CAN (DO) EFFORTS TO DEFY THE BOUNDARIES OF (STANDARD) COMMON SENSE IN TERMS OF BEING IN TOUCH WITH UNDERSTANDING AND REALITY (WHETHER ACTUALLY, OR IN THEORY / SUPPOSEDLY) GUARANTEE TO MAKE ONE A BETTER TRANSLATOR (IF IT’S DONE RIGHT, OF COURSE)?
“Words only connect where our wavelengths fully match.” (Max Frisch)
I was encouraged to write this comment as I was writing and editing the words of my last comment. Now, just because I’ve been a professional translator for like 7 1/2 years now, and, quite frankly, simply regard myself as “better” at translating than more than 9 out of 10 people in this world, doesn’t mean I never marvel at the translation solutions provided by others. And this would include people who don’t have translation experience on par with mine, just for future reference. Let’s not forget that Einstein said that it is imagination that is the source of real genius. I suggest considering that, sometimes, the product of imagination is better than the real thing – well, I once read that knowledge can be a dangerous thing in the hands of the ignorant.
As I write this, I continue to like the idea of achieving the status of best translator in the world as much as ever. But I can’t be the only one who’s ever thought that translation competence and potential is limited not just by lack of understanding of words and language as applied but by ignorance in a more general sense – ignorance of content and ignorance of existing situations, circumstances and consensuses in a larger forum; a forum bigger than the individual. Have you heard of the expression “edge of reality”? It’s the name of Darcy Oake’s tour in which he seems to take the art of illusion to the limit, and it’s a very good, fitting name if you ask me. And he is very good at what he does. But studying the art of translation and acquiring (and maintaining) proficiency in it, and doing it at the highest standard, asks one to actually journey to the edge of reality – and non-reality – if you ask me. I cannot overstate how liberating it is to transcend understanding and reality of the de facto kind – but then, there’s adept enforcement of pure and absolute understanding (based on acquaintance with otherwise always undefined reality) with manifestation of the application of one’s own common sense. This is what separates a great translator from a good translator. After all, reality, understanding and common sense begin and end in the mind… even if it’s not that strong.
I think that the best way that I can illustrate this is as follows: it is a sensible suggestion that, when people translate, they don’t always care to depict in their own minds (consciously) any sort of visual representation of what is essentially implied by the words that are to be translated and / or any sort of visual representation of what is essentially implied by the words in the translation version that they are writing, as if to show that they live in hope of finding something in it to confirm that they are right i.e. it’s something to confirm that their translation is an accurate one. But you hardly need a degree in foreign languages or translation to translate simple content, examples of this being what you can expect to read in children’s story books or in tourist information leaflets. This is an example of a piece of simple writing with very straightforward content, specifically with nothing potentially misleading or clever literary devices in it or anything like that:
“The baths have been modified on several occasions, including the 12th century when John of Tours built a curative bath over the King’s Spring reservoir and the 16th century when the city corporation built a new bath (Queen’s Bath) to the south of the Spring.” (taken from the Wikipedia article on the Roman Baths in Bath, Somerset, England; first sentence in the second paragraph under “Museum” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Baths_(Bath) )
Now it’s easy enough for anyone to take that sentence and switch nouns around (and yes, I know this is going to sound peculiar and nonsensical, but bear with me):
“The Kings have been modified on several baths, including the 12th bath when John of Tours built a curative corporation over the Reservoir’s occasion spring and the 16th spring when the city bath built a new century (bath’s century) to the south of the Queen.”
Or you can do it with verbs:
“The baths have been built on several occasions, building the 12th century when John of Tours modified a curative bath over the King’s Spring reservoir and the 16th century when the city corporation included a new bath (Queen’s Bath) to the south of the Spring.”
Daft and nonsensical it may be, but any French person who speaks good English, and any English person who speaks good French, should be confident about being able to translate these altered sentences into French “correctly” if only by the logic of the rules of the language of French (as an example).
And that’s why I am willing to address the question of whether defying existing boundaries of common sense – defying the supposed constraints that it imposes (which may or may not be imaginary) – helps one to be a better translator, for the sake of all humanity, assuming I know what I’m talking about. We all know that there is no confidence in translation without confidence in… just some notion that makes sense, always backed up by logic. Now, there is a well-known existing bad English translation of a mailshot originally written in Spanish, one very long sentence (not that it can really be called that) which reads like this:
“Half statement of press publishes and distributes free sectors publications of the most representative Spanish industry in order to collaborating exporter of the products and manufactured of happiness in the expansion companies, for the one which we have considered you could be of their interest know to the the detail the reference of the fabric industrial Spaniard, of the that they are facilitated the reasons social, complete adresses and description of the productive activity for medium from journalistic reports.”
