When is a translation not a translation

WHEN IS A TRANSLATION NOT A TRANSLATION?

One thing I have thought of doing, one challenge I have thought of setting myself as far as my translation career and marketing of it is concerned, is to find material which I know had been translated from French or German into English (poorly) with a machine translator, and consider what the original text in French / German was (assuming I could understand the meaning of the English text). I am claiming that sometimes when I read something in English which I know is a (bad) translation of something I know was originally written in another language that I can speak, I can to a certain extent identify the words that were used in the original language version. For example,

French to English
English translation: “Instructions to the users of the ascenseur, persons ignorant of the maneuvers of the ascenseur are prayed instantly to address themselves to the concierge.”
French original: “Instructions aux utilisateurs de l’ascenseur, personnes ignorantes des manoeuvres de l’ascenseur sont priés de s’adresser au concierge.”
English translation: “Competitors will defile themselves on the promenade at 11am, and each car will have two drivers who will relieve themselves at each other’s convenience.”
French original: “Compétiteurs vont se défiler sur la promenade à 11h00, et chaque voiture aura deux chaffeurs qui s’allégeront à l’avantage de l’autre.”

German to English
English translation: “It is our intention to pleasure you every day.”
German original: “Es ist unseres Vorhaben, Ihnen jedes Tages zu geniessen.”
English translation: “Peculiar arrangements for gross parties.”
German original: “Besondere Vereinbarungen für grosse Parteien.”

But then I wondered just how different such texts are from texts which were originally written in English before being translated into another language by a machine translator before then being translated back into English. I just don’t agree that chances are that the back-translated English text would be exactly the same as the English text that was there before it got put through the machine translator in the first place.

The first thing I thought of here was that comedy bad translation video “A Wicked Deception” – something which goes yet one step further: the original text – which is English – is translated into French using a machine translator (before you ask me which one, don’t, because I don’t know), then from French into German, then from German back into French, and then finally from French back into English; the language of the final output material is English. What the characters say is the output of all this, while the subtitles provide an appropriation in sensible English which people can actually be expected to follow (what the text was before it got put through the machine translator like this).

The next time you’re having a chat with someone on Facebook: try this. Have both of you open a machine translation tool online, then try communicating in a language neither of you speak. When one person says something, they translate it into the new language using the machine translator before sending the result to the other person, who then translates it back into English using the machine translator their end. Who knows what hilarity and possible discovery may ensue? Here’s a joke, written in Latvian, which I don’t speak; it was only thanks to the help of a machine translator that I was able to post this:

Kāpēc vistas šķērso ceļu? Lai nokļūtu otrā pusē.
But this is supposed to be about me as a professional translator, really. If you think you are better than a machine translator, how to evidence it for sure? By trying to make sense out of nonsense? Or is doing that a sign of madness? All I can say to that is: LOL! Seriously, though, is there such thing as “thinking like a machine translator”?

What I’ve done here is imagined what the French text of the “A Wicked Deception” video might have been before it was translated by the machine translator, and ditto for the German text; although I have to agree that it’s not quite the same between them. Then again, I believe that one can’t hope to translate professionally without making a willingness to explain things in a lucid and unambiguous manner a part of their heart and soul (and sometimes I feel that it is pursuing the elaboration of things unto myself which is the thing that stands between me and success. I think this constitutes an accurate explanation of what I do when a translation client decides to challenge me about something I have written in my work for them). That said, however, if you’re going to read on, it helps if you can speak French and / or German here!

Of course, I had to consider French and German the way the natives use it, not just the way I use it, however good my French and German may be – but when I’m dealing with something which is already the product of a machine translation, there’s only so much I can fathom…

For reference:
((Anything in double circular brackets is a phrase which I would never normally use when communicating in French / German but one which I have come to agree is proper French / German – however irregular – and it was while I was doing this that I first thought of it.))
[[Anything in double square brackets is some kind of individual word or expression which is used in a way I would never normally use it.]]
Where there is an asterisk *, see the notes below.
As much as I tried to write proper French and German, some of this may be broken (and some of it may not be completely proper French / German per se), but then that sort of thing is not that uncommon with machine translators, is it? For better or worse, here goes:

