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Do most errors occur in understanding, translation, or formulation?
Thread poster: Phil Hand
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 10:06
German to English
random dictionary equivalents Dec 2, 2014

I don't understand why it is being assumed that translators' plugging in random entries from dictionaries indicates a lack of understanding of the source text. I see that as generally a target-language problem. The translators know (at least more or less) what the source text says, but they're not sure how to say it or find it in the target and, if this happens enough, translators with insufficient target knowledge (specialist knowledge or general language knowledge), insufficient time, insuffic... See more
I don't understand why it is being assumed that translators' plugging in random entries from dictionaries indicates a lack of understanding of the source text. I see that as generally a target-language problem. The translators know (at least more or less) what the source text says, but they're not sure how to say it or find it in the target and, if this happens enough, translators with insufficient target knowledge (specialist knowledge or general language knowledge), insufficient time, insufficient skills or insufficient professionalism will throw up their hands and just start tossing in whatever the dictionary spits out. It is perfectly possible to make a very good overall impression in the target text but to nonetheless be entirely incompetent every time things get tricky. Being proficient in the target language is necessary when translating a contract, for example, but a lot more than that is required to actually produce even a half-way adequate translation.Collapse


 
Stephania Matousek (X)
Stephania Matousek (X)  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 10:06
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Lack of experience and lack of context Dec 2, 2014

First of all, I would like to say that you all covered the main reasons for mistakes in translations, in my opinion. Lack of comprehension, ‘translatese’ style, tight deadlines, weak attention to source’s meaning and to target’s different word order and even laziness or tiredness! I would like to add two interesting aspects that could undermine the good quality of a final translation.

Sometime, when proofreading translations, I can identify the ‘fear’ of an inexperienced
... See more
First of all, I would like to say that you all covered the main reasons for mistakes in translations, in my opinion. Lack of comprehension, ‘translatese’ style, tight deadlines, weak attention to source’s meaning and to target’s different word order and even laziness or tiredness! I would like to add two interesting aspects that could undermine the good quality of a final translation.

Sometime, when proofreading translations, I can identify the ‘fear’ of an inexperienced translator to take any freedom to write his translation as if it was originally written in his native language. A sign of an excellent translation is when the reader may think the translation is so natural that it seems to have been written in his native language. But an inexperienced and fearful translator, not sure of himself, blindly ‘stick to source’, reproducing most of it with target-language words (including the word order or the source style), thinking that nobody can blame him because the target conveys the same meaning as the source, even though the style is very artificial. Fear is a very harmful feeling for any translator, we should know our degree of freedom and play with it at ease.

Another point is - to ‘excuse’ a little bit some translators - the lack of context. Sometimes the client sends what seems to be random strings to be translated (I’m talking about more technical translations), without providing the proper context to refer to. We all know the same word can be translated in several ways depending on the context it’s used in. In one of my language pairs (ENG-PTB), for instance, a word as simple as ‘Home’ can be translated as ‘Casa’ (house) or ‘Home’ (main page of a website)… Believe me, this is a basic mistake, but I’ve come across it! Even for specialized translators, some terms can be tricky without the precise context.

Not to mention the poor quality of some source texts, that compels the translator to ‘guess’ what it can possibly mean. This may happen if the client sends you a translation to be translated. This situation can be explained when the client needs to work with what is considered as ‘difficult’ languages. For example, it’s harder to find German-Portuguese translators, then the German text is firstly translated into English or French and then this translation is submitted to a second translation into Portuguese. The source text is already a translation then, with possible mistranslations!

