I VISIT THE SUBJECT OF TRANSLATION IN MY PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATION BLOGS AGAIN
The thing about translation is that you should always, always ostensibly aim not to say what it isn’t, but what it is (and I do mean IS, not what you think it is or personally regard it as given your own psychological profile)… I hope it’s a concept simple enough to understand. That said…
Both understanding and unfaltering sound communication skills are nothing less than essential in translation work, and I basically try to discuss translation as much as possible in these works (blogs), so maybe you’re thinking: what could I say about how to teach translation?
To a certain extent, I would compare attempts to teaching translation proper to attempts to teach someone how to tie a knot without the assistance of string for illustration; but I also compare it to trying to teach a three-year-old how to play (not that I have actually ever attempted to teach someone how to translate – well, not knowingly i.e. directly / face-to-face, anyway). The sum total of whatever you’re prepared to say and do, however intelligent, thoughtful, appealing or even true it may be, will just not be the only thing that plays a role if it is ever going to “work”. But even someone like myself can only discuss the various kinds of translation mistakes – those which go beyond “obvious” simple things (i.e. which anyone can just label as such easily) like spelling mistakes, a word used wrongly where another one should have been used, incorrect word order and general faulty grammar – so much. And I admit I would have to think a bit as to how to provide a coherent explanation of the difference between grammar and syntax. To elaborate:
I took these quotes from a recent translation of lease documents I did (German to English). What other categories of bad translation should one be aware of (assuming reading of the following does have the potential to… well, teach one not to commit errors in translation work – although, depending on the circumstances, it may depend on the theory
applied – which may not even be identified for what they are)?
Semantics?
“Der Vermieter ist berechtigt, Aufwendungen im Zusammenhang mit verspäteten Mietzinszahlungen der Mieterin in Rechnung zu stellen.”
I originally wrote “The lessor is entitled to charge for expenses in connection with delayed rent payments on the part of the lessee.” …rather than “charge the lessee”. I eventually changed it to the latter.
Terminology?
“Mietverhältnis” – which is better, “tenancy” or “lease relationship”? Is the latter too “literal” a translation?
Words with the potential to distract or distort one’s interpretation of the material and which may well be redundant?
“Sämtliche notwendig werdenden Reparaturen und Instandhaltungsarbeiten in den gemieteten Raumlichkeiten” = translated as “All necessary repairs and maintenance work in the leased premises” (rather than “all repairs and maintenance work that become necessary”)
Proper context-appropriate language?
“Vertragswidrig” – is it strictly better to translate this as “not allowed by the contract” or “not specified in the contract” (for legal purposes)?
Syntax?
“Die Vermieterin kann von der Mieterin die Ausfuhrung der notwendigen Arbeiten verlangen” – not “The lessor can order the lessee to execute the necessary tasks” but “can order the lessee to execute such tasks as and when they become necessary”. The former is only correct syntactically.
Also, look at the misused expression “By all means” in “By all means report a fire to the hotel staff” in a mistranslation found in Lost Translation (Charlie Croker). “By all means” “sort of works”, but a more fitting expression would be “in any way you can”.
I am a professional translator… and, writing at the level I do, it’s all I can do to be on my guard against propagating ideas (which I could not necessarily understand) which, even if they may be intelligent and thought-provoking, are just not worth what they are “meant” to be given their fallacious element.
Cultural values also influence things: as far as translation is concerned, everyone says you should be prepared to take cultural factors into account, and I couldn’t agree more. For example: women are emancipated in the Western world (not everywhere in the world)… and while there exists separate words for “his” and “her” in German, like English, that’s not the case with French, which always uses “son”, “sa” and “ses” depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine, singular or plural. Meanwhile, the trance artist Temple One (real name Joe Garrett) made a tune called “In Her Eyes” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NuBZ4Phzqw – here I ask: is there any reason why it is specifically “her” and not “his”? I understand that this not an actual woman we’re talking about, but if we are going to think about this from an artistic perspective: does it have something to do with a woman that one man does actually have a relationship with and loves? What is it about her eyes anyway? If they say that the eyes are the door to one’s soul, yet the artist is not going to put into words anything about this make-believe woman, what could anyone expect to learn about her from listening to a trance song with no words in it? Is the woman upset inside (on a level which is very unlikely to be shallow)? Is she afraid (and possibly afraid to discuss it even in an environment where she feels safe and comfortable)? Is the subject her true beauty? There’s one ubiquitous question here and it is this: just what is meant by “In Her Eyes”, when nothing is said about this woman (real or unreal) other than those three words? Yes, OK, I’m just theorising here, but such ideas are always covered in works of art (i.e. cultural stuff), right? Oh, and the question of how likely it is that all this would be overlooked when someone read the only possible French translation of it, “en ses yeux”, which can also mean “in his eyes”. There’s not a “full” amount that one can work with here; one can only work with hypotheticals. And I don’t like working only with hypotheticals when doing professional translation work. It is destined to get to me, I guess.
But you see, doing what I do, I find I have at least as much to learn from the very way I think, as I do from facts (in my case: language-related exercises, such as the learning of grammar and vocabulary). I write as extensively as I do for a reason.