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Which "variant", if any, of your native language do you speak?
Thread poster: Henry Dotterer
Trisha F
Trisha F  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:20
English to Spanish
+ ...
Yorkshire! Feb 19, 2013

Steve Kerry wrote:

I also speak Yorkshire, both South and North. Nathen, sithee, etc.. sadly, not much call for it in commerce!

Steve K.


No, but it sounds "luvely" anyway. It is nicer to go down a "snicket" than an alleyway and I love it when Yorkshire men call me "flower". It's not meant to be a compliment or anything because any random woman can be a flower obviously. I still smile though. God, I wish I were sipping a cup of tea somewhere in Whitby.


 
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 13:20
English to Polish
+ ...
See below Jun 5, 2013

I speak 'good Polish without the stick', a particularly rare variant.

 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 17:50
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER
UK English is a subset of British English Jun 6, 2013

Sean McDonald wrote:

As we are going over the data that is coming in, we have seen a distinct pattern when it comes to English variants. There are a large portion of people entering in "British" but there is also a significant number of people entering in "UK"

I can see a very strong argument for keeping these variants separated but that does not mean there is not a strong argument for combining them.

I was hoping to get some opinions on this matter as we continue to refine the system.


The English used in India follows the same spelling and grammar rules as British English (for example we don't use color, program, etc. but colour, programme, etc). It is sometimes categorised as Indian English, but in essence it is British English.

So to distinguish the British English used in places like India (and other former colonial areas like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc.) from the British English used in UK, we should keep these two categories.

The advantage would be if a client wants a translator tuned to the cultural aspects of UK English, he can opt for a UK English translator, but if he wants a more general translator, he should use British English. Similarly, if the requirement is specific to the English speaking people of India, Indian English can be specified, but if a general English would serve as well, then he should use British English for the Indian market. Further, for reaching out to the English speakers in India through a general form of English, American English or UK English won't be so appropriate, British or Indian English would be better.


 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 17:50
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER
I don't think UK English and British English are synonymous Jun 6, 2013

Alexander C. Thomson wrote:

Just to point out I'm not trying to argue against the use of 'British English', synonymous with 'UK English'. It is such a well-established term (thanks especially to the traction of some prominent educational and broadcasting bodies that have consistently used it) that it will win out in practice anyway.


The English used in India is largely British English, but it is not UK English (in the sense the cultural nuances specific to UK would be absent in the English used in India, but at a grammatical and vocabulary level, it is closer to British English than American English.)

So, British English and UK English are not coterminous concepts. UK English is a subset of the much larger set of British English which is used in the former British colonies. UK English is restricted to UK.


 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 17:50
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER
How relevant is this in the age of MT? Jun 6, 2013

I have read through the thread and fail to see how this will help us translators. Most of us, irrespective of the dialects we may speak at home, write and translate in the standard version of our target language which is the same across the dialects of our language.

The dialects of my main language Hindi are many, but the written form of Hindi across India for formal purposes is standard Hindi. You can pick up a Hindi newspaper from any part of the Hindi speaking area in India and s
... See more
I have read through the thread and fail to see how this will help us translators. Most of us, irrespective of the dialects we may speak at home, write and translate in the standard version of our target language which is the same across the dialects of our language.

The dialects of my main language Hindi are many, but the written form of Hindi across India for formal purposes is standard Hindi. You can pick up a Hindi newspaper from any part of the Hindi speaking area in India and see that is the same language - standard Hindi.

Artificially splitting up languages into dialects for pedantic purposes will only fragment our markets and confuse our clients who in any case have a very poor understanding of the dynamics of language.

Further, in these technological times when MT is emerging as a major threat to language professionals, both translators and agencies, discussions on dialects is all the more pointless.

MT engines work with the standard versions of languages. Even that they are having a hard time to handle. If you bring in the complexities of dialects, MT will never take off, not in a century.

What would you say is the nativeness of an English text churned out by an MT engine based on general semantic rules of English?

Not only does MT technology makes the whole notion of the importance of native language in translation an anachronism, it militates even more strongly with the idea of breaking down languages to the level of dialects.
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Ty Kendall
Ty Kendall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:20
Hebrew to English
An "interesting" theory Bala Jun 6, 2013

The differences between Indian English and British/UK English are not slight. I don't think you can, in all honesty, attempt to claim that Indian English is akin to British English.

