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Which "variant", if any, of your native language do you speak?
Thread poster: Henry Dotterer
Strastran (X)
Strastran (X)
France
Local time: 09:42
French to English
+ ...
On thin ice.. Nov 2, 2012

Sheila Wilson wrote:

Henry Dotterer wrote:

Helena Chavarria wrote:

I am British and I would find it impossible to translate into US English. I know the odd word/difference: garbage - rubbish; subway - underground/tube; gotten - got; cool - great, ize- ise, etc. but I'm afraid that's as far as I can go.

When asked, I happily translate into my acquired language, Spanish, but I would never translate into US English.

Interesting, Helena, thank you for sharing your somewhat unique circumstance.

I don't translate into French as I only started living there at the age of 40 (after lifelong study), but I can see why others might translate into their 'foreign' language if they've been living it for many years.

But how many Brits are there who've never lived in America, and vice-versa? Millions? I've never formally studied American; I've never been to America - how could I truthfully say that I can translate into it? Is that somewhat unique?

I do sometimes proofread English that the client says is simply "English". If it turns out to be in American English, then I tell the client that I can't be absolutely sure to leave it 100% American, but I do try not to change US into UK forms. How could I be absolutely sure when, only 15 years ago as an EFL teacher (before becoming a translator), I was correcting my students who wrote "specialty" in their CVs (sorry, they'd be resumes)?


I have translated into US English, but only when cajoled with the promise of huge TMs and glossaries. There are so many more terms than is generally known that aren't shared with the UK. For example, it was only on a recent trip to New York that I discovered Americans do not use the words 'currant' or 'sultana'. When I asked if there were any in a cake (I can't stand the things), the poor girl in the cake shop had no idea what I was talking about. It was only when I said 'raisins' that I was understood (though I don't think my Mancunian twang helped either).


 
Helena Chavarria
Helena Chavarria  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 09:42
Member (2011)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Absolutely Nov 2, 2012

Patrick Stenson wrote:

I have translated into US English, but only when cajoled with the promise of huge TMs and glossaries. There are so many more terms than is generally known that aren't shared with the UK. For example, it was only on a recent trip to New York that I discovered Americans do not use the words 'currant' or 'sultana'. When I asked if there were any in a cake (I can't stand the things), the poor girl in the cake shop had no idea what I was talking about. It was only when I said 'raisins' that I was understood (though I don't think my Mancunian twang helped either).


I think it's my sister's who's made me wary. She's been to the US on a number of occasions and she told me that they just don't understand British English.

On the other hand, I suppose people who communicate in British English understand US English perfectly well because of films (movies), music and TV serials.


 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 04:42
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Let's dispense with the topfen, please Nov 2, 2012

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Siegfried Armbruster wrote:
Just for everybodies info:

Der Topfen (österreichisch umgangssprachlich abwertend) Unsinn

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Topfen

http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Topfen

These references clearly say "one of the meanings of topfen in Austria is "nonsense".

Characteristic uses
Topfen reden, Topfen verzapfen -> talking nonsense.


Yes, Topfen verzapfen or Topfen zusammenreden yes, slangy, maybe, although I never used "Topfen reden"; maybe "einen Topfen zusammen reden", yes that I have heard. But check your Ghits.

But "Das ist Topfen" is not used at all.
"Topfen" by itself is not used to say "nonsense", never mind wiktionary or the Duden.

You need to combine the right words for it to mean "nonsense".

http://www.cosmiq.de/qa/show/3334899/Was-fuer-ein-Quark-Wie-sagt-das-der-gemeine-Oesterreicher/

Bernhard

Please refrain from replying, Siegfried, if you will be so kind.


 
Siegfried Armbruster
Siegfried Armbruster  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 09:42
English to German
+ ...
In memoriam
Ok, back to the topic. Nov 3, 2012

For German, we have the following situation:
German is one of the official languages in:

  • Germany
  • Switzerland
  • Austria
  • Lichtenstein
  • Luxemburg
  • Belgium
  • Italy (South Tyrol)
  • Slovakia (Krahule)

German a
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For German, we have the following situation:
German is one of the official languages in:

  • Germany
  • Switzerland
  • Austria
  • Lichtenstein
  • Luxemburg
  • Belgium
  • Italy (South Tyrol)
  • Slovakia (Krahule)

German also has an official status in:

  • France (Alsace, Moselle)
  • Republic of Namibia
  • Poland
  • Denmark
  • Vatican City (Swiss Guards)

German is officially recognized as minority language in:

  • Italy
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Czech Republic
  • Hungary


It is easy to imagine, that a lot of people will claim that their language (variant) is native German, but it is also easy to recognize, that given the cultural differences and other aspects we are talking about extremely different variants of German.
Statements such as every native speaker can easily recognize any other German native speaker are in my opinion not really helpful. I just don't believe that a native speaker of the German that is spoken in Kazakhstan is speaking the same German as a German native speaker from Namibia (or Germany) or will even recognize the respective person as being a native speaker.

