| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] | Translating into languages other than Mother tongue Thread poster: Rolf Kern
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:13
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
I would say, the job of translator focuses on both ways. In Belgium too. The result might not be quite as 'English' as the English speakers might wish, but the system facilitates that. You can moan about it all you like, but that fact remains. Misplaced confidence in one's own language skills, then, might not be too uncommon.
I personally have a translator friend, who once asked us for help with a perfectly simple legal text, one sentence. Now, she passed all her exams and things. We now write that kind of text ourselves, but she couldn't even understand it. As far as I know, she rarely reads proper books in English, nor watches the BBC extensively. Not as we do, starved from interesting things as we would otherwise be.
And indeed, the language knowledge and ability of English speakers in general is getting so bad that non-natives will have to be relied on in the future. Even for proofreading you couldn't trust them, as knowledge of languages in general is tied to knowledge of your native one.
I would go with Jose Henrique on this, although that will of course displease many.
Now, if there are weird things like strange speech marks or apostrophes in this post, blame the Czech keyboard. Bl**dy thing.
No disrespect, but (since we're on the subject) the foregoing text is clunky and was very obviously written by someone whose mother tongue is not English.
[Edited at 2013-01-01 21:03 GMT]
| | | | jyuan_us 
United States
Local time: 23:13
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| The whole concept of using native speakers only is more amuzing and recreational | Jan 2, 2013 |
than practical. What are people trying to lead to by repeatedly bringing up the topic?
Whether only native speakers should be used or not should always be left up to the agencies' decision.
Why on earth are we worried about it?
It is rediculous that some of our peers were so enthusiastic, sometimes excited, about the topic in the past 6 months or so.
[Edited at 2013-01-02 08:41 GMT]
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 23:13
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| You may try some day to translate from your mother tongue | Jan 2, 2013 |
Rolf Kern wrote:
- @ Jessica: Yes, it depends in fact along the lines you mentioned.
- @ erfreitag: This important point gets forgotten all the time. It cannot be brought up again and egain enough.
That's my opinion
Rolf
if you do so, you would feel amazed about how well it would goes. Translating into or from your mother tongue? It is not an issue as serious as it seemingly is. No big deal.
I'm on a team that translate from my mother tongue and our clients have all been very happy about our work.
| | | | Kirsten Bodart
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:13
Dutch to English
+ ...
| That's probably the case, yes | Jan 6, 2013 |
Tom in London wrote:
No disrespect, but (since we're on the subject) the foregoing text is clunky and was very obviously written by someone whose mother tongue is not English.
[Edited at 2013-01-01 21:03 GMT]
Well, that's not a secret, is it? As you might know, had you consulted our profile, there are two of us and our native languages are genuine.
In case you doubted, the person who normally writes on these forums is the Dutch native. The UK native has no taste for it.
No offence taken.
(the following paragraph was written by the native speaker:
But really, does it actually matter in the scheme of things? I mean, outside the door I hear the cars passing and planes going overhead... life goes on - live with it - Hakuna Matata - it was New Year's Day and as long as people understand what was written, I don't think any erudite thespianic academic Stephen-Fry-wannabe would really make a big song & dance out of it. Considering we were also on holiday at the time, and a Czech-layout keyboard was being used, I don't think it was a bad effort at all )
Although, I see enough reason in the Kudoz section of this website to argue that pairs of source and target natives in general would be quite a good thing...
