Good Translator

Published by

Clarissa

July 20, 2014

I’m translating a PowerPoint from English into Russian, and I get a feeling that I’m not doing it the right way.

For instance, the presenter says, “This is our best product, kind of, I mean, you know.” And I’m translating this as, “This is our best product.” Which is not what the presenter really said, is it? I mean, you know. I don’t even know how to translate “kind of, I mean, you know” into Russian.

The first rule of a good (non-literary) translator is always to translate exactly the text you are given, without trying to prettify or edit it in any way.

The first rule of a great translator is to be like this notorious Russian translator who was accompanying a Russian general on an official visit to France. After the excursion to the Louvre, the general was asked what he liked the most.

“Naked broads and dogs!” the general blurted out.

“Flemish school of painting,” the talented translator translated.

So now I’m wondering if a PowerPoint on oil refineries deserves my talents as a great translator.

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15 responses to “Good Translator”

Fie Upon This Quiet Life

July 20, 2014

I just edited an interview that I did with a playwright. My task was to take out every time she said, “uhm, ya know, like, uh, or whatever, I mean like,” etc. It was harder than I thought because I wanted to keep the sense of what she was saying, but sometimes that meant taking out a bunch of false starts. For instance, there would be times when she said, “Hm, the characters are…” then pause and start over with a complete thought. I kept some of that in when it seemed appropriate, but then, had to take some of those false starts out.

Having read some interviews to get the gist of how to handle it, I think that the translator/interviewer’s task is to make the person talking look as good as they can. Just like in your example above.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 20, 2014
  
  The unfinished sentences are the worst. This presenter starts something and then just drops off and I never know if I’m supposed to try to guess what he wanted to say.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    July 20, 2014
    
    I’m guessing the speaker is American then since unfinished sentences are a staple of American conversational style.
    
    I once used a fragment of a radio call in show (I forget why, it seemed like a good idea at the time). I spent a lot of time transcribing the whole thing and students still couldn’t begin to understand it because of all the unfinished sentences. When the listener was expected to fill in the info and how seemed obvious to me but nothing I could say could convince the students of that.
    
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  2. Fie Upon This Quiet Life
    
    July 20, 2014
    
    I wouldn’t try to guess what he’s saying. I would just represent complete thoughts as much as possible. That’s what I’m trying to do, unless it’s really important to include the incomplete thought for some reason. Those moments are purely contextual and it’s really tricky. I suppose you could always use a footnote/endnote to say that the translation doesn’t include incomplete thoughts or something like that. But I think I’d just assume that were the case. There’s no way that people are as eloquent as they appear to be in writing. 🙂
    
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Stille (@aperfectbalance)

July 20, 2014

The PowerPoint actually has kind of, I mean, you know in the written text? Is it deliberately going for a very informal, oral style or is there something else going on here that I don’t understand?

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1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  July 20, 2014
  
  Also, I’m rather curious, how does one get started as a translator? Are any certifications required?
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    July 20, 2014
    
    Many people get all kinds of certifications but I don’t have any. Nor has it ever been a problem. I started translating for money when I was 14 and don’t seem capable of stopping. 🙂
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  July 20, 2014
  
  What I’m translating is the transcript of the audio that accompanies the PP. I have already done the actual PPs but a good PP presenter doesn’t just read the slides aloud. The spoken words that accompany the PP are oral communication, and that is often quite informal.
  
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cliff arroyo

July 20, 2014

This, unlike most of the topics taken on in ‘translation theory’ is actually an interesting question with real world consquences.

The dividing line between semantically empty filler words and semantically meanngful ones is very thin in (especially American) English.

I find that no matter how carefully or formally I speak I sound better (and convey what I want to say) better some filler words left in.

A kind of trivial example:

“Excuse me, would you know what time it is?”
and
“Excuse me, uh, would you know what time it is?”

Are not identical in meaning (the second sounds considerably more polite to me) though in most cases they’d be translatied the same way in other languages.

These are also tied up in questions of what’s culturally appropriate. The hard sell in English tends to have implications of insincerity or dishonesty so hedging the idea of ‘our best product’ with ‘kind of’ or ‘you know’ makes a lot of sense. I don’t think it necessarily works that way in Russian (it absolutely doesn’t in Polish where hedging expressions in that context would make the speaker sound incompetent).

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 20, 2014
  
  “This, unlike most of the topics taken on in ‘translation theory’ is actually an interesting question with real world consquences.”
  
  – Nothing is more stupid than ‘translation theory’. Except “pedagogic theory.”
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    July 20, 2014
    
    I think there’s a core of translation theory that makes sense but all the translation theory that really matters is a _very_ slim volume.
    
    Beyond that, there are tons of interesting practical questions of what to do in specific situations. I think of translating as a series of language games and semantic puzzles (far more interesting than the actual content being translated usually).
    
    But no one gets published for comparing relative clause options in two languages and trying to work out some practical rules for when to use each or how to recognize practical implications of particular words and how (or whether) to try to convey them in the translation. No. It’s all “the task of the translator inextricably implicates this practitioner in the historicity of language” (a real example from a collection of articles that ended up being a great disappointment to me.
    
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  2. JaneB
    
    July 20, 2014
    
    To be even MORE complicated, in Cliff’s example:
    
    “Excuse me, would you know what time it is?”
    “Excuse me, uh, would you know what time it is?”
    
    I (as a native English-English speaker) wouldn’t say ‘uh’ (I was brought up to avoid ‘filler’ words and phrases where possible), but would actually split the utterance and would ask for the information I need directly:
    
    “Excuse me” [pause to ensure I have the person’s attention, which is usually signalled non-verbally] “please could you tell me what time it is?”
    
    The natural response of at least half the Brits I know to “would you know what the time is?” would be “yes I do thank you” or “time to get a watch, mate” or a similar slightly sarcastic utterance – usually but not always followed by telling the speaker what the time is. We take the indirect asking as a sign of inability to speak clearly/opportunity to play with words and meaning…
    
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  3. cliff arroyo
    
    July 21, 2014
    
    “I (as a native English-English speaker) wouldn’t say ‘uh’”
    
    I was speaking just for General American usage. British (and other) usage can be very different in terms of conversational give and take and I wouldn’t comment on it more than that (beyond my impression that British people have an impressive range of strategies for stopping conversation dead in its tracks).
    
    “I was brought up to avoid ‘filler’ words and phrases where possible”
    
    That seems very odd. Filler words are a universal and normal human communication is pretty much impossible without them. Granted, overuse quickly makes a person sound insufferable but so does their total absence.
    
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musteryou

July 21, 2014

My teacher in Zim used to like to extract very exacting English from people. So if someone put up their hand and said, “Excuse me, can I go to the toilet?” she would say, “Yes, that is something possible for you to do.” You had to say, “MAY I go to the toilet?” to be allowed.

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1. cliff arroyo
  
  July 21, 2014
  
  I had an elementary teacher that liked to play that same game. Boy, did all the students hate her.
  
  I can’t remember if it’s the one that was always screaming at us for pronouncing ‘pen’ and ‘pin’ the same (it’s a southern US thing) but I wouldn’t be surprised.
  
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