Working languages: French to English
| Ben Gaia
Forestry, Politics, Ecology
Hokitika, New Zealand, New Zealand Local time: 20:17 NZDT (GMT+13)
Native in: English  | |
| Freelancer | | Translation, Editing/proofreading, Subtitling | | Specializes in: | | Botany | Forestry / Wood / Timber | | Government / Politics |
| Also works in: | | Agriculture | Anthropology | | Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting | Environment & Ecology | | Folklore | Geography | | Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc. | Archaeology |
More Less | | NZD | | PRO-level points: 79, Questions answered: 217, Questions asked: 2 | 1 projects entered | Project Details | Project Summary | Corroboration |
Translation
Volume: 576 words
Completed: Oct 2006
Languages:
French to English | News Article
Government / Politics | No comment. |
More Less | | Visa | Sample translations submitted: 3 French to English: Test Translation
Detailed field: Advertising / Public Relations | Source text - French
L'enjeu de la traduction des documents de communication d'entreprise se révèle considérable. Non seulement parce que, comme l'affirmait Céline, « on ne se méfie jamais assez des mots », mais aussi parce qu'elle contribue au plaisir de la lecture et facilite la faculté d'assimilation. Sans parler du respect du lecteur.
L'édition d'entreprise gagne en légitimité et crédibilité, et participe pleinement à une démarche fédératrice, de constitution et d'intégration dans la culture interne.
Les critères qui font la différence entre un « technicien de la traduction » et un traducteur sont nombreux. Selon l'interlocuteur, leur ordre de priorité varie. En tous les cas, la qualité est l'une des principales préoccupations. Mais comment juger de la qualité d'une traduction ? Tous s'accordent à dire qu'il faut que le texte sonne comme s'il avait été rédigé dans la langue « cible », pour reprendre le « jargon » du métier.
| Translation - English
The stakes involved in translating business communication documents are proven to be high. Not only because, in the words of Celine, “we are never wary enough of words”, but also because translating contributes to the pleasure of reading, and assists the process of assimilation, as well as gaining the reader’s respect. Business publishing gains legitimacy and credibility, participating fully in a unifying approach, from its makeup and integration into the internal culture.
Many attributes make the difference between a “translation operative” and a translator. Their order of priority varies depending on who you talk to. In all cases, quality is one of the main concerns. But how can you judge the quality of a translation? All agree that the text must sound as if it was written in the “target” language, to use the technical jargon.
| | French to English: La Terre En Tremble | Source text - French
http://www.humanite.fr/journal/2006-10-10/2006-10-10-838358
| Translation - English
Earth Shaking News
Seismographs recorded the shockwave at 1.45 GMT. Authorities in Moscow and Peking, warned hours earlier, feared the worst. The first North Korean atomic bomb has just been exploded. Even if no radiation has been detected in neighbouring areas, the shockwave hasn’t yet stopped shaking the planet.
It is a serious act in fact. By breaking international controls against proliferation of nuclear arms, the Pyongyang dictatorship wants to do more than just worsen the economic catastrophe being suffered by 23 million North Koreans. In a peninsula that has known one of the worst conflicts since World War Two, this test compromises good neighbourly relations and encourages the most dangerous nationalist regimes. In Japan, where a right wing regime is nostalgic for old times – already celebrating its war criminals – this test could be an excuse to abandon the denuclearised status of the archipelago that suffered so much in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or to install an American arsenal that would equally threaten both China and Russia. This explosion also seems like a slap in the face for the North’s southern neighbour, whose foreign minister, Ban-ki Moon, is preparing to become the UN’s next head. And yet Seoul has been a reconciliatory partner since a summit in 2000 brought the two governments together.
Kim Jong-il, who inherited power in North Korea, may be seeking a return to isolation and nuclear sabre-rattling to help him forget his bankruptcy. And to close ranks by provoking new external enemies. By doing so, he is playing with the world’s security. He isn’t the first. India, Pakistan, and then again Israel, have gone ahead of him down that path. But the international context makes it even more risky.
A dozen years ago, South Africa freed itself from both apartheid and nuclear weapons. Today there is hardly any consideration for either non-proliferation or disarmament. The United States, which has sown the seeds of war here and there, to the extent of increasing the terrorist threat, according to the CIA’s own admission, is least well placed to demand respect for international security. George W. Bush, who has violated international law by putting Iraq through blood and fire, has no credibility whatsoever when he demands that the decisions of the UN be respected. By only considering its own interests as a superpower, and the appetite of multinational companies, Washington bears a crushing responsibility in the dangerous games of Doctor Strangeloves like Kim Jong-il.
The struggle of pacifist engagement has therefore not gone out of fashion. Resolution of this crisis, as with the similar one with Iran, implies a new vision of international relations, and must lead to new efforts in dismantling existing nuclear arsenals. Relaunching the disarmament process is becoming urgent. France could be a dynamic force to this end, taking the rest of the EU along with it. From now on a great majority of the world’s countries will share this universally welcomed ambition. For this to happen France must not let her decisions be subject to the orders of the White House. An international vision is now needed, freed from the brutalities of capitalist globalisation. From global warming to the risk of atomic confrontations, the idea of the common good of humanity is taking hold. For international law to have any strength, it must represent public opinion. That’s one of the major battle stakes which will have to cut a trail in the 2007 elections.
| French to English: A Society of Paradoxes in Turmoil
Detailed field: Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc. | Source text - French
httphumanite.frjournal2006-08-312006-08-31-835783
Une société de paradoxes, en ébullition | Translation - English
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/article308.html
A Society of Paradoxes in Turmoil
Iranian civil society is opening up and continues to change, faced with the regime but also with a western world whose diktats are not appreciated.
