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    Translating

    Can I begin a modest translation thread with a couple of questions?

    From time to time I do the odd translation or editing of texts etc written in English or Spanish by (mainly) Spanish people. So I'm correcting/improving a CV the other day and the word sizar comes up. I never heard this word before in my life and google it and lo and behold;

    At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar /ˈsaɪzər/ is an undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job.


    My questions are: is it ok to use this word in a CV (as in, is it a word generally known and recognised?) and can it also be applied to students who didn't study in Dublin or Cambridge?

    #2
    Originally posted by Sporting View Post
    Can I begin a modest translation thread with a couple of questions?

    From time to time I do the odd translation or editing of texts etc written in English or Spanish by (mainly) Spanish people. So I'm correcting/improving a CV the other day and the word sizar comes up. I never heard this word before in my life and google it and lo and behold;

    At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar /ˈsaɪzər/ is an undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job.


    My questions are: is it ok to use this word in a CV (as in, is it a word generally known and recognised?) and can it also be applied to students who didn't study in Dublin or Cambridge?
    The applicant would be best advised to include a parenthetical explanation of their precise duties while a sizar, as while employers may be vaguely aware of the term, they might not grasp what it entails.

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      #3
      For what it is worth, the word is completely unknown in the US, and while there are a number of possible translations into USian, I would need to know more details to know which one to recommend.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Sporting View Post
        Can I begin a modest translation thread with a couple of questions?

        From time to time I do the odd translation or editing of texts etc written in English or Spanish by (mainly) Spanish people. So I'm correcting/improving a CV the other day and the word sizar comes up. I never heard this word before in my life and google it and lo and behold;

        At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar /ˈsaɪzər/ is an undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job.


        My questions are: is it ok to use this word in a CV (as in, is it a word generally known and recognised?) and can it also be applied to students who didn't study in Dublin or Cambridge?
        I'd leave it out. Just write "undergraduate" (or the Spaniish equivalent). Nobody cares anyway.

        I'm not a translator.

        Comment


          #5
          Well, that raises a whole different issue, which is that the expected content of CVs can differ very significantly depending on where and how they are being used.

          Comment


            #6
            late 16th century: from obsolete size ‘ration of bread, beer, etc.’ +

            That's the etymology of the word which I was curious about. Apparently originally they were servants.

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              #7
              Thanks for the answers. I kinda figured already that sizar wouldn't really be the best word to use in a CV, but it's good to have suspicions confirmed.

              The CV itself, though obviously needing work, was pretty well written, though tending as usual towards being too long and at times too irrelevant (nobody cares about your high school studies, right?) One of the main problems when doingf translations is getting to grips with the original material, which is often full of grammatical errors, weird syntax, lack of paragraphing, repetition and redundancy, obvious choice of the wrong word (but which is the right one?), contradictory arguments, and a lot else I don't remember at present,

              Comment


                #8
                What's the context and who is the person trying to impress?

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                  #9
                  Freelance journalist off to Bolivia and Argentina to cover elections there...asking around English language newspapers etc to see if there's any interest in articles/reports from those countries,

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                    #10
                    If the person involved was a sizar at Cambridge or TCD it might be worth including it for snob value. It’s the kind of thing some editors might like people knowing. Otherwise leave it.

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                      #11
                      At neither of those places. It's being omitted.

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                        #12
                        I was rather surprised to learn that details of one's high school record were standard fare in Italian legal CVs.

                        None of my colleagues were able to explain why they were included, but they all had been told at one point that they should be.

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                          #13
                          High school exam results are often accorded immense importance in job applications in Germany too. Even for internal moves, when you've been working for a company for a decade. "Hmm, yeah, you seem to be a good fit for the position and you've been getting great performance feedback results since joining the company ten years ago - but your Abitur results from 1993 aren't exactly ideal".

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Genau

                            And yes, this isn't some kind of act that JVL and I are doing, it is the stone cold truth in certain parts of corporate Germany. There are many things about the German educational system that are enviable, but the way in which it enforces genuinely life-changing divisions among teenage students is not one of them.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Bit late to this, but I would advise not including any word you have to google in a CV. Unless he was applying for the position of Sizar Support Officer at a university. Then it would make sense.

                              I've advised a lot of young people on writing CVs in my former voluntary roe as a youth worker. There are a lot of relevant things that people leave off because they don't see the relevance. I had to explain to one young chap that founding a maths and science club and organising speakers to come in was actually something potential employers might be interested in as it shows a certain degree of negotiation and organisation.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Question for Spanish speakers here: is there one Spanish word, or a nifty phrase, which accurately conveys the meaning of "sobering" as in "creating a more serious or solemn mood". This came up in our family recently and we couldn't think of a suitable translation.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  My previous nearly 4-year old question dead from lack of an answer, I have a further probably non-replied -to comment. Now, last week I needed to send a fairly important email in Spanish. I speak the language and write pretty well in it, but there are always gaps and doubts. So I wrote it in English, ran it through deepL, and lo and behold it came up with a couple of expressions which I knew but hadn't thought of. I was wondering if people like Sam's girlfriend - and proofreaders like him - and me as a teacher - are at all worried about our jobs becoming redundant.

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                                    #18
                                    My girlfriend's actually doing a course on AI at the moment. For the sort of translator she markets herself as it shouldn't be an issue, as she wants to offer a sort of bespoke service, and an AI just can't get truly in tune with what her clients need. Some of her colleagues occasionally voice concerns. Her opinion of that, I think, is that they ought to try to put a bit more love into what they do, to mark themselves out from the machines.

                                    I'd agree with that for my line of work too. For editorial work it's kind of up in the air. I use AI of a sort – some plugins for Word and Adobe – because they're very helpful for spotting things that I might miss myself in long documents, consistency-wise. But even there, getting one piece of software to talk nicely to another piece of software without missing anything out or borking something doesn't always happen. And even when software isn't talking to other software it can still be as much use as a chocolate fireguard at times – look at Word's spelling and grammar check, which frequently struggles with the varieties, vagaries and sometimes strange logic of English grammar (heh. Just now either the board or my browser tried to put a capital 'V' on 'varieties', for no reason I can think of ...). I'm not worried for now. I will be doing more courses in copyediting and, in time, perhaps some form of development editing, though, as in years to come those will be the roles that will always need a human touch, even if the tech somehow does get perfect enough to replace a human proofreader as good as I am.

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