THE DAY I CHALLENGED THE UNCHALLENGEABLE

It’s not hard to believe the idea that, generally, people are stalwartly against anyone who calls himself or herself a professional translator using machine translation tools, like Google Translate, for what might euphemistically be called “behind the scenes assistance” in their professional work. I should know – I have been a self-employed translator for ten years; in times good and times bad, it has been nothing less than my sole source of income all this time. And I should, as I do, know that laziness and complacency tend to screw things up – like they could ever be more likely to prevent a problem than to cause one.

I cannot emphasise enough that I am well aware that, every so often when I do my work, I get a challenging phrase where I know better than to confide in any sort of typical, pre-defined, “box-ticking” approach, the thinking centre of my mind switched off, if I am to provide a translation of it which is of the quality my clients expect and deserve. I agree that it can be easy to develop a mentality of living in a bubble and being aloof when you have been working at home as your own boss for years but consider this: in the covering letter I send to possible new clients as part of my advertising, I mention the concept of what I call “alternative verbal innovation”. Sometimes in my work, when it comes to translating certain individual expressions, the best I can think of without suggestion from someone – or indeed something – else is something that I don’t think is “bad” as such but I’m just not as confident about it as I would like to be all the same. And so I will humbly ask the client what they think of it, helping them to get the gist of it where appropriate and possible. And most of the time it goes well enough at the very least. For instance…

I came across this in a fairly recent French to English project, which revolved around the French verb “appréhender” in a sentence in which it seemed just totally out of place to me, the sum total of my experiences being what it is:

“Je m’appelle XXXXX et je désirerais faire un stage dans un cabinet d’Architecture en attendant de faire ma rentrée à Mendrisio. Il me semble qu’il n’y a pas de meilleur moyen pour appréhender un parcours académique, que de faire un stage.”

Now, “appréhender” does mean “apprehend” in English, and I know what “apprehend” means – and it doesn’t necessarily have the meaning of arresting someone for a crime. My best attempt English translation of this was as follows:

“My name is XXXXX and I would like to do an internship in an architectural practice as I wait until my return to Mendrisio. It seems to me that there is no better way to make a success of an academic career than to do an internship.”

I just had to highlight the words “to make a success of an academic career” as I included this comment to the project manager: “Please verify – how would you translate “appréhender” here?” I did put myself in his position and I was serious about helping where I could as opposed to just thoughtlessly looking for “justification” to make things his responsibility where possible. As it is, he said I did a fine job translating this particular bit with the English translation I have provided above.

That said, I’m going out on a limb here when I say that, when you’re doing translation work, Google Translate can be good for credible suggestions. Look at these terms not in my mother tongue but in German that I have dealt with in my work as a self-employed translator:

1
“Dienstreisen”: I was originally going to translate this as “service journeys” but, being somewhat hesitant to do so, I was compelled to get a suggestion from Google Translate; it gave me “business trips” which is just not quite the same thing, is it? When I saw “business trips”, that was what I went with. Still, one could argue that it depends on what a “service journey” or a “business trip” actually involves. But, ironically, when the work I did for the job in question was proofread by someone, “service journeys”, not “business trips”, would prove to be “right” (in the sense of the term finally selected)!

2
Google Translate translated “Fester Ansprechpartner” as “permanent contact” rather than my own original suggested translation of it as “staunch contact partner”, which I knew couldn’t be right in that that obviously looks like a literal translation, but my mind, such as it is, just didn’t allow me to conceive of anything else.

3
I would have translated “Einarbeitungsphase” as “integration phase / stage”, but Google Translate won me over with “training period”. I mean, what does it say about Google Translate when there are times when, for all my dedication and sincerity in my work as a self-employed translator, there are times when it is better at coming up with expressions which are not too literal than I am?

4
“Oberstudiendirektor”: I thought this meant something like “senior studies director” (although I will admit that that sounds ambiguous) but it means “headmaster” – so says Google Translate!

5
This is a very interesting one: “und findet mit seiner einfuhlsamen Art jederzeit Zugang zu ihnen.” This translates literally into English as, “and, with his sensitive nature, always manages to find [gain] access to them”; I knew better than to suggest that obviously literal translation! As did Google Translate, apparently; for this phrase it suggested to me: “and with his sensitive nature he always manages to earn their trust.” That is impressive, yet it is also creepy that Google Translate seems capable of being more human than me at times. No wonder I like Detroit Become Human so much – see this blog I wrote on 26th February 2019 https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeTrailTranslator/posts/2158557830900943?__tn__=K-R