Tehran, special correspondent.
Iran is the land of dualism. The ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, (whose festivals, such as Norouz - New Year or the first day of Spring, are more widely celebrated than those of Shi'ism to the great displeasure of the Mullahs) celebrated both a good and bad deity. The good God, Ahura Mazda, won over, and monotheism was imposed.
Clichés, lies, and worn-out combinations of both, continue to circulate about Iranian society- few countries are so open -but Iranian society perpetuates this dualism. Iranians are not schizophrenic, fortunately. But they are forced to make allowances. On one hand they have a regime with authoritarian laws which they cannot manage to shake off, and which they have to pretend to go along with and suffer accordingly. On the other hand is their everyday life, full of modernity, chaotic development and a younger generation in turmoil. There are immense social problems such as youth unemployment. Gaps in salaries and standard of living are widening in this capitalist country in disguise, where property speculation is beating all records.
The average wage of 200,000 tomans -about 200 Euros - does not allow a decent lifestyle. Last Mayday a large demonstration took place, mainly in Tehran, of textile factory workers, against low wages and, especially, lack of job security.
Political repression continues. Several journalists have been imprisoned (to top it all even the government paper, "Iran", has been suspended) and a philosopher, Ramin Jahanbeglou, an expert on Levinas and Ricoeur, was jailed since April and only released yesterday.
Theoretically almost everything is banned, but the enthusiasm of youth and the lure of profits ensure that practically any product, especially western, is available in the bazaars of Tehran, Isfahan or Tabriz.
So copies of American or French movies not yet released in France can be bought for 1000 tomams (1 Euro).
It's the same story for banned Iranian films."Off-side", by Jafar Panahi tells of the dramatic but hilarious adventures of girls disguised as boys in order to take part in an Iran vs. Bahrain soccer match. The work is banned from the big screen, but widely sold, and the author could be up for a prize at the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival.
Foreign TV programmes are normally banned. In fact, in Tehran, more than half of all homes own a satellite dish, some receiving more than a thousand channels!
This year the regime has had one satisfying success: its most prized TV show, keeps 30 of Iran's 70 million people holding their breath for three quarters of an hour every evening at 8.45pm. "Narguez" is a family saga of frustrated love between the youngsters Nasrin and Behrouz, yet in keeping with the most irreproachable standards of Islamic morality.
Tough Laws for Women
Iran knows these paradoxes well. Despite the veil, women are taking up more and more of a place in society. They are by far the majority in universities and higher education. Increasing numbers are engineers, doctors, lawyers and company directors.
But the law is hard on them. Getting a divorce is a real achievement, and all children over two are entrusted to the care of the father, without exception.
Despite desperate endeavours by their new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, women have preserved, even increased the steps obtained under Mohammad Khatami towards a softening of dress regulations. From now on, they will be allowed to wear what was unthinkable five years ago: a simple tunic falling to mid-thigh, and trousers. The Islamic burqa is not required. Hair is hidden less and less. And in their tens of thousands, Iranians are resorting to cosmetic surgery.
Palpable Tension
Sadly, used as they are to war, Iranians know that a new conflict could flare up over Lebanon or the nuclear issue. They will keenly question a foreign guest on the risks their country is incurring, but that isn't the main topic of conversation. You can sense a certain amount of tension. If the issue of Lebanon and support for Hizbollah, created by Iranian initiative in 1983, fails to stir them much, most Iranians take exception to what they call the "West's determination" to prevent them from enriching uranium. Their incomprehension is comparable to that which led those same Westerners to support Saddam Hussein's Iraq in a war where the UN designated Iran, in 1992, as the attacked side. "Israel, Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons. Why these threats against Iran?" is the most widely shared analysis. They also state that Hizbollah by no means lost the war and that the new Iraqi government is run by the Dawa, a party supported by Iran for decades.
Nearly thirty years after a revolution which shook the world, Iranian civil society seeks to affirm itself more and more, faced with the regime, and faced with an outside world unaware of its existence.
Patrick Gromillon
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More Less | | Master's degree - Balliol College, Oxford | | Years of translation experience: 15. Registered at ProZ.com: Jul 2002. | | N/A | French to English (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters)
French to English (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters)
| | N/A | | Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Evrsoft First Page | | | | http://treeman007.kol.co.nz/fren.html | | English (DOC) | | About me I am a fully accredited French to English translator with fifteen years' experience.
My areas of special interest are: ecology, society, forestry and silviculture.
Ben Gaia MA (Modern Languages) Balliol College, Oxford, UK 1985
NAATI accredited French to English Translator
National Accreditation Authority for Translators and
Interpreters
(Canberra, Australia 1996)
Ca fait quinze ans maintenant que je suis traducteur. Je m'interesse à l'écologie, la silviculture, la société.
Ben Gaia MA: Maître des Arts (Université d'Oxford) Langues Vivantes (Français) 1985
NAATI Traducteur accredité français-anglais
(National Accreditation Authority for Translators and
Interpreters, Canberra, Australie 1996)
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This user has reported completing projects in the following job categories, language pairs, and fields.
| Project History Summary |
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| Total projects | 1 | | With client feedback | 0 | | Corroborated | 0 | | | 0 positive (0 entries) |  positive | 0 |  neutral | 0 |  negative | 0 |
| Job type | | Translation | 1 | | | Language pairs | | French to English | 1 | | | Specialty fields | | Government / Politics | 1 | | | Other fields |
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Keywords: forestière, écologie, géographie, silviculture, La Nouvelle Zélande, New Zealand, geography, forestry, ecology, silviculture, politics
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