MORE TALK FROM ME ON TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES AND THEORY – JUST HOW PASSIONATE ABOUT TRANSLATION AM I, ANYWAY?

If you seriously agree that good translation is as much about taking facts and considerations about the subject matter into account as it is about formulating sentences both correct and valid in the translation material that… well, “actually work”, let me ask you this: is it wise to search for universal rules or principles that let you do it if you felt distant from the subject matter?

There are times when I feel sorry for myself because my Facebook business comments don’t get as much attention as I’d like – and to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if many people who do read them think it’s little more than waffling adoxography on my part. Even when you see that today’s universities specifically offer courses on translation and similar fields in the multi-lingual realm, the academic community all over the world realises that there is indeed a plethora of things that influence individual languages, never mind translation; social factors shape them as much as education / paedogogical ones, if not more so. So it’s got to be only a matter of time before a person starts to agree that a key part of “good” translation – certainly confident translation, at any rate – is being apt at the virtual art of verification. Verification which doesn’t require making waves, yet which can require one to tacitly elicit another person’s view on something without frustrating them. Let’s face it: smart translation is as much about understanding the impossible as it is about understanding the possible.

With that said, I’m now going to state my latest bunch of work-related anecdotes such as I have mentioned in previous comments:
In a French to English translation project:
French: “Windows Phone va rapidement imposer sa présence.”
English: “Windows Phone should make its presence known rapidly.”
The question lies in the “should”. Is it prescriptive or descriptive? In other words, it “should” as in “it’s expected of Windows Phone and it and would somehow be committing an infraction if this didn’t happen” or “Because that’s just the way it is; that’s just the fact of the matter.” Consider both.
In a German to English translation project:
There was this German word “Regalprüfung”. “Regal” means “shelf” in English and “Prüfung” means anything along the lines of “checking” or “testing” or “inspection” or “audit”. But I understood that “Regalprüfung” is some sort of management term, which I translated into English as “stock management” rather than “shelf management”.
In what was probably same German to English project: I had to ask myself whether “Arbeitsbereichen” meant “Work areas” or “Departments”.
In another German to English project I saw “Wasserkühler” in the original, and it meant “water-cooled radiator” in English. Interestingly enough, it did NOT mean “water cooler” which is very much the opposite of a radiator!
In a bilingual proofreading project, I saw this in the original German version of some BMW marketing:

“Als erstes Großserienmotorrad der Welt verfügte die R 100 RS im Jahre 1976 über eine im Windkanal entwickelte, rahmenfeste Vollverkleidung und begründete als perfekter Allrounder für Reise und Sport das Marktsegment der Sporttourer, wie wir es seitdem kennen”.
I have to admit, I couldn’t have done a translation of it as sharp and apt as this: “In 1976, the R 100 RS became the first mass-produced motorcycle in the world to come with a full, frame-mounted fairing that had been developed in the wind tunnel.” (like I said, I only proofread this stuff)
Apparently, the French word “impossibilité” can mean “inability / incompetence”; such as in the French to English translation project where I read “l’impossibilité du Président” in the original.
In one French to English project I read this in the original: “Un plan de réduction des nuisances sonores, olfactives et de pollution.” I believe I showed some skill translating it as “A plan for reducing noise, odours and other pollution”.
I’m going to finish this list by commenting on a number of things I read in the original texts during my translation of a number of pieces of French advertising (about various events) into English, including my translations of the same.
ONE
French: “ « Le tango c’est bien mais on sait pas les pas… » chantait Richard Gotainer en 1982 dans son célèbre tube « La Sampa ». Il ne croyait pas si bien dire.”
English: “ ‘Tango is good but people don’t know the moves…’ … this is what Richard Gotainer sang in 1982 in his famous hit ‘La Sampa’ ”… What I translated “Il ne croyait pas si bien dire” as, having considered deeply the text that just preceded it, was, “He didn’t consider the real importance of his point.”
TWO
French: “Oubliez tout ce que vous saviez sur cette célèbre danse”
English: “Forget everything you know about this famous dance”? No. “Tout ce que vous saviez” was not translated literally in this case. I knew better, hence I wrote: “Forget everything you thought you knew about this famous dance.”
THREE
French: “Le cinéaste laissait derrière lui une carrière déjà saluée par de multiples récompenses.”
English: For once, “récompenses” did not mean “compensation” or anything like that. My final translation of this was: “Even at the time, his career had received multiple awards.”
FOUR