What IS this actually supposed to mean? I will see if I can gain some insight as I apply the following translation experiment. Now, I don’t speak Spanish, so I couldn’t even begin to arrive at conclusions about what the text in the original Spanish version was or might have been, prior to writing a proper translation of it. What makes things even more awkward is that this English version is not even grammatical. So I decided to put this English text into a machine translator, to translate it into French, wondering if I could write a convincing English translation of that which would be enough to demystify the content of this English text. It would have been a different story if I had access to the original Spanish version; I would have used that instead. And the only reason I’m using a machine translator here is that this English text is not grammatical; maybe what it “translates” it as (well or badly) will give me some ideas. Anyway, here is the automated French translation of this bad English text:
“Demi déclaration de la presse publie et distribue des secteurs libres publications de l’industrie espagnole la plus représentative afin de collaborer exportateur des produits et fabriqués de bonheur dans les entreprises d’expansion, pour celui que nous avons considéré que vous pourriez être de leur intérêt connaître la la détail la référence de l’Espagnol de tissus industriels, de l’qu’ils sont facilitées les raisons, les adresses et la description de l’activité productive pour les moyennes des rapports journalistiques complets sociaux.”
What I’m going to do now is translate into English this French version word by word, NOT using a machine translator (as in the faux English-to-French translation of “I want to leave school”: “Je veux à sortir école”, which any French person will tell you is not proper French, and does not make sense, even if all the individual words are).
“Half declaration of the press publishes and distributes sectors free publications of the industry Spanish the most representative in order to collaborate exporter of the products and manufactured of happiness in the companies of expansion, for that which we have considered that you could be of their interest know the the detail the reference of the Spanish of tissues industrial, of the that they are facilitated the reasons, the addresses and the description of the activity productive for the averages of the reports journalistic complete social.”
To start off, let’s tidy this up a bit, so that it’s a bit easier to follow even if we might not really expect the final product to reflect the intended message (I thought it best to replace a few expressions – I am aware that “tissu”, for example, can mean “tissue” or it can mean “fabric” or “material”, and “material” is quite far from “tissue” as a general concept):
“50% of the declarations of the press publish and distribute free sector publications of the most greatly represented Spanish industry areas in order to promote collaboration of exporters of happiness-causing products and goods in the expansion companies, regarding the one which we have considered that you could be of their interest pending knowledge of the details of the reference of the fabric industry Spaniard, whereas they are facilitated for company-related reasons, along with complete addresses and descriptions of productive activity for media (i.e. taken from journalistic reports).”
Or maybe the “medium” is supposed to signify like “on average” / “typically” and has nothing to do with media simply because it’s next to “journalistic reports”? It was a taxing task at points, as you have probably guessed, and sometimes I felt like I had to, in theory at least, do what I could to “get in touch with” and invoke a sense and cleverness that someone other than me would have had in a case like this even if it felt like it would go against / impede my own – “miraculously”, of course, like through prayer – in order to write a comprehensible version of this piece of utter gobbledygook as a demonstration of how good I am at translation. Of course it’s nonsense, but clever nonsense exists. Look at some of the things that Michel Lauzière has done (e.g. that horn suit, and when he plays music by going past loads of glass bottles in succession which are filled with varying levels of liquid while wearing roller skates with little firm cords sticking out the side of them). Then you get stuff like backmasking on Youtube, brought to us by everyday people who otherwise would not be known by many people throughout the world, which brings a lot of amusement time and time again. And it’s true in translation, as well; for example: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I invented “Je de dû” as the French translation – or rather, equivalent – of “I should of”, while “neppas” is the French version of “innit” in English. Now let’s try a better translation (which, to a certain extent, is but a rewriting where this approach was deemed more convenient) of this; one which is actually supposed to be authoritative in some way:
“Half of what is said in the press includes the publication and distribution of free sector publications of the greatest-represented Spanish industry domains, which seeks to promote and enhance collaboration of exporters of pleasing products and manufactured goods in expanding companies; if you will bear in mind the one which we have considered could have an interest in you subject to knowledge of details of reference information of Spaniard fabrics / material industry figures, in light of the fact that they have facilitated company aims; not to forget complete addresses and descriptions of production activity for the media (taken from journalistic reports).”
Ideally this would be a successful case of being “found in translation”, if that makes sense.
Now, I think it would be premature of me to label myself as anything like a Master of Understanding or a Master of Reality at this point. But recognised standardised methodical and logical approaches can only be so helpful when you’re doing translation work. But I’m sure that the better I become at not always taking exclusively the words in front of me as my starting point, the more likely I am to get there. At this stage, I at least know that there are very evident reasons to back up my claim that I am articulate enough to be a translator worth the name – and this does include awareness of things like non sequiturs, metaphors and allegories.
When did YOU, in your efforts to master something, last find yourself saying “I have no idea what I’m talking about here… yet”?