Completing the Translation Project...thoughts on terminologies

written by staff writer Ko, Byung-eun(Grade 3)

For about a month and a half All that Korean Medicine members have been working on a translation project under Dr. Kang Sung-keel, our chief advisory professor. Residents from Kyungee Medical Center also took part in preparing for the original Korean transcripts. The project is to be made into a clinical manual for visiting doctors at Kyunghee Medical Center. It introduces 12 departments there, with brief descriptions of what kind of diseases are specially treated within each and every department.

The main problem we had in going through with the project was that there weren't exact or determined English word for every Korean Medical terms. The Korean script was written by Residents from each department, most of who wrote "Korean Medically." We, as students majoring in Korean Medicine could in one way or another, understand what they were trying to say, but when we tried to put them into English, we just had to stop and look up every dictionary and textbooks for more information.

We found problems concerning translation of materials into another language, especially when it happens to be of a professional field. About 100-page long manual was almost reaching an end and ready for print, but something incessantly hold us from behind. It was like missing something very precious. We did our best to stay within the meaning of the original context.

Problems in translation of terminologies and everything in some point, lead us to our main theme of the 3rd All that Korean Medicine newsletter.