Translate This: Best-sellers or Best-selling

Please look at this picture, at the words ‘LAKU KERAS’. Please try to do a back translation to figure out what the owner of this store is trying to say. This was seen at a leading chain bookstore (no names will be dropped here, dangerous, you know).

Did you manage it? Did you only manage to come up with ‘hard sell’? I don't blame you and I’m telling you, it’s not funny when the intended meaning is actually ‘Best-sellers’.

I scratched my head the whole night the day that my fellow translator posted this in our FB translators group. How they even came to think and suggested ‘keras’ is baffling me. Didn’t they know what ‘keras’ is? Look into any dictionary, nothing else comes up but ‘hard’. This is blatant, irresponsible and shabby translation job. I was lucky to have strong hair follicles, or otherwise my scalp would be exposed and as shiny as the behind of a new Corning heat-tolerant glass pan by now.

I do not think anybody will agree to what it was supposed to mean in the first place.

Even ‘laku’ in this case is very arguable. ‘Laku’ is the ‘Bahasa Basahan’ (informal) of ‘Laris’. 'Laris' is the more appropriate word, but when back-translated into English it means ‘Hot selling’. So, what is ‘best-selling’ then? You have to ask yourself this: What is ‘best’ in Malay? We already know what ‘laris’ is.

Unlike English, Malay does not have superlative adjective in the form English does as in good, gooder, goodest or bad, badder, baddest. (It's a joke, don't kill it, ok). In Malay, for an adjective to be superlatively comparative, it needs to be combined with the word ‘lebih’ to indicate superiority and ‘paling’ to indicate the highest level superiority, which is equivalent to ‘more’ and ‘most’ in English, respectively.

So, after all the above explanation, wasn’t it logical and sensible that ‘best-selling’ or ‘best-sellers’ be translated as ‘paling laris’? Is that so hard for that particular shabby-shoddy-doo guy, who translated it into ‘LAKU KERAS’, to at least ask around? Or maybe he/she did, but I think their darts are played on a chess board instead.

‘Paling Laris’ can even be simplified to ‘Terlaris’. A practice of which is one of the rule of thumb in doing translation: simplification without missing the context. So, in the end:

Best-selling (or Best-sellers) = Terlaris

To think that the institution involved is a bookseller, one who should be part of championing literature, is what makes me angry.

I was angry, then angrier, now angriest!


Here... in smiley form (how ironic! It doesn't even smile but it's still called smiley)

Extra: Haiwan maun, maging and maserba

During our class (which we have completed and sat for the exam last week, yay!!), a facilitator had brought up the issue of Malay spelling when a word is borrowed from English, adapted as a whole because there was no equivalent Malay word for them. Or rather, she told us the rule of converting those spellings.

So she gave us examples of herbivore, carnivore and of course omnivore when it comes to words that end with –ore. Simple, she said. Lose the ‘e’ at the end, and change the consonants to Malay equivalent like ‘c’ to ‘k’. OK, that is simple enough. So the Malay words would be herbivor, karnivor and omnivor.

Then I asked her, whatever happened to our haiwan maun, maging and maserba. She said, “Oh! No, no, no. Those are considered archaic. We don’t use that anymore.”

Archaic? It was only about 40 years ago that we were happily using and joking around with those adjectives, making pun and targeting some poor friends with them. Remember the primary school science textbook with pictures of a cow munching grass (representing haiwan maun) and a family of bear having a dinner of extremely fresh sushi, unprepared and unsalted and fresh vegetables (representing haiwan maserba)? It was now archaic? Like the pyramids? It prompted me to check with PRPM (DBP’s reference website), and thank God, they still have them, well preserved.

That may be the problem: ‘well-preserved’ instead of ‘frequently used’.

So, I have suspicions why the former is preferred. And I’d like to stress that this is strictly my opinion. No political parties or individuals paid me to express this, although blogs these days seem to be playing the role of the receiving party so often. I am not saying. Hey! Sue me if you have to.

But, I digress.

