MY CEASELESS BATTLE AGAINST CLUMSY WORDING
Foreword: “I write because it is the only way I can reach you.” – Sanober Khan. But there often comes a point where you have to ask yourself what the factual significance of an encounter, a moment of successful contact between one person and another, will prove to be and contribute to now and in the future. Or indeed any incident or moment. Actions have consequences (not necessarily immediate / imminent ones), after all. You could say that this premise is what makes the gameplay of the computer game Detroit: Become Human so compelling. It’s not just about the existence of an incident or moment as opposed to the non-existence of one.
Of course, this is never far away from the (hypothetical) debate of what is not just remembered (or not) about a given instance or issue, but what is described (or not) about one. What “should” be remembered about it is beside the point – and believe me, I have done my utmost to remain lucid here. In other words, a suggested depiction of reality, even if independently reasoned and however substantiated, does not necessarily amount to truth in any kind of absolute terms. Indeed, Hideo Kojima knew what he was talking about with the Selection for Societal Sanity thing in Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty. And when I, as a professional translator, translate I always have to deal with the nagging thought that what I’m writing, for consideration of the factor of due acknowledgement and appreciation of the subject matter, could end up as good as nothing at all, even if it’s true and well-presented to boot (and I certainly shouldn’t forget to consider how it will be interpreted by the reader, whether or not I know who they are, including what makes them tick and anything about existing fixed beliefs of theirs, that they may not even be aware they have!). Indeed, in my blog on what I call “situational awareness” in relation to translation work (posted on 3rd April 2018), where I wrote my own story, I knew even back then that I made “guesses” as to what the narrator was saying that were not just based on, essentially, descriptions of what you could see on the screen (i.e. “…and Wil and Sioni rode away on their bikes…”, “…and Wil and Sioni gave the cake to Mari Pickles…” etc. etc.). I actually made up what I believed to be a veritable and credible story in its own right. And while I fully expected my own guesswork to be wrong throughout, there were a few bits I did get right, so to speak, like when I decided (for want of a better word) that Mari Pickles offered Wil and Sioni a piece of the cake, if for no other reason than it sounded to me like she ended the segment of speech in question on a question, which she did – she offers Wil and Sioni a piece of the cake in the actual story.
I have a business motto: “Translation needs the right words .” And, at the risk of sounding boastful, I wonder how often people who don’t do what I do for a living end up discussing bad translations (if not exactly how translation goes wrong), even if it mostly starts with but one bad translation that has just stuck with someone, and such discussion is only really fuelled by more bad translations. Maybe you are wondering what my “favourite” bad translation is? Such a question is surprisingly easy for me to answer. It is an English subtitle in a Jackie Chan film, which was written by someone whose mother tongue was obviously not English: “Beat him out of recognisable shape!” An odd expression indeed. Beat someone out of something? There is no point disputing that this is a brief emotive expression from someone who has lost their temper (and we are all familiar with such a thing, huh?); for me the word “recognisable” in particular stands out as peculiar in it. And yet… I have to concede that this sentence really does work (at least, for what it amounts to) properly. You have to accept that it is totally correct English in purely linguistic terms, and more.
But look: this is supposed to be a business blog, and I don’t want to ramble on about something so fatuous just for the so-called sake of it, especially if there’s no real consideration on my part about where things are going. And after all, jokes get old; examples of humour in general get old. To focus more on the point of this article: my question to those charged with serious translation is how apt they are at revising not just their understanding, but their very thinking, while they are at it, “thinking” being by no means limited to reasoning of the content of the material they are translating (for, beyond just simplistic references, its very substance), which is fully expected to be reasoned in some way by someone else and only rightly so. To clarify: learning to put aside your own pre-conceptions – which could be due to random offhand experiences (however brief) you may actually be surprised you would recall rather than key experiences in your life – is a start.
