One of the most common criticisms in the translation industry today is that someone used translation software to help translate something, based on an acceptance that a translated article is of poor quality or just overly peculiar in places. But then, there are those that argue that translation software is “getting better” all the time. If you ask me, they have a point. I sometimes use Google Translate to help me out in my work, but strictly only for guidance. I always accept that I’m the one responsible for the choice of words at the end of it all. But Google Translate doesn’t just “translate accurately” these days; I’m often impressed by how it offers to-English translation suggestions that are along the lines of the language used by the masses. Consider this scenario: if I was going to post a joke online about something that actually happened, it’s not like it wouldn’t make sense to begin it with “This actually happened.” But I’ve resolved not to forget that I keep seeing “True story” in place of this time and time again. I am compelled to try to produce work that is not just academically and logically correct, but stuff that people will actually grasp easily and readily, and that’s why I sometimes Google Translate for guidance. (It does seem ironic, doesn’t it?)
Don’t people in the translation industry prefer that work be proofread / checked by someone else anyway?
I’ve heard it said that each language in the world embodies its own universe. Maybe I will always be confused by that idea to a certain extent; maybe not. But I have noted something in the German language which doesn’t apply to my mother tongue of English that made me think of the same. It’s to do with one of the tenses in German.
A proper translation of English “She said that Keith had gone to the party” in German would be “Sie hat gesagt, Keith wäre zur Party gegangen.” I can’t help noticing that, in the German translation, the auxiliary verb is subjunctival whereas this is not the case in English. It’s as if the (hypothetical) person saying the German version exudes more prudence than the one saying the English version. Somehow, it’s like the person saying the German version is allowing for the possibility of mistaken identity (consciously or otherwise – and this is just one example); but there is no reflection of that with the English sentence above. Not that I have any reason to believe that the Germans are particularly careful people.
An interesting idea to remember, or airy-fairy sophistry? If you quickly got bored reading this, then all I can say is that this is what a lifetime of studying and employing foreign language skills does to you.
It would be nice if I could find an online dictionary for proper nouns. Like “Varsovie” in French; what it means is “Warsaw”, the capital of Poland, but the thing is that “Varsovie” actually looks authentically French. Wouldn’t you say that the average bilingual dictionary isn’t full of proper noun entries?