Who will challenge my knowledge of foreign language

WHO WILL CHALLENGE MY KNOWLEDGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, OR LANGUAGES IN GENERAL (IF THEY KNOW HOW TO)?

I was recently going through my business records to get rid of records of old translation projects that I no longer needed, and I came across some very old projects I translated not from French or German into English, but the other way round. I very rarely do these jobs but I think it’s great that I can say that I’ve taken these on as well (they weren’t too sophisticated, mind)!

You know, people who have read a lot of my professional translator blog comments are by now very likely aware of how much I go on about how literate I am in the language I write in when I’m doing translation work, along with all I’ve freely said to back it up. But as important as that is in this line of work, I can’t always lean purely on that to help me out / save the day when I’m stuck. My job may be a very peaceful one, but, frankly, it’s just so, so likely that, whenever someone gives me a translation job to do, they will be willfully ignorant of the realities of what I do, the procedures I follow, the choices I make, which will determine whether the project will be a success (hopefully a definite success rather than a passable success, of course) or a failure. Mind you, even today I do most of my work for translation agencies, and this is very much less likely to be the case with translation agencies compared with private clients; and yes, maybe that really is why the “translation agency” exists. Anyway, my mother tongue is English, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it is English that I am paid to translate into – mostly. But there have been a few rare occasions where people have offered me translation work assignments with the language pair English to French or English to German, and in this comment I’m going to put forth a couple of examples of these.

At this point, let me make it clear that whenever I put forth the details of an episode related to some translation task I’ve had to deal with as a professional translator, I include both the original and my translation of it wherever I can, for sake of my own credibility. Of course, I believe that exactly how much this particular comment will be appreciated will depend on how much it is referred to people whose mother tongue is French or German, for their honest appraisal of what I say… but at the end of the day, I keep records of this stuff for a reason: a reason which is enough to delight me and potentially enlighten me, even if it’s not necessarily in the immediate future.

The first example is taken from a press release originally written in English, although it’s clear that it was written by an Indian rather than an actual native English speaker (not that I’m saying Indians’ English is usually bad, by any means – they’re actually very well educated and speak it very well, but I’m sure we all know that). The client in question, someone in India (surprise surprise) actually paid me to translate this press release into both French and German even though my mother tongue is neither of those, but the language I was translating FROM, not TO. Here goes:

“Located on the western coast of India, Gujarat is a leading industrial state with a unique combination of strategic geographic location, state-of-the-art infrastructure, multilingual workforce and concentration of corporate and financial resources. Its proactive government and business-savvy population make a perfect ground for businesses to flourish. By carefully planning special industrial zones and investment regions, the state has created a much more conducive business and regulatory environment within many areas, including in waste management, biotechnology and local transport system. With Luxembourg’s strong foothold in these sectors, the delegation’s meetings will provide an excellent foundation for building partnerships that will invigorate the economies of both regions.”

My translation of it into French:

“Situé à la côté occidentale de l’Inde, le Gujerat est un état industriel prominent qui dispose d’une combination unique : sa position stratégique géographique ; son infrastructure d’état de l’art ; son effectif plurilingue ; et sa concentration de ressources incorporées et financielles. Avec son gouvernement proactif et sa population entrepreneuse, il constitue une zone parfaite en ce qui concerne l’épanouissement d’entreprises. Parmi le planning prudent de particulières zones industrielles et de régions d’investissement, cet état a crée un environnement qui est beaucoup plus conducif pour l’entreprise et la régulation en beaucoup de domaines ; ce qui inclue le traitement de déchets, la biotechnologie et le système de transport local. Étant donné la progression forte du Luxembourg en ces secteurs, les rendez-vous des délégations constitueront une fondation excellente pour la formation d’associations qui revigoreront les économies des deux régions.”

My translation of it into German:

“Gudscharat, auf der westlichen Küste Indiens, ist ein führender industrieller Staat mit einer einzigartigen Kombination von seiner strategischen geographischen Lage, seiner Infrastruktur auf dem neuesten Stand der Technik, seiner mehrsprachigen Arbeitskräfte und seiner Konzentration von körperschaftlichen und finanziellen Ressourcen. Mit der proaktiven Regierung und der untermenbewussten Bevölkerung ist es einer perfekter Ort für Unternehmenwachsen. Mit der vorsichtigen Planung von speziellen industriellen Zonen und Investitionsregionen hat der Staat eine viel Geschäfts-und-Regulation-freundlichere Umgebung geschafft und zwar in vielen Bereichen z.B. Abfallentsorgung, Biotechnologie und das lokale Transportsystem. Dank dem guten Halt von Luxembourg in diesen Bereichen werden die Meetings der Delegation ein exzellentes Fundament sein für das Bauen von Partnerschaften die die Wirtschaften der beiden Regionen erkräftigen werden.”

The original sample from the second English text was taken from a document of LED instructions, and I only translated this into French:

“Each control gear in your installation can be controlled entirely individually. It is also possible to control the two outputs of the control gear separately.”

My translation of it into French:

“Chaque unité de contrôle en votre installation peut être commandée entièrement individuellement. Il est aussi possible de contrôler les deux sorties de l‘outil de commande séparément.”

Finally, the original sample from the third English text, translated into German (again, if it looks a little “off”, bear in mind that my client for this one was based in Lithuania, so it was probably a Lithuanian who wrote it):

“UAB Jutrix specializes in the production of high-quality stamped, bended and deep drawn parts. Main production process is advanced coil stamping. At your services more than 40 years of experience in stamping, professional approach to the work, qualified people and advanced technologies.”