They're very different beasts. And any client asking for "British English" and getting "Indian English" wouldn't be happy. Case in point, see [sic] in below quote.

Not only does MT technology makes [sic] the whole notion of the importance of native language in translation an anachronism


I'm not sure how you make that leap?


 
Paulo Caldeira
Paulo Caldeira  Identity Verified
Portugal
English to Portuguese
+ ...
This could be a good tool if Brazilians reports only their own variant. Jul 7, 2016

Mark Thompson wrote:

I like this tool and think it might be helpful for those specifically seeking British English or Canadian English translators/interpreters, for example.

In my case, I translate into British, US, Canadian and Australian variants according to target reader, and I feel that specifying my own personal variant on my profile may restrict that as I'll be filtered out of job offers that are not into British English.


I have noticed that several Brazilian Natives do not report Brazilian as their native language, but Portuguese Universal (wich is Portuguese from Portugal according the ortographic agreement not respected in Brazil).
That is why I don't believe the graphic is truly accurated.

For instance, Portuguese from Angola, Cabo Verde and Mozambique is the Portuguese-Portugal variant, even they have local dialetcs, but I have received the note this week that Brazilian Translatores are inducing Outsourcers in error.

[Editado em 2016-07-07 07:37 GMT]


 
Paulo Caldeira
Paulo Caldeira  Identity Verified
Portugal
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Totally Agree! Jul 7, 2016

Graça Ribeiro wrote:

Hello, everyone.

My native language is Portuguese and the 'variant' is European.

I understand people with a more 'varied' background - linguistic, professional and personal - may have difficulties in giving such a straightforward reply to the question that's the title of this topic. I probably would have a similar problem if I had to define the English and French 'variants' I can translate from, for example.

But for me, depending on how the actual thing will work, this could be very useful indeed. I would like to see European Portuguese translators somehow 'separated' from the Brazilian Portuguese translators on the PROZ site. I think this would be useful for both translators and clients without compromising any sense of community.

I don't know if all my colleagues would agree and it was my intention to open a discussion topic on the relevant forum to try and sort that out. But since this opportunity has arisen, I'm taking a 'shortcut' - hoping it doesn't somehow turn into any kind of hornest's nest.

Having the language variant (EU or BR) specified on job offers, for example, has made my life much easier so I would like to see if similar improvements could be made at other levels. I agree this may not be so easy with other languages but even so it may be worth trying.

Sorry for the long thread. Any feedback or comments are welcome.



THE REAL TRUE OF A PORTUGUESE FROM PORTUGAL LIFE
I think it is time to the portuguese politicians/authorities go straight ahead on this point.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:20
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Confusing Jul 7, 2016

Confusing: the two options "UK English" and "British English" are the same thing, despite what Mr. Balasubramaniam says. English is also spoken in many other places but those are the local variants, such as "West Indies English", "New Zealand English", "Indian Subcontinent English", "US English", etc.

[Edited at 2016-07-07 08:05 GMT]


 
Jennifer Forbes
Jennifer Forbes  Identity Verified
Local time: 12:20
French to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Variant? Jul 7, 2016

I know Bala will hate this comment but - can the English of England be called a "variant"? However ghastly the British may have been as the one time colonial "masters" of India, surely it's the many other forms of English which are its "variants"?

 
Paulo Caldeira
Paulo Caldeira  Identity Verified
Portugal
English to Portuguese
+ ...
It would a Good Idea to check Brazilian for this tool Jul 19, 2016

Mark Thompson wrote:

I like this tool and think it might be helpful for those specifically seeking British English or Canadian English translators/interpreters, for example.

In my case, I translate into British, US, Canadian and Australian variants according to target reader, and I feel that specifying my own personal variant on my profile may restrict that as I'll be filtered out of job offers that are not into British English.


This now "tool" needs previous work.
Ask to Brazilian translators to show their real "Brazilian Variant" on their profile.
Most of them are not doing that and jobs for Portuguese are being delivered to those who don't know how Portuguese language (in Portugal and Angola, for instance) real works.

Since I have become a paying member, I already detected several profiles with wrong (intentionally) informations about the variant.


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:20
English to German
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Why would I want to restrict myself to a variant Jul 19, 2016

Why would I want to restrict myself to a variant of German when I have worked into and from ALL of them?

