January 22, 2013 at 14:46Milashevich’s technique of teaching technical translation
I think, on Habré almost all, in one way or another, know English. In fact, it’s very difficult to live without the ability to read English texts in IT - everything really sensible is usually on English-speaking resources.
But who can say that what he was taught at school and university really helped him in understanding English literature? I suspect that not many will be able to confirm this. To be honest, I don’t know how things are in the capital’s schools and universities, and in the provincial - everything is very bad.
I was lucky in this matter - since childhood I studied English in a group, then I spent a lot of time with tutors, so in English I orient myself well and without any tricky techniques. But at the university where I studied, the teacher in the educational process used the method of Milashevich. I admire this simple and elegant approach to learning translation, and I would like to talk about it.
It was developed at one time in the Far East by the candidate of psychological sciences V.V. Milashevich, primarily for teaching the Chinese language, and subsequently shifted it for English. Then his students did a lot of everything from her, including something called “milgred” (it's hard to say what it is, but I didn’t understand anything on their site). I do not know, to be honest, with the derivatives of this technique, so it's not about them.
If in a nutshell - the technique is based on the fact that to translate a text from a foreign language into a native language it is absolutely not necessary to know all the nuances of a grammar of a foreign language. In many cases, it is enough to know how one grammatical structure of a foreign language is “reflected” in the native language. I will illustrate the following well-known phrase:
A
thick cudra shtoko budlanula bozra and kurdyachit bokrenka Familiar? This is an artificial phrase of the Russian language, in which, in general, there is not a single Russian word (unless the union “and”). But from the morphology of the phrase itself, one can understand the following (as Wikipedia tells us): a certain, somehow characterized, female being did something in a certain way with another male being, and then she started (and continues to this day) to do something another with his cub.
The translation of this phrase into English looks like this:
The iggle squiggs trazed wombly in the harlish hoop
Already less clear? Because the grammatical structures of the English language are much less familiar to us.
It turns out that in order to understand the first sentence, we just need to find out what kind of “cuzdra” is, what kind of “glock” it is, and so on, since we are familiar with the structural elements of the language. In fact, the translation comes down to finding each word in the dictionary - and we already know how to connect these words. And in order to understand the second, we first need to find out how the sentence is arranged and where to start the translation.
Based on the principles of this kind, training takes place. It is not mentioned anywhere that Present Perfect is and when this time is used - for translation it does not matter. It is important to correctly determine the grammatical structure of the sentence, and the rest is a matter of technology. And the technique just provides all the necessary tools for this.
Usually, instruments are presented in the form of such schemes. Understanding them right away is not so simple, but in general, with a systematic approach, they make it possible to determine grammatical structures and translate them correctly.
Milashevich’s technique is well suited for teaching the translation of technical literature. Learning such a translation using the traditional method requires a huge pile of time, which the main consumers of technical literature (technicians themselves) usually do not. Studying only what is necessary for the translation, it turns out to save a huge amount of time.
For comparison: it takes 72 hours to study using this methodology (in some places on the Internet they write about 30-40 hours, but this is too optimistic) for students who are motivated to study. At the same time, in principle, the initial level of students is not important - with me in the same group were students who never studied English, but learned German at school. And they kept up with the whole group without any tension, and in some aspects they were even more successful.
How much is required, for similar training according to the traditional method, everyone can imagine for themselves: remember the huge heap of time that slipped into the void during your training in English.
To be honest, the results amaze and amaze me. At the time of training in this technique, I could very well translate from English into Russian, so for me it is difficult to evaluate something. But having figured out the grammar schemes, I was able to put rather scattered knowledge of the language into a more or less harmonious system, which is also cool and makes life easier.
Therefore, it is worth focusing on the other students of my group. I will be honest: the university had a paid and intellectual level, and the level of initial knowledge of students was very different. But in a rather short period of time, I saw how even the most slow-witted people began to slowly translate rather complex texts. I sincerely doubt that they would study according to the traditional method, they would be able to do at least something with these texts.
Pros:
+ short training periods (72 hours, 4 hours a day, this is less than a month)
+ there is no requirement for an initial level of knowledge
+ a systematic approach that is close to techies
+ clear learning outcomes
Cons:
- absolutely no conversational speech (however, it would be foolish expect this)
- in the absence of a vocabulary, a dictionary is constantly required for translation
Well, there is such a technique, and it’s wonderful, why is it asked on Habré, where everyone knows somehow English?
Firstly, if somewhere you come across a method or derivatives of it, at least there will be an idea about it. Milgred is now actively trying to PR, she even patented something there.
Secondly, not so long ago I talked with my former teacher and found out that the university was closed, and now she is engaged in tutoring. A ready-made training course, polished by 10 years of training of real students, specially designed for teaching at the IT-oriented faculty (in general, the faculty was “Information Security”), and these are lectures, diagrams, exercises, texts for analysis with the teacher and for independent translation, and etc. - disappears, because in our small town, few people need it. And I thought that maybe there will be someone on Habr who will be interested in this course in one way or another? The methodology and course are really cool!
