Working with dictionaries for translators is however a must. Despite our capacities in knowing and memorizing hundreds even thousands of vocabularies, dictionaries are an inseparable tool to ease our job for the sake of making a very good, if not perfect, translation work.
I still remember the very first time I made a translation work of a fiction taken from my French lesson book, though I have studied French for quite 6 years or so, I was still very dependant to dictionaries, if I may say pocket ones, to find more possible entries that could replace the meaning of a word. Even today, dealing with many translation jobs either from agencies, publishing agencies or friends, dictionaries are always in my hand. But the significant difference compared to several years ago, the usage of dictionary is now much more simple and efficient thanks to advanced technology.
I am talking about the internet. Yes, surely online dictionaries have existed for quite a long time, but as an Indonesian native, I bet there was none of this kind which provides simple translation into Indonesian or Indonesian to another foreign language. It was twice of work when finding a difficult word which has no exact meaning in an old, manual Indonesian-English dictionary, which means I have to re-translate it again after finding its definition in English through online dictionaries, or another manual dictionaries such as Merriam Webster’s, Longman, with my own vocabulary knowledge.
Until one day, I found a very useful online dictionary which provides simple translation from English to Indonesian and vice versa. I can’t remember anymore when the first time I discovered this website was, but indeed it was very helpful for me doing my translation job while I was abroad around 2008 to 2010, since I didn’t bring all the dictionaries I have due to luggage weight problem. The website named
sederet.com was nevertheless a handy tool for me not wanting to do the work twice by opening and digging up words in a manual dictionary as it was time-consuming. Though the entries at that time were very limited, but it wasn’t a big deal since what I needed was just to reckon a few of simple English words that I forgot the meaning in Indonesian.
Later on, I don’t have to open and dig up words in my manual dictionary anymore, particularly for English-Indonesian pair, since I am getting used to this online dictionary for doing many of my translation jobs. And even better, it is also now accessible through smartphones. Once I reckon an English word while I am on a journey, I just look up to my blackberry, type the word there, and
voilà, you got the pair in Indonesian!
One thing I would suggest to sederet.com regarding its maintenance and entry upgrading, I would like, in the future, this website also to provide translation for specific English terms. Sometimes I still have to find the definition of a word or a term in an English-English online dictionary to get the exact meaning, because the terms are too old, like ancient British, or even too modern, like American slang. But so far, sederet.com has been really helpful in facilitating my translation jobs. But of course, you must connect to the internet first, or have a mobile phone which has access to internet. No more pile of heavy, manual dictionaries, no more time-consuming. Go ahead,
sederet.com!