My translation of it into German:

“UAB Jutrix spezialisiert auf die Herstellung von qualitativ hochwertigen Stanz-, Biege- und Tiefziehteile. Unserer Hauptproduktionrahmen ist fortgeschrittenes Spulestempeln. Wir besitzen mehr als 40 Jahren Erfahrung in Stempelarbeit und zeigen Professionalität bei der Arbeit, mit qualifizierten Personen unf fortgeschrittene Technologien.”

This comment ends with something rather more appealing. I haven’t forgotten the time this translation agency in France asked me to provide a translation of this French song into English. This is the original French text of the song:

“Il est pour chacun d’entre nous
Au moins une femme dans l’univers
Que l’on épouserait sur un coup
Comme on fait tapis au poker
La mienne est venue au Texas
Le jour de ma fête, sur la Terre
A Katy, en cet an de grâce
L’année où l’on s’aime à l’envers
Il y aura une jolie lumière, il y aura du bruit dans la cour
Elle fermera les paupières et nous irons faire un tour
Et si l’on roule assez longtemps
Pour ne plus penser aux détours
Que l’on a suivis trop longtemps
Pour ne pas se rencontrer
Ceux qui emportent nos mémoires
Et nos corps trop lourds
Ceux dont nous étions les moins fiers
Nous seront aveugles et sourds.
J’ai beau tourner dans l’espace
Je retombe toujours sur la Terre
A tous les coups je me perds,
C’est toi qui me serres et nos pieds sur la Terre
Dansent en attendant sous la pluie
Que les Indiens reviennent vivre sur la prairie
Que les esclaves puissent
Rendre leurs chaînes.
Jusqu’à Tucson la route est droite
Je ne lâcherai pas ta main
Jusqu’à Vegas tu fermes les yeux
C’est peut-être là qu’on s’embrasse
A ton doigt je glisse une alliance
Qui est dans ma poche depuis toujours
C’est un sosie d’Elvis qui nous unit
Que sait-il de l’amour ?
La route est longue allons-nous en
Je l’ai faite il y a si longtemps
Depuis des siècles je t’attends
Allons dormir sur Hollywood.”

I really enjoyed this project because I couldn’t wait for a chance to attempt a rhyming translation of it, like My Most Audacious Marketing Move IV (earlier ones: nr. 1 see comment dated 3rd October 2011; nr. 2 see comment dated 25th June 2014; nr. 3 see comment dated 26th June 2014). I wasn’t specifically asked for this and it wasn’t necessary but I got a kick out of it – but at that stage I thought it was likely that the project manager would want to come back to me with points about it anyway. I was originally inclined to translate this song something like this:

“For every man’s a woman who
Is like a poker wallflower
He’ll hold her as a jewel true;
He’d very quickly marry her
In Katy, Texas, along comes mine
We’ll meet again on Saints’ Day
This fateful year is ‘69
And we will show our love that way
There will be a happy light, there’ll be a serenade in the yard
And we’ll close our eyes and start a journey where we’ll never part
And if we drive on long enough
To forget about the detours
That we have followed long enough
In order that we won’t meet
Those who’ve stolen our ever-cherished memories
And ever-hungry hearts
The ones we were so far from proud of
We will be lost in the dark.
I keep spinning in space
And I always land on Earth
Every time I lose myself,
You hold me and our feet stay on this Earth
We dance as we wait in the rain
For the Indians to settle in this prairie again
For those tormented slaves
To break free from their chains.
Up to Tuscon the road is straight
I’ll hold your hand as we do this
And in Vegas you close your eyes
Maybe here is where we’ll kiss
I’ve kept a gift for you in my pocket for so long
I’ve been waiting to give you a turtle dove
The Elvis impersonator who united us,
What does he know of love?
To me, this road is nothing new
It’s still so long – let’s continue
It’s centuries I’ve waited for you
Let’s go and sleep at Hollywood.”

Sadly, I don’t have the text of my very first attempt at translating this song any more, but I do remember being told that I had failed to understand the saucy sexual innuendo of “L’année où l’on s’aime à l’envers”. As “à l’envers” usually means “upside down” or “backwards” (or something like that, depending on the context) I must have originally translated that as something like, “We will love each other just like old times”. But no, apparently, according to my project manager (who was a man, by the way), this was an oblique reference to the sexual position which I will strictly do no more than mention the name of here: the 69. And that’s why I settled on writing “This fateful year is ’69 // And we will show our love that way.”

But that didn’t stop him from asking for a “more literal” (i.e. a non-rhyming) translation later on afterwards. I found that a bit sad personally but I wrote one (at no extra cost); this is also supplied here, and feel free to compare that with my original rhyming translation (with the original French version on hand, of course):

“For each one of us there’s at least
One woman in the universe
That we would marry straight away
A real poker wallflower
Mine has arrived in Katy, Texas
On the day that is Saints Day
This fateful year is ’69, and our love
Will indeed be shown in a new way
There will be a nice light, and noise in the yard
She will close our eyes as we ride together
And if we drive on long enough
And forget about the red herrings
Which we have been following for too long
And thus avoid meeting
Those who’ve stolen our ever-cherished memories
As we feel so heavy inside
The ones we were the last to be proud of
We will be blind and deaf.
I’m spinning in space
And I always land on Earth
Every time I lose myself,
You hold me and our feet stay on this Earth
We dance as we wait in the rain
For the Indians to settle in this prairie again
We wait for the slaves
To break free from their chains.
The road is straight on up to Tucson
I won’t let you go
Up to Vegas, you close your eyes
Maybe here is where we’ll kiss
I slide on your finger something that will keep us together
Which has been in my pocket for so long
The Elvis impersonator who united us,
What does he know of love?
The road is long, so let’s continue
I have been doing it for so long
It’s centuries I’ve waited for you
Let’s go and sleep at Hollywood.”