Four Steps to Translation Quality

Luciano Monteiro has a blog post about the four steps to translation quality. I think this is a really good post. Well I would, wouldn’t I, because these are exactly the four steps I use. I could have written his post if I were a better blogger. Please go and read it.

I used to feel inadequate because I had read many times that the translation process should start with reading the entire text (perhaps making terminology notes) before translating, but I could never do it. Once I start reading, I must set down all my ideas on how I will translate it, and it turns into a draft. The function of the read-through is subsumed into the draft, step one in Luciano’s four steps. Recently, I’ve talked with other translators whose work I respect and admire who also don’t do a preliminary read-through. I am glad to have it confirmed that I’m not the only one that plunges straight in to the translation.

This is not to say that I think that skipping the read-through and beginning with the draft is essential or even superior. There is more than one path to quality. The final steps are the most important ones. How many times have I thought a translation was flawless, only to catch errors with a final spellcheck! Every time! This motivates me never to skip that last check.

Geography lesson needed?

*jaw drops, hits floor*

New Translation of "The Second Sex"

Remember last year three years ago* when the story went around about how bad the 1953 English translation, The Second Sex, of Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe was?

To summarize, the translation is said to be full of hundreds of major and minor errors, some of which do not merely miss or distort the meaning, but make the text state the opposite of the original. The original translator was a retired professor of zoology selected because the American publisher judged the book by its the title and thought it was a sex manual. The translator had no specialized knowledge of philosophy and knew French only from his student days. In addition, at the publisher's request, hefty chunks of the book were cut in the translated edition.

Even when the story about the bad translation made the rounds, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the publication, the publisher refused to authorize a new edition.

But now it turns out that a new translation was commissioned by the British rights holder in early 2006, and is about half finished! This article by Sarah Glazer in Bookforum tells how translators Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier got to translate Le Deuxième Sexe into English anew. Both are Paris-based Americans who have taught English at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques for many years.

Apparently Beauvoir scholars have expressed concerns that non-philosophers were selected to carry out the translation. However, Glazer writes:

Both women expressed surprise at the concerns about their lack of philosophical background and assistance. They said they are consulting with philosophers, including Margaret A. Simons, author of a groundbreaking article pointing out Parshley's [the original translator's] errors. They've sought out a biologist to critique the chapter on the biology of sex, a friend with analytic training to go over the psychoanalysis chapter, and a medievalist to decipher the Old French quotations. They've commissioned translations by specialists of the extensive poetry citations from Paul Claudel, André Breton, and Michel Leiris. The job is so overwhelming, they said, that they've asked for grant money to fund additional assistance.

Further, they will restore the material cut from the first translation, and are considering the original in their choice of language:

To retain the formality of Beauvoir's voice, who used vous with Sartre and other intimates throughout her life, they reversed their original decision to introduce contractions. To give it a period flavor, they are steering away from words that came into common usage after 1949. That's the basis for their decision to avoid the word gender, which today is more commonly used in the places Beauvoir uses sex.

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*sign of advancing age

A different reason to choose human translation

Last December, Blogherald, a blogger's blog, installed a plugin to translate their content to eight languages, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Today, they announced that they've decided to remove it... because of technical problems. They're exploring human translation as an alternative.

It's interesting that technical—not quality—criteria motivated the change. It's not that they're unaware of the quality of machine translation, for they note:

At any rate, most foreign language speakers observe machine translated articles as crude and barely readable as genuine translation anyway. They are too literal, and devoid of usable context.

Nevertheless, if machine translation in its current state does have any use, it's precisely this; to give readers of a different language a general idea of what an article says. But with their pilot project in human translation to Japanese, they've invited their Japanese readers to share the Blogherald experience, not just to peer in at the windows.

Would you trust a barefoot shoemaker?

This discussion at ProZ is about how to regard an agency whose own website isn't, shall we say, a good advertisement for their own language services. It's not hard to find examples. As Dave Barry would say, "I am not making this up."

One agency is a little shaky in punctuation, prepositions and tenses:

Why we are the best?

In XXXX, we specialized in the following languages:
[It may not be clear from this isolated sentence, but the context shows that this was meant to express, "At XXXX, we specialize in the following languages:"]

Another agency has basically correct, though workmanlike English, but an unfortunately chosen preposition leaps out at the reader:

We will pay special attention on the following:

A third agency has correct, fairly native-sounding English throughout their website, except for the first paragraph on the introduction page. Ouch!

Established in 19--, XXX Traductores in time becomes one of the largest full service translation companies in the Americas; in 19--, it establishes in [city in USA], XXX Translation Center, today xxx.com.

This agency's blurb is a lovely example of "third language" or "translationese." It's correct, or almost correct English, but the manner of expression, the sentence structure, vocabulary choice, and even the overall decision of what to say to the reader are entirely Spanish:

What identifies this corporation is its seriousness and professionalism, as well as its complete confidentiality, personalized treatment and the excellent service that we offer, which have allowed us to achieve an outstanding performance.

For the fulfillment of our main objective, which consists of providing a quality and specialized service, the translators, interpreters and the staff that collaborate with this corporation is integrated by highly qualified professionals, mainly experts certified by the Superior Court of Justice and acknowledged by different Embassies both in [our country] and abroad.

