Khmer Translation

For Cambodians, who wish to work as a professional translator

Why it is an issue about translation?

Nowadays, no country can live without connecting to the world (It's also the time for globalization). Cambodia is now more open to the world, and in the development sector, many exchanges of experience and learning happen between Cambodia and the rest of the world.

In my observation, as Cambodia still remains a poor country, other well developed countries (especially western countries) were/are considering many humanitarian support to it, including the transfer of development concepts, technical know-how, and other capacity building approaches. Often, people struggle about the way of transferring those into effective practice in Cambodia, especially with the language.

Many Cambodians do not have high level of English proficiency so that they can work directly in English as a working language, so it requires translation into Khmer and also vice versa. In my experience, it is often problematic in translating another language into Khmer because:

Khmer language is very different from other languages such as English, Russian, German, Dutch etc. in terms of grammar, sentence structures, and the ways of expression.

Thus, it is impossible to translate word by word from English into Khmer; otherwise it will not be well understood.

There are many English words that do not have direct meaning in Khmer, and it is impossible to find a single Khmer word to represent each of them. These are for examples: dilemma, shades of gray, staff retreat, treat someone, challenge, dimension, sensitive etc.

There are many dialect/idioms or what I called “expensive terms” used in English that make the Cambodians difficult to search a Khmer meaning for them unless a native English speaker clarifies them.

Note: A wide range of Khmer terms were borrowed from French during its colonization. Even those words have original Khmer words to stand for them, often people can say in French words, and they are well understood by all Cambodians. Some Cambodians mentioned that we can be proud of that even we use many terms from French, the language (letters) have survived. Those French terms that are parallel used by Cambodians are for example: radio; standard; control; technique (pronounced in Khmer as tek nik); tactic; acid and many others.

What does a good translation look like?

A good translation will deliver the original message to other person in another language. It helps people to have accurate understanding about concepts, issues, and serve good purpose of learning. A good translation should have consistent meaning between the two languages in the translated document (translation product), i.e. words between English and Khmer words must be accurate in their meaning, and the Khmer document (product) should have proper sentence structures, appropriate Khmer words (words chosen need to be appropriate to the circumstance) in the sentences, using consistent words (for the same meaning) across the document, and finally with correct Khmer grammar styles. Currently, there are many Khmer documents that sound not like Khmer language and are difficult to understand.

How to achieve high quality translation (English-Khmer)

Read the whole section to get overall understanding of the meaning of the English document before starting the work. At least you need to have an idea of what the subject is about.

Read one full paragraph and get in depth understanding before you start translating it. Translate the meaning of one sentence by one sentence. Please do not translate word by word. This can make your Khmer sentences terrible.

If you are not really sure about the meaning of an English word or a sentence, please request the writer or an English native speaker to help explain and clarify before you translate. Do not guess the meaning – it is risky. If you don’t understand the meaning, you will never be able to make an accurate translation. A native speaker is the most reasonable source for accurate translation. When you ask a native speaker to help, show him/her the context, not just the words. S/he will not have an understanding of the accurate meaning if you do not show him/her the context.

Be consistent! Make sure you use the same Khmer terms across the document. English words that you translate, unless it has different meaning in other circumstances, need to be translated into Khmer consistently across the document. I (the author) experienced this many times with Cambodians while proof reading their translations.

Be careful about English sentences with passive voice, tense expression, attributes, adjectives etc. When you translate them, they need to be place in the right place within the Khmer sentences, e.g.

	English structure	Khmer structure
	4 children	Children 4
	Black cow	Cow black
	Unmarried man	Man not yet married

Select the most appropriate Khmer words that fit most with the English words in a certain context. It will be risky if you just look up from the dictionary. There are many English words that have no direct Khmer meaning can should not be directly translated into Khmer.

After you translate, read Khmer sentences in each section and pretend that you are a reader, who does not know the English text. Can you understand it well without referring every time to English text? If not, edit the Khmer text. You can also ask someone to read your translated document as well to check whether s/he can understand it.

Ask someone else to proof read and edit the whole translation or at least some cross proof reading (if possible). This only if you are fresh translator and not yet confident about your translation work. Please ask the proofreader to track changes in the document so that you can compare your translation level with others. This is a good learning process for translation.

Khmer word editing: As most Cambodians know, Khmer words can be written in many slightly different ways, and the whole Cambodia country struggles in writing the common correct Khmer words. Two Cambodian wise men were involved in designing and constructing the Khmer words, i.e. Choun Nat and Keng Vansack, both of whom have different perspectives of writing Khmer words. However, it was observed that people follow Choun Nat for their formal Khmer writing.

Overall quality check. Read the whole document you have translated, and make all necessary final change before submitting your work to your client.