I remember translating “Les amateurs de la nuit” as “Nightlife lovers”, rather than “Night amateurs”, which simply doesn’t make sense.
Perhaps I never properly understood the true definition of making sense until recently. You see, when you do what I do – the issues of plain, matter-of-fact language knowledge aside – by committing to writing a reliable translation of a document you are agreeing to produce a piece of writing full of sentences which, even if you indeed know them to be true (probably indisputably so), just might be “things that you write in vain”, as I like to call it. In other words, the truth is in your hands even if it isn’t in your head. I mean, I think of that scene in the film Freddy Got Fingered where Gord is first showing his drawings to the blonde-haired producer guy: he says, “this is a cat that can see through walls with his X-ray vision” and “this is a banana on a string with dripping sauce and a baboon” only to be told, rightfully so, that it doesn’t make sense. The drawings’ content is just empty: like, no person who’s a member of the audience of the would-be cartoon TV show he’s trying to get created could have any rational or logical reason to speculate what events could take place given the matter that they are presented with, and only given the matter that they are presented with. Or the associated themes and that. Chances are that they just wouldn’t (nay “couldn’t”) let their imagination roam free with it – that said, I believe that every single person, champion or loser, relentless sadist to hapless victim, those who make no secret of trying to be like Tyler Durden to those more likely to remind you of Forrest Gump, is “proud” of their imagination, no exceptions. I mean, I could tell you that I am currently wearing trainers that are white – my trainers are indeed white – but… so what? But consider this example: maybe if I told you this when I was about to go on a cross-country run in the next couple of days, it would be an empty statement but for the fact that there is this on my mind: I am wondering just how dirty they would get when I’m running through a lot of mud and stuff. If you’re the kind of person who agrees that translation can get boring after long enough even if you’re really good at it, all I’m saying is that, when you are translating, it’s easy to feel like much of what you’re writing is these “statements that are in vain”, even if that is only because you are detached from them personally and would probably be so however bright, smart, passionate or generally “good” you were / even if you were everything you’ve ever wanted to be (and possibly more). At any rate, it’s certainly worlds away from people’s love of making their communication more “colourful” in some way based on specific expressions that they use (the most obvious examples of this that I can think of lying in the realms of dialect speak, slang, swearing and idioms that must sound peculiar to foreigners).

Also, sometimes you hear or read something – or learn that thing, depending on your point of view – which can only make sense even if you’ve never heard it before, in a theoretical sense. Recently I was listening to one of Chris Cardell’s CDs in which he has a discussion with some American guy called Bill Harrison. I took notes as I listened to it attentively. One of my notes, one of the things I wrote was, “Having a book allows you to shape people’s view of your particular industry.” I’m not going to debate the importance of that fact or of knowing it – which is precisely why I wrote it down – but part of me still questioned the need to write it down because, when you think about it, it just makes sense in itself, like it’s just another “stating the obvious” comment; after all, why would anyone write these books in the first place?

On the same theme, some of the stuff I’ve been reading from Chris Cardell recently reminded me – as if I needed reminding – that sometimes the answers lie in questions. So you see, translation (certainly, professional translation) is anything but common mundane, “going through the motions” kind of work. Oh yes.
I stand by my opinion that, if this is rambling, then it’s very educated rambling with a worthy purpose. So let me end this with this: if you’ve ever “felt weak” at the end of a long day… does that or does that not mean that you’re ashamed of yourself? Or maybe you’re just a bit sad? I’m not trying to claim that I’m a psychologist but the impact of language on how people think shouldn’t be underestimated…
PS Have a nice day.