Hi, I’m a recently graduated Chinese researcher who frequently translates bioinformatics papers as part of my job. Mandarin is my first language. I’ve noticed that the translation of new terms is often done on an ad-hoc basis (to the point that there is no common Chinese term for “gene panel”. We just use the English term). Would making some kind of codex of good translations/list of terms that should remain in English be an acceptable project? For example, it is considered ambiguous and bad form to translate “logistical regression” as “对数几率回归” instead of “logistical回归”. I’m sure it can be useful for improving future translation productivity and clarity.
Hi Lao, thanks for the question! I imagine that something like this would qualify toward the accountability cohorts, but I think that a full project would likely need to be making translations as well. One reason is that it seems quite hard to make sure that people who we want to make translations for ML work/biosecurity would learn about the codex enough to popularize them. Another reason is that the projects would be taking up at least ~50 hours of time. But, making translations of useful texts and including recommended word-specific translations like you mention would be more along the lines of what I’m looking for!
I’d possibly change my mind if it seems like there’s a big market of people looking for a translation codex, but the current bottleneck to me seems like the full translations themselves.
Hi, I’m a recently graduated Chinese researcher who frequently translates bioinformatics papers as part of my job. Mandarin is my first language. I’ve noticed that the translation of new terms is often done on an ad-hoc basis (to the point that there is no common Chinese term for “gene panel”. We just use the English term). Would making some kind of codex of good translations/list of terms that should remain in English be an acceptable project? For example, it is considered ambiguous and bad form to translate “logistical regression” as “对数几率回归” instead of “logistical回归”. I’m sure it can be useful for improving future translation productivity and clarity.
Hi Lao, thanks for the question! I imagine that something like this would qualify toward the accountability cohorts, but I think that a full project would likely need to be making translations as well. One reason is that it seems quite hard to make sure that people who we want to make translations for ML work/biosecurity would learn about the codex enough to popularize them. Another reason is that the projects would be taking up at least ~50 hours of time. But, making translations of useful texts and including recommended word-specific translations like you mention would be more along the lines of what I’m looking for! I’d possibly change my mind if it seems like there’s a big market of people looking for a translation codex, but the current bottleneck to me seems like the full translations themselves.
Alright, I’ll probably do that then. I just had this feeling that my application had to contain something beyond the standard to be accepted.
That’s a valid concern! I appreciate you checking :)