In continuing today’s prepping of the article, I’ve come up against a challenge. Lots of my materials are in French, which I can either read and note from straight… or I can translate. Normally I do the former. After all, there’s no point in having loads of translated text which I don’t then use. But today, I’m translating some of the material. Why?
In part, it’s because there’s a lot of complexity in it, and I want to understand and remember it, and I know that if I translate it, then I’ll have to read the text thoroughly enough to fully understand it, to produce the translation.
In part, too, because then – when I have the translation – it’ll be easier to work with than the French. Not only will it be electronic (where the French text is printed, with shiny ink, on shiny paper… which is really hard to read in anything other than perfect light) it’ll also be scroll-able, searchable, and scan-able at speed (all the s’s!) more easily in English.
There’s also an ulterior motive. Years ago, when I started as an academic, I was struck by how much of my field was based on French documents, but how few academics in my field could actually speak or read French. They worked a lot from only a few selected translations, and relied on those, and their interpretation by other scholars, being right. What I’m digging into today is new information, which isn’t available in English. So by producing a translation – which takes a little longer – I’m actually creating another potential ‘mini-publication’ for myself, which I can either try and place somewhere… or (more probably) give to the field.
I’ve found that it’s sometimes worth pausing a project if there’s something that can be leveraged out quite quickly. And, as long as you go back to the project afterwards.
In this case, it won’t take more than a day or two, so it shouldn’t hold up my plan. And it’s worth doing for the benefits.
The Garage of Books 