In general, if all of a sudden - I’ll give the teacher’s contacts in PM.
But who can say that what he was taught at school and university really helped him in understanding English literature? I suspect that not many will be able to confirm this. To be honest, I don’t know how things are in the capital’s schools and universities, and in the provincial - everything is very bad.
I was lucky in this matter - since childhood I studied English in a group, then I spent a lot of time with tutors, so in English I orient myself well and without any tricky techniques. But at the university where I studied, the teacher in the educational process used the method of Milashevich. I admire this simple and elegant approach to learning translation, and I would like to talk about it.
What is this technique?
It was developed at one time in the Far East by the candidate of psychological sciences V.V. Milashevich, primarily for teaching the Chinese language, and subsequently shifted it for English. Then his students did a lot of everything from her, including something called “milgred” (it's hard to say what it is, but I didn’t understand anything on their site). I do not know, to be honest, with the derivatives of this technique, so it's not about them.
If in a nutshell - the technique is based on the fact that to translate a text from a foreign language into a native language it is absolutely not necessary to know all the nuances of a grammar of a foreign language. In many cases, it is enough to know how one grammatical structure of a foreign language is “reflected” in the native language. I will illustrate the following well-known phrase:
A
thick cudra shtoko budlanula bozra and kurdyachit bokrenka Familiar? This is an artificial phrase of the Russian language, in which, in general, there is not a single Russian word (unless the union “and”). But from the morphology of the phrase itself, one can understand the following (as Wikipedia tells us): a certain, somehow characterized, female being did something in a certain way with another male being, and then she started (and continues to this day) to do something another with his cub.
The translation of this phrase into English looks like this:
The iggle squiggs trazed wombly in the harlish hoop
Already less clear? Because the grammatical structures of the English language are much less familiar to us.
It turns out that in order to understand the first sentence, we just need to find out what kind of “cuzdra” is, what kind of “glock” it is, and so on, since we are familiar with the structural elements of the language. In fact, the translation comes down to finding each word in the dictionary - and we already know how to connect these words. And in order to understand the second, we first need to find out how the sentence is arranged and where to start the translation.
Based on the principles of this kind, training takes place. It is not mentioned anywhere that Present Perfect is and when this time is used - for translation it does not matter. It is important to correctly determine the grammatical structure of the sentence, and the rest is a matter of technology. And the technique just provides all the necessary tools for this.
Usually, instruments are presented in the form of such schemes. Understanding them right away is not so simple, but in general, with a systematic approach, they make it possible to determine grammatical structures and translate them correctly.
Technical translation
Milashevich’s technique is well suited for teaching the translation of technical literature. Learning such a translation using the traditional method requires a huge pile of time, which the main consumers of technical literature (technicians themselves) usually do not. Studying only what is necessary for the translation, it turns out to save a huge amount of time.
For comparison: it takes 72 hours to study using this methodology (in some places on the Internet they write about 30-40 hours, but this is too optimistic) for students who are motivated to study. At the same time, in principle, the initial level of students is not important - with me in the same group were students who never studied English, but learned German at school. And they kept up with the whole group without any tension, and in some aspects they were even more successful.
How much is required, for similar training according to the traditional method, everyone can imagine for themselves: remember the huge heap of time that slipped into the void during your training in English.
results
To be honest, the results amaze and amaze me. At the time of training in this technique, I could very well translate from English into Russian, so for me it is difficult to evaluate something. But having figured out the grammar schemes, I was able to put rather scattered knowledge of the language into a more or less harmonious system, which is also cool and makes life easier.
Therefore, it is worth focusing on the other students of my group. I will be honest: the university had a paid and intellectual level, and the level of initial knowledge of students was very different. But in a rather short period of time, I saw how even the most slow-witted people began to slowly translate rather complex texts. I sincerely doubt that they would study according to the traditional method, they would be able to do at least something with these texts.
conclusions
Pros:
+ short training periods (72 hours, 4 hours a day, this is less than a month)
+ there is no requirement for an initial level of knowledge
+ a systematic approach that is close to techies
+ clear learning outcomes
Cons:
- absolutely no conversational speech (however, it would be foolish expect this)
- in the absence of a vocabulary, a dictionary is constantly required for translation
Why am I writing about this
Well, there is such a technique, and it’s wonderful, why is it asked on Habré, where everyone knows somehow English?
Firstly, if somewhere you come across a method or derivatives of it, at least there will be an idea about it. Milgred is now actively trying to PR, she even patented something there.
Secondly, not so long ago I talked with my former teacher and found out that the university was closed, and now she is engaged in tutoring. A ready-made training course, polished by 10 years of training of real students, specially designed for teaching at the IT-oriented faculty (in general, the faculty was “Information Security”), and these are lectures, diagrams, exercises, texts for analysis with the teacher and for independent translation, and etc. - disappears, because in our small town, few people need it. And I thought that maybe there will be someone on Habr who will be interested in this course in one way or another? The methodology and course are really cool!
In general, if all of a sudden - I’ll give the teacher’s contacts in PM.