Anyway, every translator should be aware of these traps and of course proofread his own translations before sending it back to the client. He should trust his skills and ask the client as much as he needs for more context. And, to improve his translations in the long-term, he should also ask for feedback and work out his translation style with the time.
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Jacques DP
Jacques DP  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 10:06
English to French
My small contribution to the debate Dec 2, 2014

I don't think any independent "interlanguage transfer process" is necessary.
The whole process of translation is of course one of "interlanguage transfer". But in theory it is enough to read a text with understanding, and then express the meaning resulting from this understanding in your language.
In practice of course the particular tricks of "interlanguage transfer process" one learns (if I have this grammatical structure in source, I will translate it with that grammatical structu
... See more
I don't think any independent "interlanguage transfer process" is necessary.
The whole process of translation is of course one of "interlanguage transfer". But in theory it is enough to read a text with understanding, and then express the meaning resulting from this understanding in your language.
In practice of course the particular tricks of "interlanguage transfer process" one learns (if I have this grammatical structure in source, I will translate it with that grammatical structure in target; or the knowledge of various typical translation errors) are very useful. They are shortcuts so to speak, and spare some of our energy, but not strictly necessary.

The essential skills in translation in my view are:

1. knowledge of source language (and of subject matter)
2. capacity to express a given meaning in target language (testable outside the field of translation, some people instantly find the words they need to express something, while others have to think a lot and still come up with inadequate words; in fact I have noticed an improvement in this skill with the practice of the profession, but it always was a very strong skill in my case)
3. general cognitive capacity

The 2 first skills will produce a reasonably good translation. But there will be a lot of imprecisions and some actual meaning errors if the third skill isn't present in sufficient quantity. This is often overlooked, but an excellent translation requires for the translator to completely master the meaning both of the source text and of the text they write. And that can become quite subtle at times.

Based on experience, I think that most translations (and I'm speaking about the good ones out there, and ignoring the obviously bad ones) fail to be really good. There are almost always real meaning errors that compromise the meaning. I avoid using English software applications translated in French in their translated form, because I KNOW that there will be many errors (even if it's Apple or Microsoft), some of them actually making things difficult or even impossible to understand. I only make an exception for Windows and Word (but I still find many translation errors there, especially in not so prominent strings). But SDL Studio, for example, I would never use in translated form.
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Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 17:06
Chinese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you, Jacques Dec 2, 2014

Jacques DP wrote:

I don't think any independent "interlanguage transfer process" is necessary.
The whole process of translation is of course one of "interlanguage transfer". But in theory it is enough to read a text with understanding, and then express the meaning resulting from this understanding in your language.
In practice of course the particular tricks of "interlanguage transfer process" one learns (if I have this grammatical structure in source, I will translate it with that grammatical structure in target; or the knowledge of various typical translation errors) are very useful. They are shortcuts so to speak, and spare some of our energy, but not strictly necessary.

That's exactly the way I think about it, but I hadn't worked out how to express it quite so neatly!


I avoid using English software applications translated in French in their translated form, because I KNOW that there will be many errors (even if it's Apple or Microsoft), some of them actually making things difficult or even impossible to understand. I only make an exception for Windows and Word (but I still find many translation errors there, especially in not so prominent strings). But SDL Studio, for example, I would never use in translated form.

I end up using a lot of software in Chinese, because I'm too lazy to change the language. I've been using Studio in Chinese for a couple of years now. Just the other day, I happened to be fiddling with the settings, and thought, while I'm here, I'll switch it to English... and wow, everything seems just that little bit more intuitive. The effect is like cleaning your glasses when you've allowed the dust to build up on them for a couple of weeks.

(I should mention that China produces a *lot* of software these days, and native Chinese software is incredibly user-friendly. It's made for a market with fairly low general computer skills, and everything is laid out very clearly. But the rather different approach of US software often doesn't seem to translate very smoothly.)


 
Jacques DP
Jacques DP  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 10:06
English to French
Exactly Dec 2, 2014

Phil Hand wrote:
Just the other day, I happened to be fiddling with the settings, and thought, while I'm here, I'll switch it to English... and wow, everything seems just that little bit more intuitive. The effect is like cleaning your glasses when you've allowed the dust to build up on them for a couple of weeks.


