Turbulence with Translations

Franchesca Ulloa

ulloa.19@osu.edu

Korean Major, Spanish Minor

Description:

It is common for all college students to receive the question “What do you want to do after you graduate?” but to me this question has been asked in a scoffing matter rather than being genuinely interested. While my previous response was “I don’t know, I just like the field,” my goal with this project is to try a potential career path so I can answer with more knowledge the next time I receive the question. The project I decided on was translating a short story in Korean, “Ms. Cho, the Turtle, and Me” to English.

Process:

Having limited past experience with translating, I was not quite sure where to start. I experimented with two methods at first, marking the text directly and reading through and writing the phrases or words I was unsure of in a notebook, but none of those helped me make progress understanding or translating the text. So I turned to the method that would take much more time but would allow me to interact more with the text and it has been working great so far. After getting recommendations on what to translate from my professor and settling on a short story, I first broke it up into smaller sections. After breaking it up, I typed each section into a word document and then shared it to my iPad where I was able to mark it up as much as I desired. I made four basic color distinctions for highlighting and writing notes: words I didn’t know, questions I had, the explanations given to me, and the rough translation itself. Having the different colors has really helped me organize the workspace that turned messy very quickly. For the words I was unfamiliar with I turned to the Naver Dictionary (Naver is commonly referred to as the Korean Google), and with the definitions at hand, I wrote it above the word itself in the text. Afterwards I started to go through and try to make sense of the text, making sure to note any and all questions to direct to my professor during his office hours which I attend on a weekly basis. After having a  general idea and a good amount of rough translation on my iPad, I re-wrote the rough translation in my notebook, and from my notebook I typed it into a word document again. I went through these repetitive steps in order to allow myself to have several times I am reading what I wrote, to best catch any mistakes or phrases that may come off as awkward to the future readers. After typing the translation, my professor checks it as a whole section, along with the original text, and gives me feedback on areas I need to revisit and reword. Making the corrections will be the final step of the translation process I am doing with my professor.

Results:

The translation is not complete, but there have certainly been good outcomes from working on the project throughout the semester. Vocabulary is an area I struggle in because while I have the ability to communicate most thoughts without too much effort, the literary world is much different from the speaking world. There will be new words I get introduced to, and while I may not be able to use all in conversations, it will come in hand for future readings. I have also seen a decrease in my anxiety of reading a large text of Korean. Before taking on the project, even though I was confident with my language ability, there was a fear that would not let me even experiment with what I could understand. That fear has not completely disappeared but has certainly changed drastically to the point where I feel comfortable approaching posts, paragraphs, and other publications that are in Korean.

Reflection:

Being able to take the next step in my appreciation for the Korean language has been a real journey. There have been moments of frustration and misunderstanding where I was unable to continue working because there was a large obstacle in my path. The obstacle was most definitely intimidating, and by no means is entirely out of the way because there is always the concern of not fully conveying the same thoughts and emotions as the original. However, that roadblock has now been shaved down with the help from my professors and tutor, to the point where I can continue working. I have been able to gain two lessons so far from my experiment that have reinforced what I have learned in other aspects of college life. The first being that if I am at a point where I feel stuck, I need to reach out and ask for help, there are people that are more than willing to help you, so do not be afraid to call out. Second, is that even if I cannot come out from a trial completely unwounded that does not mean it is the end. The mistakes I make now are helping me learn and grow professionally, as I pursue translation, and personally for whatever the future may hold for me.

College has broken all of my expectations, both for better and worse. Please note, when I say “worse” I do not mean that anything bad or catastrophic has happened, but more it goes against what OSU may be trying to market to applying students. In other words, before becoming to Ohio State I thought that Columbus was an amazing and lively city, that every aspect of the school would be amazing and everything would be as nice as flowers and rainbows, and I got a rude awakening. The truth is, there is no university out there that is perfect, no matter how well renowned their college football team is. Ohio State is like any other university, big or small, the dorms are not the nicest, the food that gets boring quickly, and the list goes on, but there is also a lot more that has made thousands of Buckeyes around the world. This is in big part due to the amazing academics, and there is no lie that OSU is a top-rated university that has high standards. The aspect of academics is one of the positives that I have found about OSU, not to say that the reputation of the academics are poor, but in my small department, there was not as much information at my disposal. Especially as I was coming in as a freshman in a third level Korean language course, I was very nervous to say the least, but that same class has proven to be my favorite of the semester. It was no easy ride, but after a few weeks, I became comfortable in this environment and grew close to my fellow upperclassmen. 

Honestly speaking, the college transition has been very hard for me, especially as I am an out-of-state student. At first I was caught up in the moment and didn’t understand how I could ever get to the point where I am now, being homesick quite often. I am just now starting to get over this, and the way I accomplished this was simply staying connected to those back home, even if it was not everyday, it was constant so I started to grow comfortable. Overall, college is no easy ride, but with a supportive environment, any difficulty can become a simple little bump that is easy to get over. I am very grateful that I chose Ohio State as my university and look forward to the rest of my undergraduate career!

As I am a humanities major, specifically a language major, I have been constantly surrounded with the particular aspect of language in my class. One particularly fun aspect of language from my class is that we are studying the Chinese characters, known as Hanja, in Korea that although has decreased in popularity, still remains somewhat relevant. Just going through and studying the old writing system really makes me, and my classmates, appreciate the creation of Hangul, the Korean writing system, much more because of the simple structure. Similarly, I have had a first time experience this week with language, but not so much a different language. Language as in the power of one’s voice to speak out and share a message. As I was studying in the Union the other day, a group of people walked through the Union and were advocating for an issue that they saw as very important and wanted to make others aware of the problem. Although I am not too sure about what they were talking about, I really appreciate how I was able to see a change in progress, because it is thanks to people like them that change is able to happen.

“I used to go to the University of Colorado, I had a rugby scholarship so I played rugby for the school. I got a traumatic brain injury and lost my scholarship, so I couldn’t go there anymore. My parents were living here [Ohio] because they were in the military, and even though I was studying in Colorado, I was not considered an in-state student. So, I decided to come here because my parents lived here therefore I would get in-state tuition. I applied to OSU and got accepted, but couldn’t play rugby anymore. After a while I was not doing that well in school and I couldn’t get into any of the language classes I wanted. Eventually, me and a few friends decided to just take Korean because we liked the food and ended up falling in love with it. While others moved on, I enjoyed the language so much that I changed my major and am now graduating next semester.” -Zoe Lavinder

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