THIS IS TRANSLATION EXPERIENCE

I have played the game Free Running on the PS2. If you beat the third and final mentor challenge race against Sebastien Foucan, he says to you that, “Ability is one thing, but knowledge and experience are far more powerful.”

So what is this comment about? This is how I explain it: it’s a comment devoted entirely to these “work-related anecdotes” such as I have brought up in previous comments. So I don’t have anything else to say about languages or translation or the business of it all at this time; I don’t care – I just agreed to write a comment listing nothing but more of these work-related anecdotes as a reflection of my understanding of the importance of translation experience – real translation experience.

You might be wondering: is this comment really worth it, bearing in mind that I’ve already done this multiple times in the past? Personally, in all earnesty, I don’t think of this as showing off what I have been able to learn all for the purpose of impressing people no less than for anything else. Even if I have done this before, everything I’m about to say shows what I have been able understand about languages and translation based purely on my own reasoning – you could say that I would never have been able to write any of this without the knowledge of foreign languages and translation that I have, but my claim is that I wouldn’t have been able to write it exclusively thanks to the knowledge of foreign languages and translation that I have. After all, why does the art / act of translation exist at all? …It’s all about communication – accurate and stylistically fitting communication that people are not afraid to trust – isn’t it?

Sometimes I come across French and German expressions which are out of alignment with my knowledge of the language, yet I can understand (and even respect) how the French and German expressions that get referenced in these “work-related anecdotes” “come naturally” to / are used habitually by certain native speakers even if they are completely new to me given the knowledge of the language that I have. I think I’ve evidenced that I have trained myself to become apt at making sense of them – it hinges much on me having no less respect for others’ way of thinking (even if I don’t know them and likely never will) than for my own way of thinking, however much my own way of thinking helps me to accomplish. You could say that it all boils down to this: what does that say about my state of mind?

And here are my latest work-related anecdotes:

In a French-to-English website translation job, I saw “Portail des savoirs” in the original – which meant “Knowledge Portal” rather than “Portal of knowledgeable people” or anything like that.

For a certain client in Romania I continue to do proofreading of press releases about the actions of the Russian government in connection with major world issues such as what’s happening in Syria and what’s happening in Ukraine. During one such proofreading project I came across this comment in the original: “the situation primarily requires effective work of those who hold levers of influence on illegal armed formations in Syria”. I decided that I had to edit that a bit. I initially thought of editing it so that it read “who control illegal armed formations in Syria” – then decided that such a solution would be both right and wrong in theory: these people are hardly in charge of these factions! So I put “…those who keep illegal armed formations in Syria at bay.”

In one German-to-English technical document translation project I translated “Hinsichtlich der funktionellen Eigenschaften Scherstabilität und Gefrier-Tau-Stabilität” as “Regarding the functional properties of shear stability and freeze-thaw stability”. I’m proud of how I translated it because this translation phrase “works”, it’s correct, whether the message it’s supposed to be conveying is “the functional properties of these things as such” or “the functional properties that are shear stability and freeze-thaw stability.”

When I read this in the original version of another German-to-English translation project: “Wir sind bemüht Ihnen dauerhaft attraktive Preise anzubieten”, I am pleased that I had the sense to translate it as “We strive to offer you attractive prices on a long-term basis” (rather than “long-lasting attractive prices” – I was nearly caught out there).

That particular German-to-English translation project included a bit in the original that went, “Wie sehen die Gewährleistungsansprüche aus?” I decided that to write something like, “What do the warranty claims look like?” would be too literal (mainly because the warranty claims, being a non-physical object, don’t “look like” anything), and I decided on “What are the warranty claims conditions?” as the fitting and effective translation of it.

The final three of these all originate from my translation work of these questionnaire responses relating to electrical products (French to English) which I have been doing for someone in China for several consecutive weeks now.

I have to ask: does “ma carte SD ne sert à rien” mean “my SD card is useless” or “my SD card does nothing” in English? I can imagine people thinking that these two English expressions mean the same thing, but I wouldn’t always agree straight away – not if there’s a chance that the person who wrote this particular questionnaire response is arguing that, while their SD card is usually quite useful enough “elsewhere”, it does nothing with the particular device that is under discussion in this specific comment. I was confused and left guessing, but could never be made to feel embarrassed by it.

One common expression in the original French versions of these questionnaire responses is “rien à dire”. It means “nothing to say” in English, and I don’t think anyone could translate it as anything else even if they wanted to; the rigid phrase and its fixed translation suggestion are what they are. That said, however, when I see “rien à dire” in one of these questionnaire responses it is usually accompanied by at least a little bit more text, which means that they actually definitely have something to say. I can only conclude that the real common nuance of “rien à dire” is “nothing to point out in particular, rather than merely ‘say’”. Like “rien à signaler” (which I have seen abbreviated as “ras” – and I used to think that this was short for “ras-le-bol”!).

Finally, in my latest work translating these questionnaire responses, I read this in the French version: “Telephone pratique avec pas mal de function”. I had to make my mind up between translating it as “A practical phone whose functions are not that bad” or “A practical phone which doesn’t half have a lot of functions!”? If you’re interested (or even you just claim to be), I translated it as the former.

All I’m saying is that this is translation experience.