FRENCH:
MAN 1: Est-il vrai, mat, que tu vas t’engager* à proposer le mariage avec Jessica ce soir?
MAN 2: Oui, elle enflamme mon coeur avec de la flamme* extrême. Il n’y a rien sur cette Terre qui ((ferait me rendre plus joyeux)) que la faire ma femme.
MAN 1: Réfléchis-tu de Renard ((causant un [[essai*?]]))
MAN 2: Ce salaud ((simple)). Renard estime sa vie. Il ne nous formera pas de la vague*.
MAN 1: Bonne chance. [[Ils* sont]] ma meilleure pile. Ils le gagnent.
MAN 3: [[Ce]]… nous nous retrouvons. Jessica ((est-elle advenue à faire marier)) moi en le place de toi. Ha Ha!
WOMAN: C’est exactement, mat. Je ne peux croire que ((tu t’egarerais sur moi)) avec cette salope ((simple)). Renard m’a expliqué tout.
MAN 2: Mais Renard ((couche*)) comme un chien! ((Avec cela, il n’est pas possible pour toi à voir?)) ((Mon amour est [[à]] toi, la seule pour moi!))
MAN 1: [[La lasse*]] est [[couramment en implementation!]]
MAN 3: ((Peut-être voudrais-tu avec une bagarre cela [[arranger]]))*?
MAN 2: J’engage avec toi en une frappe de coeur!
MAN 2: Prends cela, [[tu escroc!]]
MAN 3: Un [[poinçon]] [[à]] mon visage!
MAN 3: J’ai été ((mis [[en faillite!]]))*
MAN 2: Dis bonjour à la terre pour moi, eh, Renard?
MAN 1: ((Tu me l’as encore fait)), ami. [[Ils ont]] gagné!
WOMAN: Mat, je suis [[malheureuse*.]] ((Je ne crois Renard de nouveau jamais.)) Ce cochon!
MAN 2: Jessica, c’est toi qui est l’amour de ma vie. Je veux [[passer*]] le reste de ma vie avec toi!
WOMAN: ((Ainsi moi!)) ((Tellement moi!))
MAN 1: Comme je le dis toujours, ((son tout bon, est tout bon.))

GERMAN
MAN 1: Ist es wahr, Matt, dass du [[daran hängst]], die Heirat vorzuschlagen mit Jessica dieses Abends?
MAN 2: Ja, sie feuert mein Herz mit dem extremem Brennen*. Nichts auf dieser Erde würde mir* mehr Glück bringen ((als sie zu meine Frau zu machen.))*
MAN 1: ((Denkst du davon, dass)) Renard [[Mühe]] verursachen wird?
MAN 2: Dieser einziger Bastard. Renard schätzt sein Leben, er wird uns kein Wellen* formen.
MAN 1: Gutes Glück. Sie sind* meine bestes Flor. Sie verdienen es.
MAN 3: ((So)), wir treffen uns wieder. ((Jessica einigte sich)), mich im Platz von dir zu verheiraten. Ha ha!
WOMAN: Das ist genau, Matt. Ich kann nicht glauben dass du mit dieser einzigen Schlampe um mich betrügen* würdest! Renard hat mir alles erklärt.
MAN 2: Aber Renard* liegt wie einen Hund! ((Fehlt es dir das zu sehen bei das?)) ((Meine Liebe ist dich, die Einzige für mich!))
MAN 1: ((Der Verrat ist in Implementation wesend!))
MAN 3: Vielleicht möchtest du das mit einem Kampf [[ordnen?]]
MAN 2: Ich engagiere dir in einem Herzschlag!
MAN 2: Nimm das, du Gauner!
MAN 3: Einer Durchschlag* zu meinem Gesicht!
MAN 3: ((Ich wurde im Misslang gesetzt!))
MAN 2: Sagst du mal dem Boden hallo für mich, eh Renard?
MAN 1: ((Sie haben es da* noch wieder gemacht)), Genosser. Sie haben gewonnen!
WOMAN: Matt, ((es ist mir bedauerlich*.)) ((Ich werde Renard nie glauben wieder.)) Dieser Schwein!
MAN 2: Der Jessica*, ((sind Sie die dass die Liebe von meinem Leben ist.)) Ich will den Rest meines Lebens mit dir [[aufwenden*]]!
WOMAN: ((Da ich!)) ((Also ich!))
MAN 1: Wie ich es immer sage, ((sein Alles wird etwa schön, ist gut.))*
NOTES (FRENCH)

“Que tu vas t’engager”: French has two future tenses: the immediate future (aller + verb in infinitive) and the per se future (as in “I will go” = “j’irai”). I just decided that doing something in the immediate future is near enough to the same as doing it in the present. Meanwhile, “engagement” tends to mean “commitment” in French, and people commit to things with the purpose of achieving something; I regarded “connect” as like a “metaphorical synonym” of “achieve” in this sense.
“Flamme”: When the second man says “It fires my heart with the flame extreme”… well, there’s flame, and there’s fires, and can you get a fire with only a single flame? I decided that “de la flamme” could mean “flame” singular or plural in English.

“Essai”: it’s official – this can mean “trial” or “effort” in English, and I put the ambiguity down to the fact that it depends on the context in which either word is used (what else?).
“De la vague”: just like with “flamme” above, I decided that the French word “vague” can mean a single wave or the general concept of waves in English.
“Ils” (they): I know that the only explanation for the first man calling the second man “they” rather than “you” can be that when it was translated from German to French – why not German straight back to English, anyway? – the machine translator must have listed the German translation of you as “Sie”, and while it is true that “Sie” (always with a capital) is the formal “you” in German, “sie” with a little S can also mean “they” (or, depending on the context, “she”). Hence, German “Sie sind” meaning “you are” can be mistranslated as “they are” while still making grammatical sense in theory.