Yes, but sorry that we very rarely use those terms except in scientific journals and textbooks. But that should not be the reason we simplify it that way. More and more times I noticed, blatant absorption of English into Malay. Why bajet when we have belanjawan? Why glu when we have gam? The list is endless. Do we just watch and wait until rumah becomes haus or meja becomes tebel? If that ever happened, Hang Tuah (his wiki here) will be the saddest person if he ever lived to that day.

This is how Hang Tuah purportedly looks like. Of course, this is  an imagination
of a white woman commissioned by the museum then, similar to the Tugu Negara,
which is another imagination of another white person. I have no comment.

But I guess, as long as it is in the DBP’s reference portal, we ought to put a priority in using it first. When we have exhausted all resources, or when we want to differentiate the meaning (as in polisi and dasar, or opsyen and pilihan), then can we borrow and adapt from any language in this world.

Which reminds me of a joke from friends* from MRSM Muar long ago, when the story of whatevervore came up. It goes like this:

Student: Cikgu, how about haiwan maik or haiwan mahi?

Teacher: Yes, the answer is ‘penampar’? You want or not? Or you can become haiwan mahi yourself.


Aiyo...! So garang la this teacher. Cannot joke one.

At least it was funny to me then.

*Bataque, Cokeng, Man Batang, Argh, Malan Kechik and Madeng, thank you for making life fun then and don't sue me for using your jokes please.

Translate This: wardrobe malfunction

I was browsing the Internet last night, to search news about Donna Summer, who very recently passed away. I searched all homepages that feature the wonderful Disco Queen. But then, I couldn’t help but notice, other links in those pages have something to say about another artist of equal caliber, Janet Jackson. Curiosity got the better of me, so clicked one of those links, and later more of those links.

I bet you know where those links took me to. Yes! What is Janet Jackson good for these days if not for the news of that ‘fateful night’ with another dubiously talented dancing male singer who goes by the name of Timberwood? Sorry, Timberland. No? Sorry again, Timber something.

You don’t remember? Here, to refresh your memory…

Later, she had an about-turn and adorned a hijab.

Errrrr… ok, almost a hijab but definitely more modest (her bf at that time was an Arab).

They immediately and interestingly coined in a term for that incident (like they knew it already and couldn't wait to let the world know), and other similar incidents that strangely follow later were conveniently called, a ‘wardrobe malfunction’.

(The world is strange because after one bizarre incident, for example a soccer player suddenly suffers a heart attack while playing at one corner of the world, triggers a tsunami of soccer players suffering from heart attacks while playing, it happened all over the world. Strange… yeah.)

But, I digress.

I want to know what that term is in Malay. A little more browsing, clicking, page-flipping and eye-squinting should do the trick I guessed, but no… there was nothing on the internet that say the same term in Malay. Time for ‘cari kutu’! (My term for ‘shake that jar and see what comes out’).

I could find no specific description of the term in PRPM, neither can I from any respectable Malay newspapers (is there any, anyway). So I guess, I have to coin in a Malay term myself here. But they do have description for ‘wardrobe’ and ‘malfunction’. Here they are (cut ‘n’ paste as usual):

Wardrobe: n 1. tall cupboard for hanging clothes, almari pakaian: her ~ is full of expensive dresses, almari pakaiannya penuh dgn pakaian yg mahal-mahal; 2. a collection of clothes, koleksi pakaian: she has a large ~ of evening dresses, dia mempunyai koleksi pakaian malam yg banyak; she bought a whole new ~ for her wedding, dia telah membeli koleksi pakaian yg baru utk hari perkahwinannya; 3. stage costumes, koleksi kostum: she is in charge of ~ for the school play, dia bertanggungjawab mengendalikan koleksi kostum utk persembahan drama sekolah itu.

