| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | poorly written source text - negative effects on target text Thread poster: Lia Fail (X)
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| Checking w/client, culture-specific aspects of style | May 20, 2005 |
Like Jerónimo, I check with the client quite a lot, especially when the job is for someone whose things I've been doing for ages (And despite years of receiving my querulous queries, they still insist on leaving the verbs out of their sentences!). I suppose it does take a good bit of time while you wait for them to get back to you, and when they do, there is really no guarantee that their answer will fully address your carefully worded question. But hey, I figure by then I've given them two cha... See more Like Jerónimo, I check with the client quite a lot, especially when the job is for someone whose things I've been doing for ages (And despite years of receiving my querulous queries, they still insist on leaving the verbs out of their sentences!). I suppose it does take a good bit of time while you wait for them to get back to you, and when they do, there is really no guarantee that their answer will fully address your carefully worded question. But hey, I figure by then I've given them two chances to get it right. If they are still unable to articulate what they want to say, they really are not going to complain about whatever I do, be it translate the poorly written text literally or recast it according to my understanding of What They Meant To Say.
In reply to Cindy and Nikki, some of the language is terribly beat-around-the-bush-y, especially if they start using the word "vocación" (one of my private horrors). But it goes with the territory, at least for Castilian Spanish, and is not confined to arts and architecture. The cultural tendency is toward longwindedness, and you just work with it. I mean, we've all heard the weatherman call thunderstorms "fenómenos tormentosos." Daily I expect to read about someone being invited to sit by "una propuesta de una primera aproximación para el acercamiento de las posaderas al dispositivo dispuesto para su recepción." As a matter of fact, just about the only place where I wouldn't automatically rephrase the sentence to get more to the point would be in an art- or literature-related text (Okay, or something written by a judge). You sometimes have to ask yourself, "What kind of language gets used in this sort of document in the target language?" If it's something briefer and more informal, I say go for it. Change it. Document tone is a factor in translation. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Can Altinbay 
Local time: 07:38
Japanese to English
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In memoriam | No, but with context :) | May 20, 2005 |
Maybe if the asker told me what it has *before* the thermal test, I could help figure it out.
| | | | Lia Fail (X)
Spain
Local time: 13:38
Spanish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Reply to nearly everyone:-) | May 20, 2005 |
Thanks all. I see that lots of people agree and it's interesting to see how we each cope:-)
****Kevin: On the other hand, I have a series of documents right now that are, for the most part, very clearly written and sensibly structured. I like working on them so much that I completely lose track of time.
I agree. I do a lot of academic articles and although not always great, they are generally reasonably well written, some very well, making them a joy and a doddle... See more Thanks all. I see that lots of people agree and it's interesting to see how we each cope:-)
****Kevin: On the other hand, I have a series of documents right now that are, for the most part, very clearly written and sensibly structured. I like working on them so much that I completely lose track of time.
I agree. I do a lot of academic articles and although not always great, they are generally reasonably well written, some very well, making them a joy and a doddle to translate.
****Charlie: I would certainly not correct a text as much as your suggestion (not that you said you had), I think it's tantamount to putting words in the author's mouth (but that is just an opinion)...I do use translator's notes a fair bit:
****Jerónimo: Granted, sometimes the "correct meaning" is not crystal clear, and in this case, I create queries such as "Does [sentence here] mean [possible interpretation a] or [possible interpretation b]?", followed by "(Translated as if it meant [possible interpretation x])".
I think I WOULD, if in some way I could prove that I was right (e.g. supporting evidence from the WWW). In this case, some others have said that 'sustainable shopping/habits' is OK (thanks ****John Bowden and ****Samual Murray)and on Google, but to my mind, 'sustain' means something that can be supported/borne in some way. That said I have checked in Google and it's all over the place, so I will accept this usage.
On the subject of notes, I try to minimise them (if I can prove that I was right I don't comment things), only when it's some important factual error. One problem is that they are time consuming to produceor agencies may not like them or have time to deal with nit-picky details. Another problem is that sometimes it's hard to know exactly HOW something is wrong, becuase the author is writing for 'los enterados' (those in the know), not for a translator...still and all, I usually apply the rule that any text should be written bearing in mind a 'reasonably intelligent non-expert', and ask for clarification.
****Cindy: The worst ones seem to be written by people who SHOULD be able to write well and who are probably even convinced that they do (e.g., PR people).
****PAS: ....they are written about, well, uh... nothing.
**** Nicki: ...the writer could certainly have said whatever he had to say in about a fifth of the number of words
Indeed! All those pseudo-creative professions (marketing, advertising, etc). The most chronic text I had to deal with recently was about cosmetics, talk about reiterative quackery!
****Samuel: In much cases I determine what the purpose of the text is, and then I try to create a target text that suits that purpose.
Absolutely. And I will take the flak if they don't like it, as I simply do NOT want - within the best of my ability - to write C***:-)
****Sheila: Could you make a beautiful jacket out of a piece of wet newspaper??? We have to translate what is being said correctly and in a way that can be understood by the reader.
A good analogy. Nonetheless, a text can be improved...and as I said, I'm willing to take the flak. Often when I 'adapt' texts, I justify it on the bais of the stylistic requirements of the EN language, AND mention this to the client. Noone has objected yet.
