| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | From marvellous to awesome: how spoken British English has changed
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| | | Slightly off-topic | Aug 31, 2014 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
All these expatriates should perhaps stop translating into English as they seem to have lost touch with their language, and leave the business to those residing in their 'old' country.
I find it very interesting that many of you here were quite categorical in another (actually several other) thread that however long you stay out of the country of your origin, your language remains unaffected, and you have an edge over non-natives translating into your language.
What happened to that line of thought?
It only goes to highlight that whole native-only ploy is just to keep off competition.
I remember discussing this subject with a Catalan-Spanish-English trilingual acquaintance of mine and we came to the conclusion that we hadn't forgotten our English but we sometimes needed a moment to find the words we wanted to say.
Whenever we hear or read a word we immediately recognise it and know what it means but some words and expressions are not always on the tip of our tongue, although we know they exist.
I'm sure that most expatriates are aware of the importance of keeping their native language(s) up to scratch and make their best efforts to practise as much as possible, even if it means talking to themselves!
I speak English more slowly than Spanish or Catalan but I don't think it's because I've forgotten how to speak my native language. The reason is because I often speak English to non-native speakers, as well as the fact I went to stage school where I was taught to enunciate when I spoke. I had to do tongue exercises and practise reciting all the consonants in the alphabet in the following way: bə bə bə bar, bə bə bə bi:, bə bə bə bar, bə bə bə bi:; kə kə kə kar, kə kə kə ki:... (try it doing it quickly with all the consonants, it's not easy ).
Maybe we sound quaint because we choose our words and don't speak as fast as a lot of people do nowadays, but at least you can understand us!
As for 'awesome' vs. 'marvellous', in the 60s, I can remember my parents complaining that that everyone was shortening words; my mother used to get particularly annoyed when she used to hear my friends calling me Hel! My generation used words like 'bril' and 'fab', now people use 'awesome' and 'cool'. Who knows what will be popular in 20 years' time...
| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 23:07
French to English
| Bala's back! | Aug 31, 2014 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
All these expatriates should perhaps stop translating into English as they seem to have lost touch with their language, and leave the business to those residing in their 'old' country.
I find it very interesting that many of you here were quite categorical in another (actually several other) thread that however long you stay out of the country of your origin, your language remains unaffected, and you have an edge over non-natives translating into your language.
What happened to that line of thought?
It only goes to highlight that whole native-only ploy is just to keep off competition.
I don't know that my clients would find my translations all that awesome if I made a presentation of an art exhibition or the description of a tourist destination, the sales pitch for a line of luxury cosmetics or the press release for the latest in ultimate sportswear sound like a tween writing an SMS.
Of course language changes and we do have to make efforts to keep up, however I would like also to point out that speech changes far more quickly than the written language.
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 23:07
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
| Conspiracy theory again? Really? | Sep 1, 2014 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I find it very interesting that many of you here were quite categorical in another (actually several other) thread that however long you stay out of the country of your origin, your language remains unaffected, and you have an edge over non-natives translating into your language.
What happened to that line of thought?
a) You seem to be deliberately ignoring the fact that this thread (if I've understood correctly) is principally about language change.
What a few translators have bemoaned is that such changes are the result of the ignorant use of certain words by people who in an ideal world would know better.
As Tom says, they have no real understanding of "awe" - not an idle complaint.
Just what did they think George W.'s "Shock and Awe" meant? "Shock and Awesome"?
b) Some translators have mentioned that their oral use of the language can be perceived as "not quite right" by others upon returning home after an extended stay abroad.
Perfectly normal. We're talking about speech.
The fact that they're unable to convincingly deploy last month's crop of the latest buzz words or have to think for a second how to say "berenjena" in English hardly affects their instinctive grasp of the language or their ability to translate financial reports, dental records, Baroque architecture or laser optical machine alignment equipment.
Why would you think that?
Obviously because of the following.
It only goes to highlight that whole native-only ploy is just to keep off competition.
The "whole native-only ploy" which you and a few others bandy about with such abandon is actually common sense. No more, no less.
I'm not saying there aren't non-native speakers on this site whose English would put to shame many common or garden native speakers. You know who you are and hats off.
But translators (by definition) are anything but common or garden.
The insistence on the idea native speakers are "hogging" the language and "defending their turf (sic, from previous threads), especially when that language is English, is becoming a rather tiresome conspiracy theory.
[Edited at 2014-09-01 01:22 GMT]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 02:37
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Speech was touted a reliable test of nativity in a language... | Sep 1, 2014 |
Texte Style wrote:
Of course language changes and we do have to make efforts to keep up, however I would like also to point out that speech changes far more quickly than the written language.
If I remember correctly, one of the tests proposed to confirm one's nativity in a language was one's felicity in speech in that language.
You admit here that expatriates lose some of that felicity, implying they lose some of their grip on their native language. Does not that make them less of a translator in their target language?
And taking the argument one step further, a non-native living in the "old" country, by virtue of his constant contact with that language, and also by virtue of the logic proposed here, would be improving his language abilities (at least in speech, which is a prominent hall mark of nativity, as per the test mentioned above), every minute of his stay in the language region, thus making him a better translator than the native expatriate.
It all again just underscores the absurdity of the premise that only natives should translate into their native language.
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Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 02:37
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | That merely explains it... | Sep 1, 2014 |
Helena Chavarria wrote: I remember discussing this subject with a Catalan-Spanish-English trilingual acquaintance of mine and we came to the conclusion that we hadn't forgotten our English but we sometimes needed a moment to find the words we wanted to say. Whenever we hear or read a word we immediately recognise it and know what it means but some words and expressions are not always on the tip of our tongue, although we know they exist. I'm sure that most expatriates are aware of the importance of keeping their native language(s) up to scratch and make their best efforts to practise as much as possible, even if it means talking to themselves! I speak English more slowly than Spanish or Catalan but I don't think it's because I've forgotten how to speak my native language. The reason is because I often speak English to non-native speakers, as well as the fact I went to stage school where I was taught to enunciate when I spoke. I had to do tongue exercises and practise reciting all the consonants in the alphabet in the following way: bə bə bə bar, bə bə bə bi:, bə bə bə bar, bə bə bə bi:; kə kə kə kar, kə kə kə ki:... (try it doing it quickly with all the consonants, it's not easy ). Maybe we sound quaint because we choose our words and don't speak as fast as a lot of people do nowadays, but at least you can understand us!
Helena, that merely explains how you lose your former rapidity of speech when you place yourself for long periods of time in a region outside the region of your native language.
But it does nothing to attenuate the fact that the linguistic abilities of expatriates definitely get diminished, and they are no longer at par in their linguistic abilities to the native who has all along stayed in his language area.
The question is, is this diminished linguistic ability of the expatriate sufficient for challenging translation tasks; and from which and which translation tasks should expatriates be excluded due to this deficiency just as non-nativism in the target language has been touted as a disqualification for certain types of translation.
[Edited at 2014-09-01 04:14 GMT]
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