Malfunction: n &vi pincang tugas: we have had several blackouts owing to a ~ in the generator, beberapa kali bekalan elektrik terputus krn pincang tugas pd penjana; his careless use of the computer had caused it to ~, kecuaiannya menggunakan

Now according to my rule of thumb, with reference to the definition from PRPM, wardrobe in this case can be translated into simply ‘pakaian’. It can’t be an ‘almari’ neither can it be a ‘collection of clothes’. She just had one set of costume on her, so it’s her ‘pakaian’, meaning what she is wearing at the time.

Now for ‘malfunction’ I have several options here. It is a noun in this context. The task is to pick the most appropriate one from these: kepincangan, kerosakan, kecacatan, ralat (all shortlisted from the best possible definitions in PRPM). After much deliberation with me and myself, I chose the word ‘ralat’. Here is why I didn’t choose the other three:

Kepincangan: it’s closest meaning normally describe a malfunction of an engine or system, such as an air conditioner or a family. It normally requires another word ‘tugas’ (task) to go together.

Kerosakan: normally means a system or object that is not functioning to the point of not being able to be used altogether, meaning it is more severe than 'kepincangan'.

Kecacatan: refers to malformation to an object rather than, say, a tear to your blouse.

The main reason I prefer ‘ralat’ to the other three is, following a rule of translation, a translation into the target language must be precise, shortest possible and apt. In this case 'ralat' is an error (which seems to be applicable to a wider range of fields in Malay). An error had happened to Janet Jackson’s dress that night (whether she and that Timber guy had premeditated it or not is not the issue here). So, the term can be translated as ‘ralat pakaian’. Let’s see, if it can be used in a sentence:

Janet Jackson telah menyalahkan ralat pakaian atas peristiwa yang berlaku dalam persembahan beliau dengan Justin Timberleg malam tadi. 
(Janet Jackson blamed a wardrobe malfunction on the incident during her performance with Justin Timberleg last night).

It reminds me of another 'ralat pakaian' occured to our Fauziah Ahmad Daud some years ago, when camera-phone existed only in Japanese animation Captain Future. Damn you, technology! Where were you when we needed you!


What?

Wrong?
What wrong? That guy’s name? Haiyaaaa… never mind la.

Translate This: extra virgin olive oil

A translator had posed a question, requesting the meaning of a term in Terminology section in Proz.com (a website flooded by freelance translators the world over, hoping to syphon some dollars or euros from some rich client’s bank account but always end up having to service peanut-paying, stingier than ‘tangkai jering’ kind of clients. They normally camouflage it with ‘community service’ card). The translator had asked for the meaning of ‘extra virgin olive oil’.

I know… you like that word too (I don’t have to say it again here).

So, without hesitation, you’d say, “Hey, that’s easy, it's minyak zaitun lebih dara”. Sure, sure, that’s because you brain is so pre-occupied with that word. For men, they’d wish they could marry one, once again. For women, they’d wish they became one, once again. But tell me please, from your ‘bluey’ mind, how can a virgin be more virgin? Sorry, I digress.

Here is what it is in Malay: minyak zaitun paling murni

Now, doesn’t that sound more like it, beautiful and coherent like the Malay language itself? I can’t help but feeling naughty when the other word is used. Don’t tell me you didn’t, you perv!

Let us thank a very experienced (and expensive) English-Malay translator who goes by the name Mek Yam. Don’t be misled by her name. She currently resides in New York (waaahh…!) and charges your arm for a page of translation. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any worthwhile link to her official website (if she has it which I think she should’ve). But she has an FB page. Go check from your respective FB. Mek Yam is raving crazy in translation forum all over and she has a chilli-flavoured mouth too, at least in those fora, I noticed. Read her explanation below. I cut 'n' paste from her answer to the question. 

1) extra virgin olive oil = oil that is produced naturally, meaning not made from any sort of chemical treatments. Virgin oil is an indication that the oil is not refined, that they are of a higher quality and retain their natural flavor.