My point is that clumsy wording tends to undermine translation work and its (intended) effect, even if it is easy enough to justify it as “accurate” and “helpful” in some way, hopefully without obviously determined rationalising. It is worth bearing in mind that just because some piece of information that someone may be able to provide (or end up providing, as the case may be) may be accurate (against whatever odds) on a surface level doesn’t mean that it is helpful! Especially if the reader of a translation is actually, for whatever reason(s), more concerned with seeking out, nay fighting for so-called justification for ignorance rather than learning about the content of the material. For example, my car is white, and that is the truth, I swear… yes, there’s neither nothing “good” nor nothing “bad” about that, as everyone knows, but the point is: what of it? To tell you the truth, it goes further than just choices of words as such: while I only know so much and am only capable of so much just like everyone else, I am familiar with how, say, particular punctuation choices can alter the meaning of a sentence; that’s the only reason why the “Eats shoots and leaves” meme is a thing of substantial and popular recognition.
And now we come to the climax of this blog: I have done another case study exercise in which I hired someone to translate a newspaper article from a language I do not speak (in this case, Spanish) into English. Here’s the original:
https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2019/05/29/companias/1559147834_412337.html
and what follows is the English translation, but with some alterations, made by me – they are in capitals. Said alterations are the sort of thing that I believe would have been put by a translator who, while not bad, incompetent or careless at translating as such, would still be kind of ignorant, with relatively limited and narrow verbal reasoning that needed addressing, but not so bad as to be worthy of derision. Where alterations have been made, you can see what the original words in the English translation that was done for me really were in the Facebook post that follows this one. You can label it as a game if you want. I am pleased I can confirm that I was satisfied with this English translation – I make a point of mentioning that I read it all thoroughly as part of my creation of this blog. But let me know what you think.
Europe’s most powerful freight locomotive comes from A VALENCIA WORKS OF 100 YEARS
Stadler launches the Eurodual hybrid, aiming for the Mediterranean and Atlantic freight corridors
Stadler’s train manufacture plant in Albuixech (Valencia) this morning launched the Eurodual hybrid locomotive, the Swiss company’s leading locomotive in the freight AREA. The new product, designed and produced entirely in Valencia, has the greatest TRANSPORTATION VOLUME CAPABILITY in Europe, according to Stadler’s press release.
The factory in Valencia, one of 12 that Stadler has around the world, has 900 employees, a third of whom are engineers INVOLVED IN THE FORMULATION AND ELABORATION OF CONCEPTS. The good news for the Spanish industry is that the product presented today brings growth prospects for the staff at the Albuixech factory, which has been operating for 120 years.
“The product presented today brings growth prospects for the staff at the Albuixech factory, which has been operating for 120 years.”
The Eurodual locomotive tests were carried out in the Le Perthus tunnel, on the border between Spain and France, where a single machine was able to drive a train weighing over 2,000 tonnes up an 18 mm/m RAMP. The locomotive has six axles, offering two solutions in one: an electrical locomotive and a competitive diesel motor, meaning it adapts to both electrified and non-electrified railways.
Stadler, who already have 52 orders for the machine, have stressed that potential customers will be able to DECIDE ON BETTER ROUTES and HAVE REDUCED FLEETS by having a single engine to deal with all kinds of traffic. “This locomotive is Stadler’s technological response to the efficiency challenges posed by cross-border railways, such as the Mediterranean Corridor or the Atlantic Corridor that span Spain,” said Iñigo Parra, president of Stadler Valencia. The safety and communications equipment make European border transit easier.
The Eurodual has a 7 MW power output in electric mode and a 2.8 MW power output in diesel mode. Its traction reaches 500 kN. Thus, BY THE CLAIMS OF THE COMPANY, in many freight corridors, a single six-axle (Co’Co’) hybrid locomotive could replace compositions of two or four-axle (Bo’Bo’) locomotives CAPABLE OF MOVING A TRAIN OF EQUAL HEAVINESS.
In environmental terms, the EURODUAL reduces NOx emissions by 40% and particle emissions by 90% compared to the Swiss company’s previous machines. Once they reach the end of their working life, 97.7% of their components are recyclable.