Exactly, and the same of course goes in other fields than application programs.
I read philosophy, and the translations are often close to worthless, even though many students (and sometimes professors) only know the works through the translation.

I have often been puzzled to see people reading things that don't make sense and not worrying about it.
The truth is, many people are simply not used to understand anything very clearly, so it doesn't make so much of a difference.
The real problem is when these people start to write books, and try to reproduce in their writing the impression they get when they read the great works without understanding them.
This time, there is nothing to understand clearly anymore even in the source text!

I can usually quickly recognize when a text is translated. I can tell because it is so painful! I think to myself: it is impossible that someone has wanted to write this exact sentence, unless they were lead to write it in an attempt at translating a preexisting text. I can be fooled by extremely bad writers however.


 
Lincoln Hui
Lincoln Hui  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 17:06
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Even? Dec 2, 2014

because I KNOW that there will be many errors (even if it's Apple or Microsoft)

The errors exist because of Microsoft, not in spite of it.


 
Jacques DP
Jacques DP  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 10:06
English to French
Well Dec 2, 2014

Lincoln Hui wrote:

The errors exist because of Microsoft, not in spite of it.


Well, ubiquitous applications like Word or Excel benefit from a lot of attention and care, and the quality of localization, at least in French, is typically much better than in a random small application.

But even then... One obvious example of this is the Edit menu, which was present in most MS applications for decades, and is still present in some now, e.g. Notepad. This was translated at first in French as "Edition". The problem is that this word, though superficially (and etymologically) close to "Edit", means "publishing" in French. It remained the name of the menu that contains Copy, Paste, etc. to this day, leading to the puzzlement of all French newcomers.

[Edited at 2014-12-02 16:22 GMT]


 
Maria S. Loose, LL.M.
Maria S. Loose, LL.M.  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 10:06
German to English
+ ...
Lack of expert knowledge, lack of comprehension of source language Dec 3, 2014

In my language pairs (German, English, French, Dutch) most translation errors are due to a lack of expert knowledge and a lack of comprehension of the source language. In law, you need to have a detailed knowledge of the legal systems of the countries of both the source and the target language. Besides, sentences in German legal texts are often very long and complicated. Therefore, many non-native speakers of German don't understand the source text. It is true what others said before: I have har... See more
In my language pairs (German, English, French, Dutch) most translation errors are due to a lack of expert knowledge and a lack of comprehension of the source language. In law, you need to have a detailed knowledge of the legal systems of the countries of both the source and the target language. Besides, sentences in German legal texts are often very long and complicated. Therefore, many non-native speakers of German don't understand the source text. It is true what others said before: I have hardly ever seen a text without any translation errors. Errors are made all the time.Collapse


 
Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard
United States
Local time: 05:06
Portuguese to English
+ ...
empathy with the reader Dec 7, 2014

Great issue to contemplate, Phil!

I agree with many of the comments posted so far. I'd like to add something else that I believe is often overlooked in creating a stellar translation that goes beyond fidelity to the original, a native-sounding translation style, the transposition involved in any intermediate cognitive steps, and so on.

That is the issue of the translator's ability to empathize with the reader.

I know many translators who excel in producing
... See more
Great issue to contemplate, Phil!

I agree with many of the comments posted so far. I'd like to add something else that I believe is often overlooked in creating a stellar translation that goes beyond fidelity to the original, a native-sounding translation style, the transposition involved in any intermediate cognitive steps, and so on.

That is the issue of the translator's ability to empathize with the reader.

I know many translators who excel in producing an accurate translation that reads smoothly and flows naturally in the target language, but who skip the step of revising that involves reading the translation as their readers will, including those readers who are totally unfamiliar with the context of the source language, culture, and history. A few technically skilled translators may even be unable to fully empathize in this way. It requires the ability to perceive the gaps in the information available to the reader versus the information tacitly required to understand the meaning of the text.

