| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Not living in the country of the target language Thread poster: Sonja Allen
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| Good point, Giovanni. | Aug 25, 2005 |
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
how many translators living in the target country go abroad every year, twice or three times a year to keep themselves up to date with the source language? Not many, I think.
Giovanni
[Edited at 2005-08-25 10:36]
| | | | juvera 
Local time: 23:24
English to Hungarian
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| What is more advantageous? | Aug 29, 2005 |
I agree with the comments of Paola and Giovanni.
If you are living abroad, you are much more likely to visit your home country (than the other way around) perhaps two, three times a year, read and watch "home" TV, to keep up with the language. It is easier to absorb things quickly in your mother tongue. So it doesn't necessarily mean noticable deterioration of your native language skills.
In any case, what is better, having a translator who may write beautifully, but do... See more I agree with the comments of Paola and Giovanni.
If you are living abroad, you are much more likely to visit your home country (than the other way around) perhaps two, three times a year, read and watch "home" TV, to keep up with the language. It is easier to absorb things quickly in your mother tongue. So it doesn't necessarily mean noticable deterioration of your native language skills.
In any case, what is better, having a translator who may write beautifully, but doesn't quite understand the source language therefore the translation has many mistakes in it, or somebody who may make some small, usually stylistic mistakes in the target language, but at least understood the source.
I think you get better results, and it is easier to polish up the latter than to correct the translation mistakes.
It is particularly useful to have a "good grasp of contemporary language" as Marie-Helene wrote, but I am referring to the source language!
Also, translators not living in the country of their mother tongue tend to be less complacent about knowing all. The distance, that slight uncertainty makes us reach for the book of grammar or the spelling dictionary.
I have a lot of proofreading work and - apart from a growing collection of howlers - it is not much fun to tell the translator - working in his home country into his mother tongue - please, check your grammar or spelling!
This is of course generalisation, but overall I think it is an advantage to live in the country of the source language, and translate into your native language.
[Edited at 2005-08-29 15:03] ▲ Collapse
| | | | pcovs
Denmark
Local time: 00:24
English to Danish
| Advantages either way, I guess | Aug 30, 2005 |
juvera wrote:
This is of course generalisation, but overall I think it is an advantage to live in the country of the source language, and translate into your native language.
[Edited at 2005-08-29 15:03]
I was recently asked to do a brief proofreading on a text translated into Danish. I soon discovered that this was not a very good translation, to say the least, as the language was not what you would call fluent, contemporary or anything else, actually.
I told this to my client immediately, saying that - IMHO - this translation needed much more than a brief look-at. The response was that we could be sure the translation was fine. Could I please just check for spelling mistakes and typos?
Only later I discovered that the client was so sure the translation was PERFECT, because they had a Danish native translator working in-house. In this case, I believe the translator had forgotten to do, what any professional translator living abroad should do, namely to brush up on his/her native language in order to rule out e.g. common mistakes such as syntax copied from the country he/she was living in etc.
This, I sincerely hope, is not very common, but perhaps incidents like this is why some clients chose to work only with translators living in their native country.
That said, I also believe that it's a GREAT advantage to live in the "source country". I constantly strive to keep up with English - via books, tv, conversations, ProZ etc., but I know that I could really do with living in e.g. England for a while from time to time to pick up a lot more than I'm able to pick up via the medias etc.
IMHO both things should carry equal importance, sorry not all clients see it that way
| | | | Lan Trans (X)
Local time: 00:24
English to Dutch
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| I definitely think they have a point! | Sep 1, 2005 |
I agree with PCovs. I recently had the exact same experience: I had to proofread a Dutch translation, done by a native Dutch speaker living in the US for I don't know how long. After 1 page (out of 600!) I figured that person had lost all touch with his native country. And mind you, this was a technical manual! So no slang or fashion words! Also, having lived myself for 12 years in Belgium, I really started having problems to keep Flemish and Dutch (still the same language!) apart.
Keeping... See more I agree with PCovs. I recently had the exact same experience: I had to proofread a Dutch translation, done by a native Dutch speaker living in the US for I don't know how long. After 1 page (out of 600!) I figured that person had lost all touch with his native country. And mind you, this was a technical manual! So no slang or fashion words! Also, having lived myself for 12 years in Belgium, I really started having problems to keep Flemish and Dutch (still the same language!) apart.
Keeping up with the source language by reading a lot in that language, watching tv, Internet, and regular travelling etc. is IMHO enough. Your native (target) language should be perfect: a perfectness that can only be attained by living, breathing, watching, thinking, speaking and reading that language every single day. And even then I some times hesitate ▲ Collapse
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