Monday, May 12, 2025

Question anyone? – What translators should ask and translation buyers should provide

 


It can be said that wisdom is a certain lack of certainty. One of the characteristics of truly professional translators is that they ask questions before they start a project. Depending on the situation, these queries can relate to audience, purpose, names and legacy translations. The failure to ask these questions can lead to frustration and disappointment.

One essential element of every successful translation is the match of the style to the intended audience. For example, in medical translation, the target population is the patients, who may have no knowledge of medical terms, as compared to the medical staff, who are quite familiar with them. Even more common, linguists must carefully choose the vocabulary in books and material intended for children. In the entertainment business, subtitlists need to keep in mind that the consumers of their translation come from all ages and adjust the vocabulary level accordingly. Thus, translators need to find out for whom the text is intended.

Likewise, the purpose of the document will affect the translation. Linguists working on marketing or sales texts have wide freedom to render their message into the target language, especially as compared to technical specifications documents. Subtitlists face serious challenges as they must avoid exceeding a specific number of characters due to screen space limitations. In legal translation, incorrect language is a serious error when translating briefs and court documents while they may need to be reflected when translating depositions for court if they appear in the original. One translation trash is another translation treasure.

It is impossible to assume how names are spelled, meaning that translators should confirm the spelling if possible. Sometimes, the name spelling reflects another language. Just recently, I discovered (in time), that the common English name Felix was spelled Feliks in Polish. In other cases, immigration officials or immigrants adjusted the spelling, especially of the last name. An example in my family is Bronstein as compared to Bronstejn. Most often, a country simply has several spelling variations, e.g., Steven vs Stephen. As there are no rules, translators must exercise diligence.

An interesting issue, which many translators often ignore, is legacy, i.e., previous completed translations that include terminology decisions of previous translators. For example, in the Hebrew translation of the Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, there have been four translators. Curiously, they have not always translated a concept or spelled a name or concept in the same way, which can be confusing to the reader. In product information material, especially over a series of similar products, it is vital to maintain consistency when referring to specific parts or processes. In general, in marketing, unless the company has decided to change the style, translators need to be aware of the material previously released to the public to render the introduction of new text seamless. The customer may insist that the translator follow previous translations, mistakes and all. Thus, it is important to know that such material exists and ascertain the level of consistency demanded by the customer.

Therefore, as in most services, professionals not only listen but ask questions. To provide a proper translation and meet expectations, translators must attain all the information they require to produce the required document. The failure to do so leads to wasted time, frustration and lost customers. The answer to the query in the title is “yes”.

Monday, May 5, 2025

I’ve got that (May 1) feeling

 


May 1 was a fine day for barbequing. This year, while some workers of the world celebrated International Workers’ Day, Israeli marked its 77th Independence Day. With the long weekend, Thursday to Sunday, one would think that joy dominated both occasions but many felt the exact opposite. As in most impressions, each person viewed the event through personal lenses, pessimistic, fatalistic or even optimistic.

The negative thinkers among us noted that beyond the Potemkin village celebrations and fronts of joy , the situation is rather depressing. At this moment, Trump is doing his best imitation of Atilla the Hun and ruining the US economy and wiping the savings, not to mention the financial and  job security, of workers in the United States. Of course, when the United States sneezes, the whole world economy, including its workers, gets a cold and starts to worry. Israeli’s celebration was physically darkened by a serious fire in the Jerusalem area as well as other areas, which required a callup of all firefighters, meaning that all local events were cancelled due to lack of fire protection. Symbolically, many Israelis  feel that that the national situation is just as dark with the continued war with Hamas and never-ending captivity of the hostages. For many anti-Bibi voters, the political situation does not provide much hope. Thus for many, neither event was “an ode to joy”, as Beethoven would say.

Those fatalists that view local events as mere parts of larger systems shrugged off the holidays and the circumstances. A holiday is an arbitrary date determined by pollical organizations. Thus, there is no correlation with the date and any events that occur before, during or after it. The world seems in a mood for certain extreme solutions, back to the future if you will. Trump is merely an oversized example of this type of populism. Employment levels ebb and flow to one degree or another over time. Wars usually end long after they have lose any reason to continue just because of personal and national pride but they do eventually run out of gas. Unfortunately, this superfluous period merely creates more tragedy. As is written in Book of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun and, therefore, no reason to get overly emotional.

However, it must be noted that many people, possibly the silent near majority, do count their blessings on these holidays. Marx would have been shocked if not entirely overjoyed that so many workers in the West actually own shares of those capitalist companies. In the West, the vast majority of the populations enjoys some kind of safety net when facing unemployment and even profits from two days off a week. Quite a few can even send their children to college so they can have better jobs. In Israel, despite the challenges of the last two years, and more importantly the last 77 years, Israel stands strong in terms of having an army, a democracy and a strong identity. Admittedly, the war and the period before it have challenged those elements but they have stood up to the test. The world may not be pink but it is not black either and will improve, hopefully soon. Optimists follow Kate’s (of Kiss Me Kate) advice and “accentuate the positive”.

So, as I was cooking my steak on the barbecue in the garden of my house talking to my friend and drinking a beer, I thought to myself, or at least choose to, “life isn’t bad at all”. In Hebrew, the expression is  יהיה בסדר [yehiye besder], everything will work out. May 1 can be a happy day.