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Subject:Re: Appalling English - some questions From:Clayton Cornell <clayton -dot- cornell -at- asml -dot- nl> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 10 Nov 2000 17:08:53 +0100
I agree with David... Yosuke has brought up a lot of very good points
about the difficulties of translations. We are faced with the
challenges of translations where I work. We provide documentation in
several languages (Korean, Japanese, French, German etc.) all translated
from the English originals by an external company. There is always a
risk of loosing the meaning when a translation happens. A good example
is a warning label on some equipment that was translated from Japanese
to English (on a competitors machine):
"Do not insert your hands or other things into the opening of the
system.
Or else you will be caught and have a pain."
The concept is still clear enough that you get the idea, but the
language used sounds odd. One of the steps we take to try an help the
process is writing in a controlled English... a limited dictionary of
words. This helps a lot, and many companies are taking this approach.
Even with all the efforts made, you still end up with things that appear
quite amusing after the translation.
So, this leads to my questions... what are people doing to try to
rectify this? Do you use a controlled language everyday? Or at all?
If you do, does it help? Is there any thought given to the idea that
your readers may not be native speakers of whatever language you are
writing in? (Native speakers may not have problems with chatty writing
(like this email), but what about readers from Japan, Korea, Mexico etc.
who have learned English as a second or third language?)
Clayton
David Demyan wrote:
>
> Many thanks to Yosuke for a thoughtfully written essay
> on the phenomenon. It made me consider the difficulties
> of internationalization again. I feel you have done us
> native English writers a great service.
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