As outsourcer, we need information if a translator can translate into the target variant (of German). Sure, it helps to have some info on the linguistic background of the translator, but all we want to know is, can he/she handle a translation into e.g. German for Germany/German for Switzerland/German for Austria and so on.

This can be a diffcult task for any language pair, and we try to collect (and verify) any information we get from our translators (or about our translators) from various sources. PROZ still is a very usefull source and we are looking forward to see features that will allow us to improve the "hit" rate when searching for translators for specific jobs.

Another area of improvement could be the list of specialties and subspecialties which would benefit from a more hierarchical and detailed structure.

Just try to find a specialist translator from German (Germany) to French (Switzerland) with the specialty "ophtalmology". These are the kind of queries/searches we have to handle regularly and up to now PROZ can't really handle them.
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Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 04:42
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TOPIC STARTER
Thanks, Siegfried Nov 3, 2012

Siegfried Armbruster wrote:
As outsourcer, we need information if a translator can translate into the target variant (of German). Sure, it helps to have some info on the linguistic background of the translator, but all we want to know is, can he/she handle a translation into e.g. German for Germany/German for Switzerland/German for Austria and so on.

This can be a diffcult task for any language pair, and we try to collect (and verify) any information we get from our translators (or about our translators) from various sources. PROZ still is a very usefull source and we are looking forward to see features that will allow us to improve the "hit" rate when searching for translators for specific jobs.

Another area of improvement could be the list of specialties and subspecialties which would benefit from a more hierarchical and detailed structure.

Just try to find a specialist translator from German (Germany) to French (Switzerland) with the specialty "ophtalmology". These are the kind of queries/searches we have to handle regularly and up to now PROZ can't really handle them.

Thank you, Siegfried. It is helpful to have you sharing the outsourcer perspective here.


 
Alexander C. Thomson
Alexander C. Thomson  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:42
Dutch to English
+ ...
There are different categories of language variants (e.g. of German) Nov 3, 2012

Siegfried Armbruster wrote:

… Statements such as every native speaker can easily recognize any other German native speaker are in my opinion not really helpful. I just don't believe that a native speaker of the German that is spoken in Kazakhstan is speaking the same German as a German native speaker from Namibia (or Germany) or will even recognize the respective person as being a native speaker. …


— But that’s a separate issue, surely, Siegfried. Again, the convolutedness of this issue comes to the fore. The German of Namibia is Hochdeutsch-based and formed part of a state-sponsored colonial project. The German of the Volga and Central Asia (and of Manitoba, Chiapas, Bolivia etc.) is Plattdeutsch and was very largely the result of a decision by the Mennonites to take up foreign governments’ invitations to live as communities there speaking/trading in Plattdeutsch and teaching/worshipping in Hochdeutsch. So we’re not comparing like with like there. A Kazakh/Kyrgyz German or a Deutschbrasilianer would be very conscious of this when offering (particularly written) language services at professional level, and would use standard German. This would be less of an issue for a Namibian German, given the different dynamics and arrival era of German in that country.

Henry has pointed out that even some of the major world languages on my proposed ‘counterproductive’ list, such as Japanese, do see the factor of language variants come into play when we are considering spoken forms and colloquialisms — often of relevance to ProZ job matching for marketing text, voiceover or interpreting jobs. The same would be true of others on that list, such as Italian, but for (e.g.) Russian it would be inapplicable even in that case.

The basic overarching issue with language variants, and how critical they are to comprehension and translation, has to do with what relationship the colonists felt they had with the mother country. In some cases, the colonists stuck deliberately close to metropolitan educational standards during the formative centuries of their language variant; in others, they deliberately forged/resurrected their own variant; in others still, the community let matters play their own course and were comfortable with a diglossia (or triglossia if the host nation’s language remained a factor, such as with the Mennonite Germans in Asia and the Americas, or the Japanese in the Americas).


 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:42
Spanish to English
+ ...
Agree that posting variants can be unnecessarily limiting Nov 3, 2012

Siegfried Armbruster wrote:

[Your solution will now allow me what - to specify my native language variant - this is clearly German for Germany (according to my specification of native language) - nothing else

Your solution will not allow me to express my ability to translate into German for Switzerland nor German for Belgium and it will only allow me to specify 2 language variants anyway. Therefore I consider this whole idea as being no improvement. And I still believe that if you've grown up in "X-land" for the first 20+ years it does not matter that your family was English and it does not matter that you attended international or English schools in X-Land, you still missed all the cultural influence of your "British peers" living in England and your English will differ from the English they speak. And if you left Y-land 20 years ago, there is a high risk that you lost some of your ability to express yourself the same way as those do who stayed in Y-Land.


In my case, I am only "native" in US English, but I know enough about the spelling and usage differences between US and UK English to take on certain jobs directed to the UK market (again, only "certain jobs"). I would therefore not want to give the impression that I would "never" be capable of doing "any" translation" directed at an audience of English speakers outside of the US.


