LOST IN TRANSLATION I

Where have you been all my life?

Over the Vesak weekend, I spent 6-7 hours daily doing translation works. Apart from doing my daily prayers practice at home, I didn't go for the usual celebratory activities. I wanted to use the time to do something for Buddhism instead. Think that would make Buddha happy too, no?

I would be in the bedroom on my small hot pink plastic table (and I mean, really small, like this S$12 foldable tray table from NTUC), sitting on my lime Ikea stool (I think it's meant for kids), voraciously churning out lines and lines of translated words. 

The Husband would be in the living room, sitting at the long dining table, either editing my works or doing the translation for other articles that I asked him to. If I had any word/sentence structure I'm unable to translate, I would snap a pic of my screen and watsapp him. The Husband's English proficiency is way better than mine (how can his mind work so quick?!), but I win hands down at being more meticulous in translating the original content without losing its intended meaning.

It was an awesome long weekend to be doing something literary, though it's not literature. I can't remember the last time I squeezed my brain muscles this much. TFL work is fun but this brings back so many memories of how I slough during my uni days, rushing projects after projects, assignments after assignments.

I only wish we have a super duper long work table in some big home office room so that the Husband & I can sit side by side to do this translating work so that I can pester him to death and work less.

I like the colour scheme but please give me some curtains or my eyes gonna melttttt!

Who says island tops can only be used in the kitchens?

Top favourite!

Modern vintage style is so pretty!!

Pictures credit: Google images

I would have at least 8-10 tabs opened on my Firefox. There's this Buddhist dictionary, Nciku.com for Chinese-English translations, Google search (ploughing through the entire web for translations if Nciku is not good enough), the original article I'm translating, my inbox, this tab of English Grammar (I'm thinking I should buy that Cambridge grammar book from Popular), sometimes Buddhanet and many other sites that I found just to translate that one tricky phrase. And of course, Open Office (I don't use MS Office. Open Office is free.)

I can really do this day in day out. 

Suddenly, it seemed like the past 20 years of education all make sense after all. 

We are blessed to be bilingual. I might still need a proper dictionary and a grammar guide. Just in case.

But I was pretty brain fried after that long weekend and had to stay off translating long articles for a few days. Jeez, I should have done more Sudouku for some brain yoga to keep it in shape. 

The other day, there was this sentence I had to translate: 大家看看，想想短暫又脆弱的人生...

  

I read it out loud from my phone (Inbox) and asked the Husband, "How do you say 短暫 in English?"

My brain was freezing after doing too many translations at one go.

The Husband replied, "Short-lived!"

"Short-lived? I thought there's a better word for it in Buddhism!"

"Temporary? I think it's either short-lived or temporary!"

"Sure or not? Sounds strange. Cannot anyhow translate. Can you be a bit more serious or not?"

"I'm serious! Who says I'm not serious? I don't look serious meh??"

"How about 脆弱?"

"BRITTLE!" He said it with so much conviction.

"Brittle? Sounds like bones advertisement. Like, brittle bones, please drink Anlene!"

"No, I'm very sure it's BRITTLE!"

"Then what? You mean like 'Everyone think think and see see how life is short-lived and brittle'? Or 'Life is temporary and brittle'? Like very 苦like that."

"Yes, you got it right! Life is 苦 what in the eyes of the Buddha. "

"I don't believe you."

Final translation - Let's take a look and think about how transient and fragile life is...

  

Sometimes Google translate works better than a human brain.

Just sometimes.

Anyone out there can figure out what the English term for 知音 is?

Metta, 

欣雨 Xinyu