Penerjemah Indonesia

In simultaneous interpreting (SI), the interpreter immediately speaks the message in the target-language whilst listening to it in the source language.

Standard practice in the industry is that there should be two individuals. These professional sits in a closed space or booth, where they listen to the speech via headphones, and interprets (translates orally) simultaneously. Conference participants or delegates wear headsets to listen in to the language of their choice.

During the month of April 2012, I had the opportunity to do this project in a country I never thought I would visit. The project was in South Africa, in Johannesburg and Sun City. As the project is in a different country to where I live I had to travel to the place.

It took almost a day to reach the site. We flew from Jakarta and stopped for transit in Doha, Qatar. We flew with Qatar Airways. In Doha we had to wait for almost seven hours until the flight to Johannesburg leaves. We stayed in the airport transit area in Doha. The airport transit area was nice. We had offer to recommend a different flight that would be shorter in waiting but the client took a different decision. Anyhow, we left for Johannesburg in the morning local time.

The flight was not that packed, so some passengers moved to other seats to sleep. It was overall a long journey for us.

We arrived in Johannesburg in the afternoon. We were picked up and brought to the hotel. Almost an hour after we reached the hotel, we had time to freshen up and we were ready for our work. The simultaneous interpreting site is about five minutes from our rooms. It was in the same location.

We set ourselves in the booth. There were one other pair, English – Portuguese. We were done in about two hours or so.

The next day we moved hotels to a different place, Sun City. Sun City is a holiday resort. It was an experience that I can never forget.

In the evening we started our work, there were some more language pairs French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. We started around 6 pm and lasted until 9 pm.

The next day was a full event. We started around 8 am until 4 pm. It was exhausting.

The last day we had to leave early after breakfast and was on our way back to Jakarta, Indonesia. By far this has been an amazing experience for me and my new found colleague and a friend.

Being a professional, one has to stop to recharge. One of the many ways to recharge is by learning.

The best way to learn is through workshops.

I did this. I enrolled to a workshop that not also kept me with the standards of industries but kept me informed with the experts in the field.

The workshop that I attended was organized by the University of Indonesia via its business unit LBI. The workshop was: “Professional Interpreter’s Workshop”.

It was a recharging experience, and that all professional interpreters should do. It helps the mind and body to focus on the job better. An investment worth doing.

As a linguist (translator for the language pair English to Bahasa Indonesia), I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to see Dubai during one of my projects relating to language rendering.

The four week training in Dubai had been a smaller portion of a larger part of the language project itself. The rest of the execution of the project, the actual project was about six months, and was to be conducted remote in my part of the world, in Indonesia.

By remote, I mean that the client is on one side of the globe and the project execution is in another part of the world. And, what brought the client and the provider to one place was in this nice place called Dubai.

In Dubai, I had to endure a four week long training provided by the client in that post training I would be able to utilize the software and all the necessary procedures to conduct and finish the project.

The training was a full day training for four weeks. The typical week was from Sunday to Thursday, this was because we were in a world where weekends fall on Fridays and Saturdays. It was one of the best experiences that any translator, linguist could ever experienced.

During this project I had two other Indonesians who were also working in this project. We had been a great team due to the fact that the client had such experience in doing the projects before that this one that I experienced was no exception.

Long story short, being a translator has its moments of good times. And, being in Dubai to do a project paid for by someone else, sure is a good time. An experience I myself could not have thought was possible.

Indonesians…be a translator not just the language pair of English to Indonesian, be a translator in other language pairs. I can assure you if you can do it professionally, things will be great. But being professional, is not an easy task. Just focus and go with the flow.

My first language project that took me abroad, outside Indonesia was an interpreting project.

It was such an experience because the process of getting the project was a long one, it took almost six months.

This interpreting project was for a training in the restaurant industry. It took around two days.

There was another Indonesian who also worked on this, she was an Indonesian living in Singapore.

The project was simultaneous interpreting. During this project I had to use a tool. Most simultaneous interpreting usually endure this procedure.

The simultaneous interpreting was a hard process in that you had to concentrate hard to do the job. Overall, it was an extraordinary experience.

Siri on: “iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. Siri is so easy to use and does so much, you’ll keep finding more and more ways to use it.” (More on Siri: 1, 2)

Siri according to Indonesian Monolingual Standard Dictionary (KBBI) is:

n 1 Antr sistem nilai sosiokultural kepribadian yg merupakan pranata pertahanan harga diri dan martabat manusia sbg individu dan anggota masyarakat dl masyarakat Bugis; 2 keadaan tertimpa malu atau terhina dl masyarakat Bugis dan Makassar: penikaman bermotif — meningkat di daerah itu

Google Translate help on siri’s definition (machine translation):

n 1 Antr sociocultural value system of personality who is the defense of institutions of self-esteem and human dignity as individuals and members of the Bugis community dl; 2 state affected public embarrassment or humiliation dl Bugis and Makassar: stabbing motif – an increase in the area

Check with a professional translator via this Portal for a more refined rendering.

Anyway, there is another meaning to siri that most Indonesians are aware, siri means “nikah di bawah tangan“. This has a negative meaning for some, some may see it positively, and for the other somes, this may have a neutral meaning. Who knows? I haven’t done any surveys, so I’ll let the experts or corporations do the survey, and then you’ll get the drift.

So, corporations, (I guess this software is not aimed solely for Indonesia, is it?), for Indonesia please consider naming names for our sake. Does siri aim for Indonesians? Well, I guess not. Or maybe yes? Well… I can’t make my mind up, since I haven’t got an iPhone. Do I need one? Well… I wish I had.