4 ms·

If someone had told me while I was writing up that I should translate my thesis into another language I think my brain would have exploded

• VK538FY 3y ago
  Really? Just write it in your native language (Welsh in this case) and have someone translate it. For most languages, not a big problem and the uni surely has the resources to do it. Here, the additional effort is the creation of the Welsh words that don't exist and maintaining the list for a Welsh to English translator.
  • OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    > For most languages, not a big problem and the uni surely has the resources to do it. This is extremely uninformed. Not only will universities not translate your dissertation for you, they usually won’t even revise the English if you are a non-native speaker and wrote in that language. You have to pay for the costs of language revision out of your grant funding or even out of your own pocket. And this is not cheap. At standard rates and standard length of a standard PhD thesis, one could expect to pay nearly a thousand euro for mere language revision. The costs of translation of a dissertation from one language into another would run already into the thousands of euro.
    • naniwaduni 3y ago
      Honestly, unis are generally resourced enough that they could pull it off, were there the will to do it, and it certainly wouldn't be the least efficient use of their resources. But as with all things related to grad student exploitation, getting funds to do that through formal structures is like wringing blood from a stone.
      • OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        Even in countries where grad students are not exploited, where all PhD students are paid a local middle-class salary, universities still don’t generally provide such language services for free. If the PhD student is working under a funded project, then why should the university pay if the grant money can? Or if the student must pay out of his own pocket, then this one-time expense is seen as something that a student can manage himself instead of the university incurring further costs. Universities are often resourced in that they will maintain a pool of knowledgeable native speakers of English or the local language who can provide language revision. It’s just that that service won’t be free.
    • VK538FY 3y ago
      Euros?? Where are you? It's a Welsh university. I wouldn't be surprised if the university wants to both promote the Welsh language and diffuse its research, and proposes such resources.
      • OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        I am based on the continent, but I am a native English speaker owning a language-services business that serves academic clients internationally, so I am very familiar with the landscape. I for one would be surprised if the university proposed translation out of its own pocket. Even if one is dealing with a minority language that could use some support, universities overwhelmingly want the costs for these things to fall on some source of funds other than the university.
  • joe__f 3y ago
    Well if someone else was going to do it then I'm sure my brain would have been fine and there would have been no need for explosions. It wouldn't be that straightforward to find someone to translate a thesis though, you'd need to be fluent in the languages and have enough knowledge in the specialist area