Any professional translator worth their salt views any translation assignment as far more than
just another chance to evidence their skills (as they know them!) in a foreign language.
Last month I completed a very big multilingual editing job of a book (translated from
German to English) – a piece of fiction. If you have to know what it was about, what kind of
genre it was etc., it was in the fantasy genre. From what I saw, it was aimed at adults rather
than children, but it wasn’t erotic fantasy (although it did have some sexually explicit content,
which I didn’t mind personally). The kind of material I dealt with in said project is probably
more popular among women than among men… in any case, I wouldn’t want to disappoint.
Let’s move on, shall we?
At the start I was told that this was a “translation” job but it was actually a job of editing an
existing translation done by a machine (machine translation post editing, or MTPE); I did it
on the Memsource platform. While the quality of the English translation I read generally was
enough to impress me, the company that gave me this work was wise to have a native speaker
proofread it; I made quite a few corrections, which, if we’re being realistic, was only to be
expected.
What sort of corrections, you may be wondering? Well: mostly just correcting mistranslated
pronouns and simple things like that, the likes of which I could have done back when I was
still studying for my GCSE in German. But I was also advised to do all I could to maximise
the effect of the writing style as one optimally fit for a piece of fiction. In practice this
includes trying to avoid having too many long-winded sentences. I reported to my project
manager for this job on a regular basis (at the end of each day on which I did some work on
it), after which he would look at what I did, and then, sometimes, he went as far as to make
some editing suggestions of his own – even though his mother tongue was not English, if you
read the English in his emails you could tell he could pretty much pass for a native speaker!
I want to relate to this a Thought For The Day piece about paying (“real”) attention (Dr. Anna
Rowlands, 28/01/2022). These pieces are played every morning on BBC Radio 4 on every
day except Sundays at between 7:45 and 7:50. One particular bit I remember was like:
“Whereas the English say ‘pay attention’, the Spanish say ‘loan attention’, which gives the
impression that you can expect attention paid by you to be repaid.” I liked that. If I
understood it correctly, it’s a kind of attention some people tend to be all too out of touch
with; a kind of attention which goes beyond the otherwise unmentioned concept of just
looking for cues in a situation and responding to them “in the usual way”. “Everywhere you
look, there is something to be seen.” (The Talmud)
So I hope it’s easy enough to consider paying such “real” attention as the diametric opposite
of idly “letting the situation make decisions for you”. Being “only human” doesn’t mean our
actions never have consequences we could never expect or be prepared for.
Let me ask you something. Michael Gove has been put in charge of “levelling up” in this
country; which, I will accept, sounds like an empty buzzword expression in the light of this
cost of living crisis; what does “levelling up” actually mean? What does it mean, if not the
chartering of an as yet nondescript political course, with all its policies, which will
(somehow) set the benchmark for “more hope” and “higher standards” and (no less

importantly) more stability and security and confidence among the population? Any pride
(whether reticent or – in particular – openly exalted) that stems from all this is just a bonus.
Let me make this very clear: I say this not just in my role as a trusted translator, but as an
entrepreneur. Remember what I said about paying “real” attention and what I called the
diametric opposite of it just a moment earlier. I have noted how it is common for people to
mentally search for habits and “done thing” practices, otherwise unmentioned, as they go
about their duties. True, this helps to reinforce the idea that we are organised, and in
something as important as your life’s work I certainly appreciate being organised as good for
personal morale. Yet we also do this because such habit / “done thing” practices help us to
feel comfortable and alleviate stress a bit – and all too often we obstinately refuse to let them
go regardless of the actual direction the situation, for what it really is, is heading in. And,
quite frankly, if you do this searching for habits and “done thing” practices more for that
feeling of comfort than to help you feel organised as you go about something “important”
which demands resolute answers, maybe you should urgently re-evaluate your own standards
of professionalism (or the “P-word”, if you will). Maybe this is what the author W. Somerset
Maugham meant by his quote, “Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not
changing his mind.”
All that said, let me point out the problem with so-called “woke” culture and why it’s so
divisive in modern society. This generation of university students in particular seems
desperate to show us all how they acknowledge that ignoring “bad ideas” does not vitiate
their negative influence – which is why they are so frequently keen to censor stuff that is
simply not as harmful as they would have us believe out of self-righteousness. It is sad, to say
the least, that people in higher education these days so often feel the need to draw attention to
themselves in this way. I mean, who seriously feels we need the renamed nursery rhymes
“Three visually impaired mice” or “Senior citizen Mother Hubbard”? Yes, in the real world,
ideas often represent agendas – and even if these ideas are ugly or controversial, they tend to
exist for good reasons – important reasons, the content of which lies far outside the bounds of
opportunistic personal interest and one’s comfort zone. Censoring bad ideas does not vitiate
their negative influence in society at large any more than ignoring them does… but falsely
implying something bad about someone will always cause resentment, no matter who they
are or who they think they are. Woke culture is the reason Trump got into the White House.
And, if you watch this “rap battle”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N90czwt6vlc …well,
it is fair to say that much of what these young men say to each other is just crude and uncouth
as well as unintelligent and totally void of anything meaningful, but they view themselves as
performers in an art to be proud of because this art involves spouting rap lyrics which are
(presumably) being made up on the spot – Saint’s UCSB lines at the end, in particular, surely
strike me as made up right then. Chances are this will be the first time you watch this video,
in which case go ahead with proper attention and see how much of it you can remember
afterwards. In any case, one bit I remember is where someone pretends to punch Borat in the
face only his fist ends up so close to it I was genuinely amazed that no altercation among all
these young men immediately ensued (at 4:05). But let’s go to the end of the battle. Saint
won – but I’m not going to offer any opinion on who “should” have. But I will say this: to his
credit, at the end of it, Saint says that he’s “his own worst critic” – much as I am confident as
to what most people’s first impression of him would be based on this video. Borat, too, copes
with his defeat well considering he travelled to the UK all the way from America. If these
two can convince me of being capable of humble appraisals of themselves, then I accept that
professionals everywhere should take note. Like, it’s a good example. I believe the lesson is:

don’t make the mistake of believing you could never be over-confident, indignant or arrogant
(yes, arrogant) for doing no more than defending your own opinions which are not in
themselves inappropriate or objectionable (especially if they originated from you
personally!). I suppose you could say that what it all boils down to is these questions: what do
you really know about something if not just everything you’re told you need to know about it;
and what are the actual potential consequences of not knowing more?
If I try to associate such a concept with translation, I would suggest that it’s a good idea to
approach translation tasks thus: seek to remember plenty of bits about it in detail even if they
seem unimportant or meaningless. Anything that amounts to a convincing case that you’re
not just “going through the motions” while hoping it won’t be too hard. Think about how
learning really can prove fun sometimes.
Final note: this book job I did compelled me to look up new German words that I came across
inside it the meaning of which I should have (and, generally, did) come to be familiar with in
a moment. I’m just wondering how long it will be before I find myself recalling these words
(or details of how I would come to learn them) when I least expect it. I hope that helps to
illustrate the significance of the benefits of an active mind in the context of translation in a
professional translation career.