I'd like to think that I really am getting better at doing what I'm doing now. At least I can confidently say that my translation is improving. I shudder every time I think about my first translations. They're so full of flaws it's embarrassing. Nevertheless, I thank the publishers for giving me the chance to actually work on something. Without actually having translation works at my disposal, I'm not sure if my work would ever advance in quality. Of course, it doesn't mean that I can feel satisfied with what I've done (and will do) just now. I've still got many areas in which to improve.
But, as I've mentioned many times before, translating something to your mother language and translating something from your mother language are two completely different processes. And since I'm not experienced in the latter, it's only normal if I doubt my capability in it. Would I do the job well, with the cultural gap and all? Which was why I didn't jump off with joy when I got the offer in the first place. What I did instead was asking the editor to refrain judgment until he saw a sample of my translation. If it was good enough then fine, let's go from there. But if it's not, feel free to drop me.
Long story short, the editor found my work quite satisfactory and I was hired. And I worked on the project for two and half months and was pretty proud of it, although I still question myself from time to time.
And then I found out just recently--from the newspaper, mind you!--that my work isn't going to be used anyway because the original author thinks it doesn't quite capture the spirit of the book or something. In short, the translation isn't to his liking. And hear, hear, mine isn't the only translation that he found unsatisfactory. (Mine is one out of two, in fact.)
What irks me big time is not the fact that the author doesn't like it. He has every right to choose what's best to represent his bloody writing. It's just that the whole ordeal makes me look like some sort of mercenary that only works for money. Just so you know, I did my best while working on the project. And--and!--I thought the editor had communicated at an early stage with the author regarding the translation. I mean, come on, I did give a sample before I accepted the job. Would it be so hard to e-mail it to the author and said, "Hey, we found this translator. Would you mind taking a look at her work and see if it's agreeable?" It's just ten-page long and I reckon it wouldn't take more than an hour to read it and decide whether it's good enough or not. That way we'd save a lot of time and energy and money (at the publisher's side of equation).
What I'm saying is, if my work wasn't good enough, you shouldn't hire me in the first place, bub!