A simple example (unfortunately all too common) involves reproducing a place name as cited in the source text without adding the name of the country, at least the first time it is shown. If a U.S. reader encounters the names of Paraty or Ouro Preto, they will usually mean nothing without "in Brazil" added. Common practices, pervasive institutions, or prominent personalities are other examples that often require the translator to find a way to unobtrusively but effectively convey the minimal required information for outsiders to grasp the import of what the text, however brilliantly translated, needs to convey to bridge the gap.

When I revise my translations, I do the same thing that authors and editors do, paying attention to a different level in the text each time (semantic accuracy, syntax, style, and, for literary works, sound and poetics); to this, I always add the step of revising for empathy with an intelligent but uninformed reader.
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deleted. (X)
deleted. (X)
Australia
Local time: 06:06
English to Chinese
+ ...
Reading comprehension skills Dec 8, 2014

Phil Hand wrote:
What's odd is that Chinese natives often seem to be bad readers of Chinese source texts as well: either they misread, or they make no effort to read whatsoever, and just throw in some dictionary equivalents.


Sounds like this is about an absence of reading comprehension skills which would be a problem for the person even if he/she works in an area totally unrelated to translation?


 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 17:06
Chinese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Reading comprehension strategy? Dec 8, 2014

he-li wrote:

Sounds like this is about an absence of reading comprehension skills which would be a problem for the person even if he/she works in an area totally unrelated to translation?

That would certainly be the natural assumption. The reason I don't think that is the whole story is because I've seen theoretical arguments for the bad readings.

They generally come in two types:
1) The seniority argument. This happens on official projects where the text has been written by someone senior, and someone junior is in charge of the translation. The junior person feels that they do not have the authority to allow any "alteration" of the text, and so they sometimes demand things like literal translations of chengyu and long titles in English. Translators who are forced to comply with these type of demands develop strategies to cope with them, and then sometimes over-apply them, even when working for clients who actually want more readability.

2) The fixed equivalent argument. This is when one piece of vocabulary (or possibly one construction) is assumed to have a fixed relationship with a foreign language word (construction), and this relationship supersedes any textual meaning. For example, I have seen people on Kudoz here say things like "会计 is accounting" even when the context demands otherwise.

Both of these arguments can be (should be!) dismissed as bad strategies, but what's interesting is that they are both translation-specific. They are learned strategies - not something a "stupid person" does naturally, but something which translators in bad learning environments are taught to do.

This addresses something Michael said earlier, as well as Jacques' comment about the "interlanguage process."

Michael said:
I don't understand why it is being assumed that translators' plugging in random entries from dictionaries indicates a lack of understanding of the source text. I see that as generally a target-language problem.

Now I'm starting to think that you're right that it's not necessarily a source language problem. But maybe it's not entirely a target language problem either. Maybe these are bad "interlanguage processes" intervening and mucking up source reading or target writing or both.


 
Lincoln Hui
Lincoln Hui  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 17:06
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Certain things cannot be anything else Dec 8, 2014

I don't understand why it is being assumed that translators' plugging in random entries from dictionaries indicates a lack of understanding of the source text. I see that as generally a target-language problem.

Now I'm starting to think that you're right that it's not necessarily a source language problem. But maybe it's not entirely a target language problem either. Maybe these are bad "interlanguage processes" intervening and mucking up source reading or target writing or both.

Technical terms are one thing. But in both CHI>ENG and ENG>CHI many - and perhaps most - errors come from phrase/sentence logic, slightly complex use of language in the source that the translator did not parse correctly, non-technical words that have more than one meaning, and everyday (if somewhat colloquial) expressions.

The mistranslation of "Northern Lights", for example, cannot possibly arise from anything other than a lack of source language proficiency (and laziness in checking dictionaries). No need to take my word for it, KudoZ has a mountain of examples.


 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 17:06
Chinese to English
TOPIC STARTER
I like to theorise! Dec 8, 2014

But Lincoln's explanation is probably right more often than mine. Ho hum.

 
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