FUN WITH BAD TRANSLATIONS – A GAME
In my experience, it’s quite common for professional translators, like me, to state comical bad translations as we remind you that translation is just not as easy as some people think; we list the bad translations as a statement: “this is what happens when you do it wrong i.e. with ignorance.” It’s just that we are seldom bothered to discuss not just how it’s wrong and what a better suggestion would have been, but what went wrong (whether in terms of fact or personal theory) – explaining the linguistic fallacies on the part of the person who wrote it, or concluding the misleading impressions that led to them doing so.
But I like reading bad translations as much as plenty of other people, whether they translate for a living or not. And as languages and translation are indeed my livelihood, I decided on a little game in my business marketing:
Here are 10 bad translations. At least three are ones I came across somewhere on the Internet and at least three are ones I made up. But which of the two do you think they all are? (I will provide the answers in a subsequent blog.)
Have fun! ?
1. “Please don’t touch yourself, let us help you to try out. Thanks!”
2. “Please to be knowing that this lift is receiving technical maintenance working attention and you can not use the lift at this time because of this reason which is important that our guests know it.”
3. “When you are enjoying a nice ride on our boat of pleasure rides, you must be knowful of the regulations by the concerns of personal safety. It is against the order here for to run on the deck.”
4. “Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.”
5. “Dear Noble Guest, if you want massage in your room you must go to the reception or the management through one telephone number under. Possible time for massage is between 19:00 and 23:00. Massage must be booked by 17:00. Shower before the massage is imperative and you are expected to be finished of your shower before the masseuse that you appointed will be arrived at the door of your room. The staff will inform you the prices for massage when you are conversing with them on phone.”
6. “In a fire incident, please have the concern to make a staff person be in aware of this emergency soonest that is possible. We can understand that you develop mental alarm but we ask you for no attempting to diminish fire in your own actions.”
7. “Please don’t put off your socks.”
8. “Cake eat tissue – the tissue is for an occasion of eat a cake segment. Guests should ensure to have cake dust collecting in tissue when they do a bite of cake.”
9. “Because you are dangerous, you must not enter.”
10. “If you would like to join us, rubbish will never be homeless.”
A link to the answers: https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeTrailTranslator/posts/1763330500423680
ADDRESSING THE SUBJECT OF LITERAL TRANSLATION IN REAL TERMS
Given the abundance of material listing bad translations these days, it’s easy to believe that lots of people, whether they are a professional translator like me or not, would have ready, perfectly reasonable statements when it comes to attempting to describe what “literal translation” is (or at least be willing to provide recalled examples of it), or indeed why it should be avoided. That said, however, I can understand people not quite knowing how to translate certain expressions from one language to another without it being “too literal”.
What really encouraged me to write this blog was the hypothetical question of how best to write the sentence “We might as well get used to it” in French and German, the two foreign languages from which I translate into English, and which I have a degree in. I mean, when you look at this sentence, I wouldn’t blame you at all for not being able to conceive of any “ready equivalent” of “we might as well” in any foreign languages you have studied, and the verb “to use” has nothing to do with using anything in this context. So let’s look at these two exhibits, which are my own suggestions:
French: “La meilleure chose est pour nous à s’y habituer” (a direct / “semi-literal” English translation of this being: “The best thing is for us to get used to it.”)
German: “Am besten würden wir uns daran gewöhnen” (a direct / “semi-literal” English translation of this being: “The best thing is that we would get used to it.”)
But don’t think for a moment that I would suggest only those specific expressions as the “best” way to say this sentence in French and German (that I can think of anyway); here’s some other ideas:
French: “Il est meilleur pour nous à s’y habituer” (a direct / “semi-literal” English translation of this being: “it is best for us to get used to it.”)
German: “Nichts dagagen aber alles dafür, dass wir uns daran gewöhnen würden” (a direct / “semi-literal” English translation of this being: “Nothing against it but all for it that we would get used to it.”)
Now, while I wouldn’t describe these suggestions as unforgivably clumsy or awkward and “bad” as such (even if I do say so myself), they still do seem a bit “clunky” (unwieldy) and / or “thrown together” in appearance, and, me being a keen professional translator and all, I am keen to seek something better in the sense of less clunky when translating such a statement into French and German. I mean, what could we accept as a “ready equivalent” in French or German of “we might as well” or “getting used to something”?
That soon led to me coming up with these suggestions, which, in my opinion and experience, sound closer to what French and German natives actually would say:
French: “Il vaut mieux s’y habituer.” (in English (lit.): “It is worth the best for us to get used to it.”
German: “Wir könnten uns nun / mal daran gewöhnen.” (in English (lit.): “We could get used to it”; but the verb “können” is strictly not without “nun” or “mal”).
Those would be my very best suggestions. But I am not going to leave it at that. As the final part of this exercise I asked a regular French client and a regular German client, whom I have done work for again recently, how THEY would translate “We might as well get used to it” in their own respective native languages. The answers they gave me are provided below; go ahead and compare them with my own suggestions ?
French: “Nous pourrions aussi bien nous habituer” – which I would retranslate into English more as “We could also get accustomed” (But I couldn’t help noticing the absence of the preposition “y”, for “it”).
German: “Wir könnten uns daran gewöhnen” – which I would retranslate into English more as “We could get used to it”. (But to think that it really is the same as my own best German suggestion – while my native tongue is not even German – but for the absence of “nun” / “mal”!)