On substance, form and proper translation

 

[Two diamond structures*]

The most important issue for purchasers of translation should be product quality. While price impacts budget allocation, the effectiveness of the translation affects the practical use of the text. The challenge, especially when dealing with an unfamiliar language, is assessing that quality. I suggest posting two questions on any translation product, specifically on content and form. The correct answer on both questions provides a strong indication of high quality.

To clarify the meaning of content and form, all documents contain a message consisting of larger ideas and specific details. The translation must accurately reflect those elements both in terms of the concept and the relative importance of the details. If the word choice misleads or confuses the reader, the translation is not effective. However, the form of the document and sentence syntax needs to reflect that message as it is understood by the reader of the target language. For example, the rate of usage of passive or short sentences varies from language to language and creates different impressions. While short, direct sentences is generally considered acceptable communitive language in English, especially in marketing and technical texts, such sentences are considered choppy and lower register in Arabic or French. Thus, in most cases, the syntax of the translation may and even should differ from that of the original text. This difference is acceptable as long as the content and style are in line with each other.

Adding to the challenge of accurate translation is the natural difference in vocabulary among languages. Concepts do not have a 1:1 ratio in terms of translation. In some cases, while one language may have on word, another language has two or more or even none. A prime example is the concept to wear for which English has the single verb while Hebrew has more than seven different words, depending on the item to be worn. In some cases, words may be more or less inclusive. An example in the Hebrew-English combination is the Hebrew word יעיל [ya’il] can be translated into effective or efficient in English. Thus, the translator may have to add words to transmit the same idea or may be able to eliminate them without harming the content.

Of course, depending on the type of translation, the freedom of expression granted to the translator varies. For court transcripts and some medical documents, precision is of the highest priority with even the smallest differences in meaning and form having significance in some cases. By contrast, in many literary translations, the linguist has the privilege and duty of finding a natural way to transmit the writer’s intention. Two examples are changing poetry to prose if it is impossible to recreate both the meaning and rhythm of the original and localizing content, such as the change in the order of the diseases  in 3 Men in a boat to keep the list in alphabetical order. In most cases, the translator not only has the option but often the obligation to adjust the form to the content.

Thus, when receiving the final translation in an unknown and foreign language, it is vital to receive an assessment of its effectiveness. To do so, the first step is to ask one or more native speakers of the target language what the document is trying to say, with emphasis on the main points. If the message is essentially identical to that of the source document, the next step is to ask if the form, i.e., language and structure, interferes with that message because it is somehow incongruous, including due to overly literal translation or faithfulness to the original sentence structure. If the answer is negative, it means that translator professionally transmitted the message. Any dissonance indicates that the translation can be improved and may be ineffective. In this manner, the concept of a “good” translation is specified and qualified.

It is clear that paying for an ineffective translation is a poor choice, regardless of the budget. The customer can and should assess the quality of translated document by asking two questions, one about the message and the other about the form, from potential members of the target audience or native speaker of that language. A clearly positive result should inspire confidence in the document and the translator.

* Captions help the blind gain full access to the Internet.

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Poor translation or a bad feeling in Copenhagen

As in many technical products, to one degree or another, the purchaser of a translation has little or no ability to assess the quality of the text until it is made public since it is in a foreign language in many of not most cases. Many an author has only discovered what the foreign reader actually read only after the translated book was published. In fact, the purchaser of a translation must trust that the translator did a professional job, which is both uncomfortable and not always true. Lacking the required knowledge of the target language, purchasers need some parameters to ascertain whether the target text is substandard and requires review.

A short spellcheck of the document can reveal many serious flaws.  First, it can highlight real spelling errors, which should have been fixed before delivery. Second, it marks capitalization issues in translation. For example, in French, last names and locations are capitalized, i.e., M. Henry JONES from RENNES, as compared to English where such practice never occurs, e.g.., Mr. Henry Jones from Rennes. Furthermore, punctuation interference is revealed. For example, again in French, two spaces are placed after a colon while in English there is only one, e.g., Grade:  70 as compared to Grade: 70. Likewise, spellcheck will mark sentences that fail to comply with the punctuation rules of the target language  since the use of commas and periods varies to one degree or another from one language to another. Finally, spellcheck may identify a grammar issue in terms of form, including gender and number, and tenses. For example, while in many languages, a subordinate clause in sentence in the future is also in the future, in English, the secondary verb in the present: I will call you when I wake up. Spellcheck can identify these signs of poor work.

A visual check can also identify some red flags, especially when working between left to right and right to left languages or languages with different alphabets. The presence of words left in the original language without a specific request to do so should beg clarification. When working between languages going in different directions, it is advisable to look for the proper placement of punctuation such as periods and greater/less than signs, symbols such as trademark and copyright, and parentheses. The customer should carefully check the numbers not only to see if they were miscopied, which is critical in itself, but also whether the appropriate punctuation mark was used to divide the whole numbers and decimals. For example, 500,700.05 in English is 500.700,05 in French. The customer can easily identify these issues.

Finally, if the customer has some knowledge of the target language, which is common in regards to English, it is advisable to read the text out loud. If the sentences sound terrible or word for word like the original, the translator may have been too loyal to the text. Any use of non-localized terminology or incorrect terminology is a clear read flag. For example, a medical ethics committee in the United States is a Helsinki committee in Israel while a fan club in English is not club de ventilateurs in French. Good translators think.

The presence of any these issues does not necessarily mean the translation is terrible but does justify having the text read by a native speaker knowledgeable in the subject area. To be clear, requesting this service from non-natives, regardless of their level, will probably lead to false positives as their knowledge of the written language is generally insufficient to properly identify the issues. However, if a native speaker provides a negative assessment, the client is justified in returning the product to the translator or agency for review. Something probably is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark.