Yogyakarta (Inmas DIY) – On Thursday (3-4/7/2019), Yogyakarta’s Madrasah Aliyah English Teachers Forum (MGMP Bahasa Inggris MA DIY) held a translation course for Yogyakarta’s Madrasah Aliyah English teachers. The course was a community service program from YSU’s English Department for MA English teachers in the Special Province of Yogyakarta. The course was held in YSU’s Faculty of Languages and Art.

Mr. Sugi Iswalono, a senior English Department lecturer, opened the course with a discussion about the basics of translation. With his unique and humorous personality in lecturing, he was able to make the participants laughed during his session. On one occasion, he explained the difference in translating air kendi, air mata, and air seni. He said that translating air kendi and air mata would be different to translating air seni. Air kendi literally means ‘water coming out from kendi (jug)’ and air mata (tears) literally means ‘water coming out from mata (eyes). “But you can’t translate air seni (urine) as ‘water coming out from seni (art)”, he explained humorously and resulted in all the participants laughing. All the participants were enthusiast to listen to Mr. Sugi’s explanation about translating phrase, clause, and sentence. They actively asked questions to keep the discussion alive.

Mr. Yosa Abduh Alzuhdy, SS, M.Hum led the second session of the course with materials about the technique and strategy in translation. He discussed translation from its structural aspect during his session. He mentioned that there are three groups of translation strategy namely the structural strategy, semantic strategy, and pragmatic strategy. Later, he also discussed websites providing translation service such as Bahtera and the price for the service as well. “For a page with two spaces, it may cost around a hundred thousand rupiahs, and seventy-five thousand rupiahs for translating an abstract”, he said. He ended his session by giving out several files about translation technique and strategy to the participants.

On the same occasion, the head of Yogyakarta’s Madrasah Aliyah English Teachers Forum Edy Suparyanto, M.A expressed his thanks on behalf of the Forum for the course. He also reminded the participants to do the assignments given by the lecturer. “You have to do the assignments to get the certificate”, he stated. He added that in order to obtain promotion the teachers need to attach letter of assignment, certificate, and the report of the event they participated in. (uuz)