2) Please see below the definitions of virgin in Malay from Dewan Eja Pro:

~ virgin [adj]: 1. pure and chaste, dara, perawan; 2. befitting a virgin, spt seorang /dara, perawan/: ~ modesty, kesopanan spt seorang dara; 3. pure and untouched, murni: the ~ snow, salji murni; 4. (of soil) unused, asal; 5. (of forest) in the natural state, dara; 6. (of clay) not fired, asal; 7. (of metal) made from ore by smelting, murni; 8. (of wool) not chemically processed, murni

That brings me to these questions: Doesn’t it apply to our own ‘minyak kelapa dara’ too? Shouldn’t we say ‘minyak kelapa murni’ instead of the former? What about ‘ayam dara’?

If it is so, and if I possess all the powers that behold, I will change all those buntings and signboards made by producers of those ‘virgin coconut oil’ and save for ‘ayam dara’ sellers (because I'm still researching it). But I don’t have it. And those who have it (ahem!) seem powerless and out-of-focus.

Can we somehow limit the use of that word to human being only? (As from the above explanation by Dewan Eja Pro).

As an extra, here is a related term which they have done a little improvisation to it. Andartu used to be an acronym to ‘anak dara tua’, or spinster in English. They thought it was crude. So they, taking beautiful and coherent Malay into consideration, coined in ‘anak dara lanjut usia’ and came up with an acronym of ‘andalusia’. Hmmm… I’d say I get more confused. Isn't that a region somewhere? Yes, it's in Spain. M. Nasir will be very angry.

And, I do not know who ‘they’ are.

Extras: Going Back to My Home Kampong

I am. 
For two weeks beginning 23rd April 2012 (It's my birthday FYI).


But why did I write kampong instead of kampung (italicised)?


It is because kampong is accepted in English as a valid word, borrowed completely. Validate here. But they adapted the spelling kampong instead of kampung. I suspect it has to do with how they pronounce it. Kampung will sound [kaym-pang] from their tongue, while kampong will sound very similar to our kampung [kaym-pong]. But I guess, mat salleh who has been here long would pronounce like us, kampung [kahm-poong].


But there are no worries as to how to translate it. Copy directly. That's acceptable too. But be careful, because the more acceptable spelling of kampong in Malay is kampung.


Now, don't fret over it and get more confused. Go have some tea.


I'll have my favorite coffee for now, Kopi Che Nah, the pride of Teluk Intan.

Grammar Matters: antara / di antara

Malay speakers (and writers) these days, have become more and more complacent. At least that was what the facilitator in our class opined the other day. Interestingly, as she stressed out later, when speaking or writing in English we take a more careful approach, so as to not make a mistake. Why didn’t we do the same in Malay?

Arguably, complacency? We take being born Malay, or born into a Malay speaking environment for granted.

The fact that the English equivalent is pretty vague doesn’t help either. My suggestion is use your common sense and rule of thumb when translating. In English, there are ‘between’, ‘among’ and ‘amid’ (sometimes ‘amongst’ and ‘amid’ but they don’t carry any different meaning, just a variation of spelling). The following is what dictionary.com describes ‘between’ and ‘among’ (I left 'amid' because it is very similar to among):

Among expresses a relationship when more than two persons or things are involved. Example: Three children were among the passengers killed in that accident.

Between is used when only two persons or things are involved. Example: I sat between Anok and Uchop.

Using this and a reference from Blog Cikgu Azemi, I gathered that there are similarities. He says:

Antara menunjukkan perbandingan. (shows comparison)

Di antara menunjukkan kedudukan/tempat. (shows position/place)

Based on that, it can be safely said that ‘antara’ is the Malay equivalent of ‘among’, and ‘di antara’ is that of ‘between’. But Cikgu Azemi’s explanation has some variation. Here is how the examples given above should be translated, and a few more examples from me too:

E: Three children were among the passengers killed in that accident.

BM: Tiga kanak-kanak antara yang terbunuh dalam kemalangan itu.

E: Shih Li, Qamar and Alaudin are among the students selected from class 5 Beta.

BM: Shih Li, Qamar dan Alaudin adalah antara pelajar yang dipilih daripada kelas 5 Beta.

