asia) all use 'articles'. French has le, la, les or un, une whilst English has the, a and an.====

====In conclusion he restates his argument that language is a complex and truly a wonderful thing. However, llthough most vernaculars share a common ancestral tongue, there are so many subtle differences between the numerous languages of the world that only humans are able to to understand. Machines are better than humans at many things, on the other hand, when it comes to language and translation, humans simply do it better.====