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Subject:Re: Bad translations? From:Erin Kampf <Erin_Kampf -at- ACL -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 22 Jan 1999 13:43:36 -0800
Hello all,
I'm a little behind on my reading, but hope it's not to late to add to the
translation thread.
Having recently made a move from technical writer to translation coordinator (at
the same company), I'm finding this thread quite interesting. I am responsible
for the translation of all company documents, which range from technical
documentation to advertising copy and everything in between, as well as software
localization (which I personally haven't had to deal with yet). We use a variety
of agencies to deal with this workload (and larger projects use Translation
Memory - Trados).
I would agree with Geoff Hart that, in many instances, "translation is every bit
as much an original act of creation as the act of creation that led to the
original document that you're translating". I find this is particularly true for
marketing documents. A lot of the copy that requires translation is very
creative, catchy, trendy, etc. A basic translation will not do in this case. For
example, I recently had a piece that contained the term "corporate watchdog".
This required quite a bit of work to get the translation to say the right thing
- generally using a different metaphor, but with a similar meaning. However,
some translators don't understand this.
This is not necessarily the translators' fault - if they are not marketers
themselves, how can they basically rewrite a marketing piece? I am finding it
very difficult to have pieces translated by people with the appropriate
backgrounds. I ultimately need someone with some combination of the following in
their background, depending on the piece: software/auditing/marketing. How on
earth do you find someone with that kind of speciality who can also translate to
the appropriate language? You don't. Bernd Hutschenreuther comments that "it is
important that the person reviewing the documents does not only know the native
language, but also the native technical language and something about the
contents". Yes, ultimately. But, realistically?
To try to compensate for this, I am doing as Geoff suggests: having all
translations edited. However, I still run into the same problem of the
translators lacking the appropriate background. And to complicate matters, how
do *I* decide when the original translator is wrong and the editor is right or
vice versa? I have some grasp of most of the languages we translate into, which
can help, but I am not a native speaker of any of them, nor do I have an
auditing background.
I don't know if I am adding much to this thread. I'm mostly just voicing my own
concerns about the experience I've had with translations to this point. If
anyone has any comments/suggestions about my concerns, I would greatly
appreciate hearing from you. Also, if anyone happens to know that any of these
issues are covered in the archives, please point me there. I did start searching
the archives in December, but I didn't get very far before I got bogged down
with a bunch of urgent translations. I also think I may pick up _International
Technical Communication_, by Nancy Hoft, as suggested by Betsy Maaks, as part of
my research.
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