 
Alexander C. Thomson
Alexander C. Thomson  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:42
Dutch to English
+ ...
Need for variants varies per job category, too Nov 5, 2012

Robert Forstag wrote:

In my case, I am only "native" in US English, but I know enough about the spelling and usage differences between US and UK English to take on certain jobs directed to the UK market (again, only "certain jobs"). I would therefore not want to give the impression that I would "never" be capable of doing "any" translation" directed at an audience of English speakers outside of the US.


— Exactly. If we just concern ourselves with English for a moment, I think most of the U.S. and British English translators on ProZ would say that they could comfortably manage the other variant for certain fields with some intelligent dictionary checks (e.g. most kinds of literature and scientific research); some would have the confidence, through experience and resources, to tackle fields where there is moderate differentiation (e.g. culinary; most kinds of ads/PR); and few would be properly confident about certain fields that have developed independently of each other (e.g. automotive and other modes of transport; political; screenplay).


 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 04:42
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TOPIC STARTER
Any feedback on the following? Nov 6, 2012

We are now at a point where, looking at what people entered and doing some research, we will begin to "formalize" some variants by making them available in drop-down menus.

In connection with that, I would be interested to get your reactions to any of the following categories you are familiar with (each of which was entered by multiple people):

- "Castilian" Spanish
- "European" Spanish
- "Latin American" Spanish
- "Istanbul" Turkish


 
XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:42
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Spanish Nov 6, 2012

Henry Dotterer wrote:

In connection with that, I would be interested to get your reactions to any of the following categories you are familiar with (each of which was entered by multiple people):

- "Castillian" Spanish
- "European" Spanish
- "Latin American" Spanish
- "Istanbul" Turkish


"Castilian" Spanish is the language called "Spanish" that a foreigner would learn. The language that is the lingua franca in Spain, but that is one of a few other official languages, the others being Catalan, Basque and Galician (possible Valencian too?). None of those languages are "Spanish". They are completely separate languages, i.e. you wouldn't say "Catalan" Spanish, "Basque" Spanish etc. "European" Spanish I suppose would have been used simply to differentiate between the language spoken in Spain and any other country that has Spanish as an official language. "Latin American" Spanish strikes me as an over-generalisation.

Edited for typo.

[Edited at 2012-11-07 08:35 GMT]


 
Alexander C. Thomson
Alexander C. Thomson  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:42
Dutch to English
+ ...
What are the other options being offered for Turkish? Nov 6, 2012

In the case of Turkish, were there any other variants besides İstanbul that more than one person entered? I’m not aware of any widely-agreed classification of types of Turkish that canonizes İstanbul Turkish as a variant, except on the consideration that it is the largest Turkish-speaking metropolis.

For Castilian (please note: not double ‘l’ in English), as far as I’m aware, the usage (at least in Spanish) is that ‘el castellano’ is used as the noun in its own right w
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In the case of Turkish, were there any other variants besides İstanbul that more than one person entered? I’m not aware of any widely-agreed classification of types of Turkish that canonizes İstanbul Turkish as a variant, except on the consideration that it is the largest Turkish-speaking metropolis.

For Castilian (please note: not double ‘l’ in English), as far as I’m aware, the usage (at least in Spanish) is that ‘el castellano’ is used as the noun in its own right when the language (variant) is given that label; it’s not used in collocation with ‘español’.

This is going to be a pitfall, by the way, with other proposed names of language variants that you’ve collated from the survey: some of the variant names that people have entered are not used in collocation with the language name (or at least not in the native name or not in English) but only as an alternative to the language name. That will need some ironing out.
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XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:42
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Castellano (Castilian) Nov 6, 2012

To confuse matters still further, many Latin American countries refer to their language as "castellano", although it is not the same language as the "castellano" spoken in Spain.

 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 04:42
SITE FOUNDER
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the correction Nov 6, 2012

Alexander C. Thomson wrote:
(please note: not double ‘l’ in English)

Thank you!


 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 04:42
SITE FOUNDER
TOPIC STARTER
Regarding Istanbul Turkish Nov 6, 2012

Alexander C. Thomson wrote:

In the case of Turkish, were there any other variants besides İstanbul that more than one person entered? I’m not aware of any widely-agreed classification of types of Turkish that canonizes İstanbul Turkish as a variant, except on the consideration that it is the largest Turkish-speaking metropolis.

Well, in addition to the ProZ.com users who saw fit to use that description, Wikipedia says "Turkish, also referred to as Istanbul Turkish or Anatolian Turkish, is the most populous of the Turkic languages..."


 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 04:42
SITE FOUNDER
TOPIC STARTER
Latin American Spanish? Nov 6, 2012

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
"Latin American" Spanish strikes me as an over-generalisation.

Thanks, Lisa. I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions on this one. It is not uncommon for clients to ask for, and translators to offer, "Latin American Spanish".


 
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