E: I sat between Anok and Uchop.

BM: Saya duduk di antara Anok dan Uchop.

E: Shah Alam lies between Klang and Petaling Jaya.

BM: Shah Alam terletak di antara Klang dan Petaling Jaya.

But Cikgu Azemi says, when comparing two persons or things, use 'antara', because there is no subject between the two objects. Example: Antara Adnan dan Zamzuri, Adnan nampak lebih pendiam. Although in English we still say, Between Adnan and Zamzuri, Adnan seems the quieter. Now in this sentence: Perbualan di antara Shakinah dan Mashitoh berlarutan sehingga tiga jam. (The conversation between Shakinah and Mashitoh extends to three hours). 'Perbualan' (Conversation) is the subject and it sits between the two objects, that is why we use ‘di antara’. Whereas in the former example, Adnan and Zamzuri are the objects, and Adnan (the subject) does the verb 'nampak' (seems).

Also when using 'antara', do not pluralise the object because 'antara' has already indicated a plural subject e.g. antara pelajar ---not- antara pelajar-pelajar, antara negara Eropah -not- antara negara-negara Eropah. Also 'di antara' are two words, always.

Hmmm… among all of you who can understand what you’ve just read? How about a chat between you and your spouse, that can help, I suppose. 

Provided that it didn't extend to three hours and later create an invisible wall between you and your spouse.


That will be very bad, and do not point those fingers on me.

FYI: Revisited: Ministry of Defence's "Poke the eye"

Remember the Defence Ministry’s guideline on attire some time ago?
The poor chap who translated the Malay term ‘menjolok mata’ into ‘poke the eye’ must have now laid dormant in some rabbit hole or something, hoping he would find a new ‘parallel universe’ there.

The strange thing is, ‘menjolok mata’ isn’t even the right term. What? Yes, according to Kamus Dewan it is ‘mencolok mata’. The following explanation can be found at http://appw05.dbp.gov.my/dokumen/pedoman%20bahasa.pdf
Menurut Kamus Dewan (1994: 245), kata mencolok mata bermakna 1. mencucuk mata; 2. (bahasa kiasan) tampak jelas, kelihatan jelas benar, 3. membangkitkan marah orang yang melihat, menyakitkan hati, memberi malu.

Kata menjolok pula bermakna 1. menusuk (merodok) sesuatu dengan galah dll. supaya gugur, menusuk ke dalam lubang dll. 2. memasukkan jari tangan ke dalam lubang hidung (kerongkong dll.); 3. memancing-mancing keterangan dll.; daripada orang, mengajuk atau menduga hati.

Jadi, antara mencolok mata dengan menjolok mata, yang tepat ialah mencolok mata, iaitu bahasa kiasan yang bermakna tampak jelas atau kelihatan jelas benar. Contoh penggunaannya:

• Kakitangan kerajaan dilarang memakai pakaian yang mencolok mata.

This is what I understand. It has to be that the difference is whether the action is physical or not. You can still poke someone’s eye (‘menjolok mata’) provided that it means you use something for example your fingers to do that. This may be the result:

You must have very strong fingers. Can I borrow them?

As for something that you wear, for example, they are so skimpy that your labia are nearly visible or in case of a man, your ‘wrinkled fruit’, they are so distastefully worn, that it is a sore to your eyes and makes you uncomfortable especially when you can't avoid but look at them. You may look like this when it happens:

Not long ago (circa the turn of the millennium) Spritney Bears and Kristina Akugila involved in a media tussle as to who wears the most ‘mencolok mata’ outfit, in other words, it means the least put on. 

Here to remind you, ‘mencolok mata’ is not limited to skimpy outfit only or outfit only. Another example: Sampah yang dilambakkan di tepi jalan raya itu mencolok mata. (The rubbish heaped on the roadside is a sore to the eye)

I do apologize if some examples I gave above are distasteful. So, can we say ‘mencolok perasaan’ (hurting one’s feeling)?

Any expert out there?