Dutchman looking for help translating his garden rail book into English

Gerard

Gerard

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Netherlands
Hello,

Me and my friend Rainer just finished after 3 years a 350 page book about our gardenrails in Dutch.
Based on this book i am now in the process of translating the book into the English language.
I just finished my first translation into English language and now i am looking for help from one or more native English speakers
with the know-how of the language but also especially the knowledge of model trains related English expressions.
It is a lot of text so I suggest that I provide a limited number of pages to anyone who is willing to help me.

If you can help me please send me a mail at glm@vanderschrieck.nl and i will send you a number of pages.

Gerard van der Schrieck
 
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dunnyrail said:
Be more than happy to help with a few of the translated pages.
Click to expand...

Me, too. However, Gerard, you might like to give some thoughts to the eventual readership. Many railway terms used in English are quite different in text meant to be read by a North American reader, or even those who are more used to reading books written for North American English-speakers. We say 'points'', North Americans say 'switches'. They also say 'classification yard' and we say 'marshalling yard', 'snow-plow' and 'snow plough'.

So, who is it for?
 
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tac foley said:
Me, too. However, Gerard, you might like to give some thoughts to the eventual readership. Many railway terms used in English are quite different in text meant to be read by a North American reader, or even those who are more used to reading books written for North American English-speakers. We say 'points'', North Americans say 'switches'. They also say 'classification yard' and we say 'marshalling yard', 'snow-plow' and 'snow plough'.

So, who is it for?
Click to expand...
Just as non-North American readers can cope with North American railway terms, one would hope that the opposite would apply on the other side of the Atlantic.
 
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tac foley said:
Me, too. However, Gerard, you might like to give some thoughts to the eventual readership. Many railway terms used in English are quite different in text meant to be read by a North American reader, or even those who are more used to reading books written for North American English-speakers. We say 'points'', North Americans say 'switches'. They also say 'classification yard' and we say 'marshalling yard', 'snow-plow' and 'snow plough'.

So, who is it for?
Click to expand...
Hi Tac,

Thanks for your reply. I think I'll start with English and hope that the Americans can cope with that.
May be it is an idea to add a translation table at the end of the book with all the specific words in English with the American expression next to it?

Gerard
 
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playmofire said:
Just as non-North American readers can cope with North American railway terms, one would hope that the opposite would apply on the other side of the Atlantic.
Click to expand...
Quite so, but we need consistency as it's being divided up between a few people - are we writing for UK English or USA English?
 
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Gerard said:
Hi Tac,

Thanks for your reply. I think I'll start with English and hope that the Americans can cope with that.
May be it is an idea to add a translation table at the end of the book with all the specific words in English with the American expression next to it?

Gerard
Click to expand...
I think the key aspect is consistency throughout the book - especially as a number of assistants are helping with this.
 
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Gerard said:
Hello,

Me and my friend Rainer just finished after 3 years a 350 page book about our gardenrails in Dutch.
Based on this book i am now in the process of translating the book into the English language.
I just finished my first translation into English language and now i am looking for help from one or more native English speakers
with the know-how of the language but also especially the knowledge of model trains related English expressions.
It is a lot of text so I suggest that I provide a limited number of pages to anyone who is willing to help me.

If you can help me please send me a mail at glm@vanderschrieck.nl and i will send you a number of pages.

Gerard van der Schrieck
Click to expand...
Happy to help.
May I suggest that initially you send the same section of text to all of your volunteers. This will probably give you a wide range of responses to the same question, as English spoken in the UK is far from standard!
 
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Eeyore.Boater said:
Happy to help.
May I suggest that initially you send the same section of text to all of your volunteers. This will probably give you a wide range of responses to the same question, as English spoken in the UK is far from standard!
Click to expand...
Good suggestion. To keep it workable i suggest that i first collect all corrections, put them in one readable file and then send this file to all you guys for a second round of comment. So far i could send 4 times 50 pages which is in total 200 pages. That is already more than half the book! Thanks !
 
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I am active on several forums, incl USA, New Zealand, Australia and yes a British forum too.
All train and mostly track related.
I hope i can be of any help.

It looks sometimes that USA English is a completely different language...
The English on the British forum, that is a totally different game, especially when they are using "sophisticated" English as i call it....

Luckily on Gscale it is in my eyes "normal" English.

True sophisticated English speakers incoming in.... 5 4 3 2 1.... GO :D :cool:
 
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justme igor said:
I am active on several forums, incl USA, New Zealand, Australia and yes a British forum too.
All train and mostly track related.
I hope i can be of any help.

It looks sometimes that USA English is a completely different language...
The English on the British forum, that is a totally different game, especially when they are using "sophisticated" English as i call it....

Luckily on Gscale it is in my eyes "normal" English.

True sophisticated English speakers incoming in.... 5 4 3 2 1.... GO :D :cool:
Click to expand...
Can't imagine what you mean old chum :p
 
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playmofire said:
Just as non-North American readers can cope with North American railway terms, one would hope that the opposite would apply on the other side of the Atlantic.
Click to expand...
Put a glossary of terms used in the book? eg points, turnout, switch a piece of trackage that allows trains to move from one track to another.
 
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