[Edited at 2013-01-06 16:58 GMT]
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| native speaker | Jan 31, 2013 |
When we are recruiting subjects for our psycholinguistic experiments, we often restrict subjects to native speakers of English, and sometimes to what we call EFL subjects. In most cases, we ask that subjects are fluent speakers and readers of English. For native speakers, we ask that they learned to speak English fluently before they began school; that is, by around age 5 or 6. For ELF subjects, we ask that they did not speak English fluently until some age, always greater than 5 or 6, but somet... See more When we are recruiting subjects for our psycholinguistic experiments, we often restrict subjects to native speakers of English, and sometimes to what we call EFL subjects. In most cases, we ask that subjects are fluent speakers and readers of English. For native speakers, we ask that they learned to speak English fluently before they began school; that is, by around age 5 or 6. For ELF subjects, we ask that they did not speak English fluently until some age, always greater than 5 or 6, but sometimes we restrict to high school age or above; that is, age 13 or so (adolescence), if we want to make a clear contrast between native and nonnative. The reason for this is that as the brain matures, there are differences in terms of how the knowledge representing linguistic competence is stored. A simplification is that second languages learned in adolescence or later tend to build on top of the native language(s) and are somewhat dependent on them. Languages learned earlier than that tend to be relatively independent. Therefore, if a child learns English from TV and from playing with friends Spanish at home so that he is fluent in both before even starting school, then they will both be native languages in this sense. A second language acquired in early elementary school also tends to be largely independent neurologically, but there is a gradual shift with aging. This often shows up in phonology: an adolescent or adult immigrant may retain an marked accent in spite nearly perfect fluency in the second language, whereas that person's younger sibling may have no noticeable accent.
When it comes to translating into a second language, fluency and expressive skill in the the destination language are of course a prerequisite, along with excellent comprehension of the source language. All things being equal, it seems to me that the job will be less effortful for the true bilingual (i.e., both languages learned before starting school, both used daily in school and adulthood), but all of this is extremely squishy and highly variable from individual to individual. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Radu Stefan (X)
Local time: 06:13
I agree with Jessica Noyes.
When it comes to a technical/scientific translation, you can also choose a non-native speaker with a strong knowledge of the field and of the target language.
When it comes to literary work (novels, short stories, poems, etc.) and pretty much everywhere else where dialogue is involved, you should only choose a native speaker.
Someone was talking about a translator who was a native in Danish and yet did a wonderful translation int... See more I agree with Jessica Noyes.
When it comes to a technical/scientific translation, you can also choose a non-native speaker with a strong knowledge of the field and of the target language.
When it comes to literary work (novels, short stories, poems, etc.) and pretty much everywhere else where dialogue is involved, you should only choose a native speaker.
Someone was talking about a translator who was a native in Danish and yet did a wonderful translation into English?
A reason for this was for sure that Danish and English are part of the same language family. This is another thing to consider.
Many Romanian native-speakers do a great job when it comes to translating into Italian, French, etc. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Tom and Jessica | Feb 10, 2013 |
...have a point.
My two youngest grandchildren, born and bred in France, speak better French than Swedish which is the first language of both parents.
They switch from one language to the other without any problem.
If they become translators, and assuming they have sufficient knowledge of the subject concerned, which language will they naturally translate into?
| | | | | Know your limits | Feb 10, 2013 |
As for many translation issues, there are no hard and fast rules.
I have lived in Italy for sixteen years, speaking the language on a daily basis and interacting with the natives. But I would never dream of translating into Italian. No, no and no. Because I know myself what the result would be.
I recently met a patient on the ward where I am doing my nursing placement. Seventeen years old, had spent a few weeks in Britain, but nothing out of the ordinary. No specific l... See more As for many translation issues, there are no hard and fast rules.
I have lived in Italy for sixteen years, speaking the language on a daily basis and interacting with the natives. But I would never dream of translating into Italian. No, no and no. Because I know myself what the result would be.
I recently met a patient on the ward where I am doing my nursing placement. Seventeen years old, had spent a few weeks in Britain, but nothing out of the ordinary. No specific linguistic training, and neither of her parents was British. Yet she spoke English with all the ease of a native speaker, nuances to boot, and an accent stronger than my own.
The debate as to whether medical translations should be undertaken by non-doctors rages on, and is as inconclusive as this one. I know some excellent doctors who should not put their paws anywhere near a translation, although I would trust them in the OR. Likewise, many passionate translation professionals can turn out an excellent medical translation despite no formal training in the field.