So that the prospective client will say - hmm wrong variant, that guy doesn't speak or write it??!!!

Variant really doesn't matter much in most cases for German (and often even for English) with regard to translating. We're talking about the written word. I accept and reject translation work into AND from German/English on a project-to-project basis and do not want
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Why would I want to restrict myself to a variant of German when I have worked into and from ALL of them?

So that the prospective client will say - hmm wrong variant, that guy doesn't speak or write it??!!!

Variant really doesn't matter much in most cases for German (and often even for English) with regard to translating. We're talking about the written word. I accept and reject translation work into AND from German/English on a project-to-project basis and do not want a prospective client doing that based on restrictive "source language variant" information. The variant label seems to suggest that this is the only language version you can be trusted in.


So if anything, we should be able to select as many variants as we want - can we?
But I'm quite comfortable without the variant label.

And how are these variant labels applied? Or what keeps a prospective client from deciding to get the translator that only specified one variant - because "that person must be definitely better than someone who claims to have experience in various variants"?! Or, as I said before, decides that a person with one specific variant "certainly admits that he/she can't possibly translate into another."


PS: Besides, our work involves source and target language, experience, times spent in source and target cultures, education, etc. It's not just about where we first learned our native language.

If somebody wants to limit themselves or feels it's the honest thing to do, go ahead. But don't expect/ask me to do it.



[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:45 GMT]
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Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:20
English to German
+ ...
I reject job-restrictive variant specifications Jul 19, 2016

paulocaldeira wrote:

...

This now "tool" needs previous work.
Ask to Brazilian translators to show their real "Brazilian Variant" on their profile.
Most of them are not doing that and jobs for Portuguese are being delivered to those who don't know how Portuguese language (in Portugal and Angola, for instance) real works.

Since I have become a paying member, I already detected several profiles with wrong (intentionally) informations about the variant.


You can't demand from translators that they specify a certain variant because it's supposedly so obvious what that variant (if any) is. The way we translators learned and use our languages and our craft can differ greatly from one translator to the next. I would never stand for such arbitrary and (very likely) job-restrictive specifications.

[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:12 GMT]

[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:12 GMT]


 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:20
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
Depends on language Jul 20, 2016

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

paulocaldeira wrote:

...

This now "tool" needs previous work.
Ask to Brazilian translators to show their real "Brazilian Variant" on their profile.
Most of them are not doing that and jobs for Portuguese are being delivered to those who don't know how Portuguese language (in Portugal and Angola, for instance) real works.

Since I have become a paying member, I already detected several profiles with wrong (intentionally) informations about the variant.


You can't demand from translators that they specify a certain variant because it's supposedly so obvious what that variant (if any) is. The way we translators learned and use our languages and our craft can differ greatly from one translator to the next. I would never stand for such arbitrary and (very likely) job-restrictive specifications.

[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:12 GMT]

[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:12 GMT]


You may feel that you can translate into any variant of German or English, but the situation is very different for translation into Portuguese due to the considerable differences between the two varieties.


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:20
English to German
+ ...
Up to the individual IMO Jul 20, 2016

Michele Fauble wrote:

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

paulocaldeira wrote:

...

This now "tool" needs previous work.
Ask to Brazilian translators to show their real "Brazilian Variant" on their profile.
Most of them are not doing that and jobs for Portuguese are being delivered to those who don't know how Portuguese language (in Portugal and Angola, for instance) real works.

Since I have become a paying member, I already detected several profiles with wrong (intentionally) informations about the variant.


You can't demand from translators that they specify a certain variant because it's supposedly so obvious what that variant (if any) is. The way we translators learned and use our languages and our craft can differ greatly from one translator to the next. I would never stand for such arbitrary and (very likely) job-restrictive specifications.

[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:12 GMT]

[Edited at 2016-07-19 22:12 GMT]


You may feel that you can translate into any variant of German or English, but the situation is very different for translation into Portuguese due to the considerable differences between the two varieties.


I don't speak Portuguese but I would think it's always up to the individual what they feel comfortable to take on. There are probably many translators that might not want to be defined as "variant Portugal Portuguese" and miss out on jobs. If these two variants are so different, maybe they should be categorized as two separate languages. But as far as I know, they're not.


 
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