“Couche”: I decided against “se couche”, because “se coucher” means going to sleep. “Coucher” can mean “lie” (tell a fib) in French, but with this I chose to regard “lie” in English as like… just “resting” as something – “occupying and retaining a fixed position as something” (i.e. being something). Yes, it’s very oblique.
“Lasse”: When I first heard “boar” instead of “treachery”, I didn’t know what to think. And I always thought that the French word for “boar” was “sanglier”. Or maybe the word was “bore”? Anyway, I was able to find out (purely by chance) that there is such a French word as “verrat” with the same meaning – while “Verrat” definitely means “treachery” in German. That’s the only possible reason.

“Peut-être voudrais-tu une bagarre pour cela arranger?”: Maybe this poorly structured sentence could pass for non-standard French that French people actually use? Of course, I should mention that the only reason the verb is at the end is because it was translated from German.
“J’ai été mis en faillite”!”: this actually does strike me as something that a real French person would actually be likely to say – if they meant “I have gone bankrupt.”
“Malheureuse”: I think this word goes hand in hand with both apology and sadness well enough.
“Passer”: this usually means “doing” something (like an exam), but I chose to impart the vague sense that, if something is “passé”, doesn’t it mean that it is now deserted and forgotten?
GERMAN

“mit dem extremem Brennen”: i.e. with the extreme flame(s) or “with extreme burning” (yes, you do include a definite article in the German version with the latter)?
“Nichts auf dieser Erde würde mir”: I noted that “Nichts auf dieser Erde würde mir mehr Glück bringen”, can mean “Nothing on this earth would make me more happy”, but I also noted that “Nichts auf dieser Erde würde mir” on its own can be regarded as “Nothing on this earth would become me” (I say “can be regarded as” because you would normally use “mich” rather than “mir”). The question is: what did that machine translator pick up and interpret?

“Als sie zu meine Frau zu machen”: I have no idea why the second man says “to make him my wife around” rather than “to make her my wife around”. Also, I accept there shouldn’t be a “zu” between “sie” and “meine” – but I treated the whole phrase “meine Frau zu machen” as an infinitive phrase i.e. including that “zu”, anyway.
“kein Wellen”: the second man says “form us vague” i.e. “wave” – no plural – I thought it would be best if I left out the e on the end of “keine” here (what I originally decided on); I decided that “Wellen” can mean the general concept of waves, even if it is somewhat contrived.

“Sie sind”: see what I wrote in the notes for the French version regarding the first man calling the second one “they” rather than “you”. And I just couldn’t imagine the right word to insert where the first guy called the second guy “pile” rather than “pal” (or maybe it was just “pal” only with an accent?).
“um mich betrügen”: I actually know that the German term for “to cheat someone” is just “jemanden betrügen” – there’s no “um”. However, “betrügen um” is proper German, meaning “cheat out of something”, as in “jemanden um 100 Euros betrügen” = “to cheat someone out of 100 Euros.” But the machine translator saw it all another way / had other ideas. I cannot and will not discuss how it might have been programmed.

“Aber Renard liegt wie einen Hund”: see what I said for this bit in the French notes (the “couche” bit).
“Einer Durchschlag zu meinem Gesicht!”: “Durchschlag” was the most appropriate German word meaning “copy” I could find here – “Schlag” just about always has an implication of hitting. Can’t we a regard a punch as a “through-hit”? And I really had to think about the most appropriate preposition to use.
“da”: When the first guy says, “You still my ‘da’, friendly one!” or whatever it was, I have no idea what he means when he says ‘da’, or even if what he actually says there is something that is actually a word in English. I mean, while “da” is an actual German word, it may well not have been an actual English word at all that he said – it’s possible that the machine translator didn’t translate “da” or whatever it was into English; maybe because it regarded it as just an onomatopoeic sound or something like that.
“bedauerlich”: see what I said for “malheureuse” in the French notes bit – it’s the same thing.

“Der Jessica,”: It was hard for me to think of the best thing to say for when the second man says, “Of the Jessica” at the beginning of a sentence. Where did that come from? But I decided on this because, according to the grammatical rules of German, Jessica is feminine and “der” is dative (or genitive) when referring to her.
“aufwenden”: Sure, you would not say “aufwenden” if you wanted to tell someone that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with them. Yet, I find that, depending on how it is used, German “aufwenden” can mean “spend” or “expend” (i.e. come to dismiss, or neglect).

“sein Alles wird etwa schön, ist gut”: It’s hard to explain how “His whole is quite fine good” could mean “All’s well that ends well” when the word “his” is just totally out of place AND there is nothing signifying “end” / “finish” in some way. And I know “sein Alles wird etwa schön, ist gut” is German that it is hard to get a grip on – the English meaning that I hold to it is basically like, “His [one’s] All [within something] (that) becomes [ends up] quite fine, is good.”