The only "rule" is that people should know their linguistic limits and take on work accordingly. ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:13
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| I wouldn't... | Feb 10, 2013 |
If I were looking for a translator to translate something for me - say, a long, complex academic paper which, when published, might advance my career - I would want the translator to be not only native in the language into which it is being translated; I would also want that translator to be highly literate in that language, and equipped with writing skills of the highest order, in that language. Nothing less would be good enough, and were I able to reliably identify such a translator I would be... See more If I were looking for a translator to translate something for me - say, a long, complex academic paper which, when published, might advance my career - I would want the translator to be not only native in the language into which it is being translated; I would also want that translator to be highly literate in that language, and equipped with writing skills of the highest order, in that language. Nothing less would be good enough, and were I able to reliably identify such a translator I would be willing to pay her/him generously.
[Edited at 2013-02-10 21:47 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 11:13
Chinese to English
| Knowing your own limits is the hardest thing | Feb 11, 2013 |
Fiona Peterson wrote:
The only "rule" is that people should know their linguistic limits and take on work accordingly.
This is certainly true in theory, but in practice it's well known that people are very very bad at knowing their own limits. In particular, people who are not very good at a certain skill often wildly overestimate their skill level, because they're not good enough to know otherwise.
That's why I think the "native only" concept is a useful one. It's obviously never going to happen: there will always be translators working into L2, some for good reasons, some for bad reasons. But if everyone could acknowledge that working into your native language is best practice, that would help a lot.
| | | | | I'm doomed... | Feb 11, 2013 |
I lived on a US military base in Germany until I was 5. I only spoke English at home with my parents, but all my friends spoke German and I began speaking German long before picking up English.
I had a strong German accent when we moved back to the states and was teased quite a bit because of it... I have since lost almost all my vocabulary.
Then I moved to Argentina where I learned Spanish, in which I honestly feel more comfortable communicating, as I often slur and f... See more I lived on a US military base in Germany until I was 5. I only spoke English at home with my parents, but all my friends spoke German and I began speaking German long before picking up English.
I had a strong German accent when we moved back to the states and was teased quite a bit because of it... I have since lost almost all my vocabulary.
Then I moved to Argentina where I learned Spanish, in which I honestly feel more comfortable communicating, as I often slur and forget words in English. I was told that I had a German accent while learning Spanish, not an American one.
The majority of my work is EN>ES (My wife, an Argentine native, works with me, hence the dual working pair) and I have translated into Spanish, always receiving very positive feedback. I feel that I translate better in EN>ES at times because I am much more cautious and always have some one double check my translations before ever handing anything in. I am trying to find similar experts in English for the same reasons.
I don't believe that it should be forbidden to translate into a language other than your native language, but I do believe that any one that tries to do so should make every effort to ensure that those translations are as polished as they would be in the reverse pair. That being said, I think that we should be equally focused on translators creating poor texts when translating into their native tongue. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Oliver Walter
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:13
German to English
+ ...
| Omitted another point? (subject expert) | Feb 11, 2013 |
Tom in London wrote:
If I were looking for a translator to translate something for me - say, a long, complex academic paper which, when published, might advance my career - I would want the translator to be not only native in the language into which it is being translated; I would also want that translator to be highly literate in that language, and equipped with writing skills of the highest order, in that language.
I think you omitted an important point: such a translator should not only be literate in the target language but also "literate" in, i.e. familiar with, the subject area of the paper, preferably have trained and worked in the field.
Example: 5 years ago I translated an academic paper about inequalities (mathematical, not social or economic) from German into English and I think any translator who had not studied the mathematics of matrices, linear algebra etc. would have had rather a hard time and perhaps produced some "howlers" in the translation. The concepts discussed included linear dependence, scalar products, the spanning of spaces and others.
One "howler" that sticks in my mind from over 30 years ago (related to chemistry, not mathematics) is a translation from German to English that I saw, which translated "chemische Verbindungen" as "chemical connections"! Verbindungen are usually connections, but not in chemistry when they are substances in which one molecule contains atoms of different elements: here, they are "chemical compounds".
A non-specialist who is aware of the context may still not translate correctly. In Italian, un raggio could be a beam or ray (of electromagnetic radiation) or a radius (of a circle) in the same text. The specialist would understand which translation to use for each instance.
It's almost like saying that the translator should have two kinds of mother tongues: the target language such as English, and the subject such as mathematics or chemistry.
Oliver
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