****Ana: ....the small- to medium Croatian companies.... clients who "learnt some English from the films" try to lower the price by complaining about the quality
Yes, websites, for example, from SMEs are usually very poorly written. Noone has ever used this excse to lower the price, but I occassionally have had the person with secondary level EN ring up to check something, and they're usually way off.
****Edward, Monika
LOL:-)
****AJKeller: ...it does take a good bit of time while you wait for them to get back to you, and when they do, there is really no guarantee that their answer will fully address your carefully worded question.... automatically rephrase the sentence to get more to the point
There have been some direct clients who never got back to me. Very discouraging. On the other hand, I work for a few academics with whom I have a very encouraging working relationship - I help them with EN, they help me with terminology. I really enjoy that feeling of 'working together':-). Good example sentence of wording that would sound horrific in EN, I would trim it right back too:-)
Thanks to the other contributors too. Unfortunately I don't know the languages in the ProZ question, but I suppose I can imagine what the problem might be...:-)
[Edited at 2005-05-20 22:18] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Hey, it's job security for me! | May 20, 2005 |
My main source of employment for the past several years has been cleaning up badly written English so it can be used for ESL audiences or as a base for translations. We see fewer translation errors in the cleaned-up text, compared to texts that went to translation straight from the development staff ("defects" that can be assigned to poor source text are 30-50% of the pre-editing ones).
The root cause of the source text problem is that most writers do not edit their work. Writin... See more My main source of employment for the past several years has been cleaning up badly written English so it can be used for ESL audiences or as a base for translations. We see fewer translation errors in the cleaned-up text, compared to texts that went to translation straight from the development staff ("defects" that can be assigned to poor source text are 30-50% of the pre-editing ones).
The root cause of the source text problem is that most writers do not edit their work. Writing well requires a bi-modal process: you must write with the internal editor bound and gagged so you can freely dump your ideas on paper. Then you must blindfold the creative inner child while the editor hacks the text to bits and rearranges it.
Ailish:
"Indeed! All those pseudo-creative professions (marketing, advertising, etc). The most chronic text I had to deal with recently was about cosmetics, talk about reiterative quackery!"
I have found engineers to be almost as bad, in a different way. While they may have facts instead of fluff, they tend to compulsively repeat facts all over a paragraph, restating their point in different ways. ▲ Collapse
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Natalia Elo
Germany
Local time: 13:38
English to Russian
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Can Altinbay wrote: Maybe if the asker told me what it has *before* the thermal test, I could help figure it out.
That's what I had asked her. She said that the previous and the consecutive sentence is not anyhow related to the in question.
I tried to figure it out buy asking the native language of the writer, becuase sometimes it helps. It's German, but it doesn't bring us any further.
But you have a very good point. She should try to ask it in Englsih monolingual.
Regards
Natalia
| | | | Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 13:38
Multiplelanguages
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| artistic license | May 20, 2005 |
Ailish Maher wrote:
Surely 'shopping habits' aren't 'sustainable'? Surely they mean 'shopping habits that constribute to sustainable economic development'.
Samuel Murray wrote:
I don't know the source language, but "sustainable shopping habits" make perfect sense to me. It means that the strategy will cause shoppers to shop more, without having to continuously reinforce the prompt to shop. But I agree that you can say it better... much better. The text above is typical blurb presented by young marketing executives to chiefs of department about the latest new idea they've had to make more money for the company.
"Sustainable shopping habits" makes sense to me too.
Samuel Murray wrote:
Sometimes the text is obviously a first draft, or obviously just some ideas thrown together with no regard for proper writing principles because of "artistic licence". Yeah right. Artistic laziness is more likely.
Or likely that the text written by software developers who see their added value as writing source code that makes an application work rather writing text that describes why and how this is done. Just the other day I told our chief architect to just write his text down in bullet point note-type format and that I would turn it into understandable English for the customer-facing document.
Jeff
http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/
| | | | sarahl (X)
Local time: 04:38
English to French
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| Bring it on! | May 22, 2005 |
PAS wrote:
More than 100 pages written about 10 lines of the original article.
They pay us by the word, remember?
| | | | Carol Ungar
Spain
Local time: 13:38
Spanish to English
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| Cutting out the fluff | May 24, 2005 |
[quote]Sheila Hardie wrote:
Time to get the scissors out now!
I totally agree with snipping with gusto. The problem I run into (admit it, I'm not the only one) is that with some clients, particularly translation agencies, I get paid according to the number of words in the target text, hence some 30-40% less (I do Spanish-English). I know there's no way around it. I mean, you can't just leave the fluff in, but it's frustrating as hell having to spend so much time working your way through incomprehensible garble, only to earn less by cutting and snipping.
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Can Altinbay
Local time: 07:38
Japanese to English
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In memoriam | Get paid to cut? | May 24, 2005 |
[quote]Carol Ungar wrote:
Sheila Hardie wrote: Time to get the scissors out now! I totally agree with snipping with gusto. The problem I run into (admit it, I'm not the only one) is that with some clients, particularly translation agencies, I get paid according to the number of words in the target text, hence some 30-40% less (I do Spanish-English). I know there's no way around it. I mean, you can't just leave the fluff in, but it's frustrating as hell having to spend so much time working your way through incomprehensible garble, only to earn less by cutting and snipping.
Do we need to add a clause that stipulates a per word charge for reading and determining parts to cut?
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