But this one wins my "Barefoot Shoemaker" prize:

The background of our Company starts in the year 19--, as XXX. This company turns into YYY a couple of years alter and finally in 19--, it consolidated into the Company we are today: ZZZ, which Board of Directors is chaired by Lic. ABC.

Some of the attributes that make us different are: excellent quality in translation and interpretation, selection of the ideal interpreters for each topic, equipment in perfect operating conditions, trained and responsible technical personnel, excellent customer service, timeliness in delivering our services and we are willing and able to make your event a success regardless of its magnitude or where it is held in the world.

Our history includes, amongst a large number of clients, internationally renown universities such as: [list of "renown" universities], and also world renown international companies and organizations such as: [list of "renown" companies and organizations] amongst other.

Final checklist tip

A question at ProZ reminds me that if the word "public" is in the final text, it is a good idea to check, just before delivery, that no instance of the word is missing the "L".

This is true for Spanish, as well as English.

púbico: 1. adj. Perteneciente o relativo al pubis.

Translators: Learning from architects

A common query and topic of discussion at translator forums and on translator lists is whether the customer is always right. How should a translator respond when the client insists that the translation must adhere to a faulty glossary, lets a reviewer who is non-native or unacquainted with the subject matter alter or add to the translation (thereby introducing errors), or insists that wrong terms are the right ones?

Perhaps we should take a cue from other professionals. This quote is from an interview with architect Frank Gehry:

"I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do," Mr. Gehry says. "Architects have to become parental. They have to learn to be parental." By this he means that an architect has to listen to his client but also remain firm about what the architect knows best, the aesthetics of a building. This, Mr. Gehry says, is what makes an architect relevant in the process that leads to a completed building. "I think a lot of my colleagues lose it, lose that relevance in the spirit of serving their client, so that no matter what, they are serving the client. Even if the building they produce, that they think serves the client, doesn't really serve the client because it's not very good."

In a similar way, I believe that a translator does not serve the client by bowing to pressure to introduce known errors.

Penalty for Not Translating Into One's Native Language, ca. 1744

In an episode of In Our Time dealing with the French Encyclopédie, Judith Hawley tells that the origins of the Encylopédie lay in a translation of Chambers' Cyclopaedia by John Mills. The translation, however, was so incompetent, due to Mills' deficient knowledge of French, that publisher André le Breton had Mills beat up. As Dr. Hawley recounts it, "they punched him in the stomach and hit him over the head with a cane." Mills took le Breton to court, but lost because the translation was truly bad; according to the Wiki Encyclopédie article, he could barely read or write French.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

Some days I feel curmudgeonly. And here's why.

How does a client know if a translator is good? Experience, education, qualifications... If you want to hire a translator, should you require that he or she has a degree in translation, a degree in the subject matter, sufficient experience...?

Here's a query about how to translate: "Do not make change for a customer outside of their order."

A difficult sentence? Tricky? Requires specialized technical subject matter knowledge?

Two translators with university degrees in translation thought it meant "Do not make any change that the customer has not ordered," while another translator, with over 20 years experience, thought it meant "Do not make changes to the customer's order." And yes, all of them purport to translate professionally from English.

So if you were going to hire a translator, would you judge them by their qualifications and experience, or by their product? Why are translators so resistant to doing tests? On various translator forums where translators voice their opinions, I read that tests are useless; tests only take advantage of translators and yield no benefit; that a potential client can better judge the translator's competence from their qualifications, education and experience.

On the contrary, I see evidence time and again that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the recipe.

Movie about a translator

This article in the St. Petersburg Times talks about changes in the literary translation industry in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, touching on a number of interesting issues.

By Evgenia Ivanova
Staff Writer

"'The goat cried in an inhuman voice…' I could not leave this in!" the English professor in Autumn Marathon (1979) remarks after spending hours helping with a translation by his less talented colleague.The Soviet classic comedy recreates in detail the perfectionism of St. Petersburg's old school translation trade.

"The translator's character, Lifanov, states that translation in the modern world must facilitate better mutual understanding between nations, and you, with your babble, will only divide them," says the same professor rejecting one of his students' works.

Such customs, it seems, sank into oblivion with the end of the Soviet Union and now, experts say, nobody guarantees that a foreign book translated into Russian will contain exactly what it promises.

"During the Soviet era, translations were done mainly by people working at foreign language departments [of universities] and who were directly related to teaching translating," Natalia Molchanova, president of Ego Translating, a local translating agency, said.

"Literary translation was considered to be a scientific, a prestigious and a very well-paid job," she said.

After the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the state no longer provided financing for such work, and the job was left in the hands of publishers. The quality of translations significantly worsened.

"Publishing houses — commercial enterprises having profit as their main aim — were governed by economic interests and tried to economize on translations as much as they could," Molchanova, said.

Pavel Krusanov, the chief editor of St. Petersburg-based publishing house Limbus Press agrees that low-quality translations of foreign literature are a regular feature on the shelves of Russia's bookstores. In his opinion, this often arises as a result of publishers being in a constant hurry to dispatch their books to printers to avoid penalties for delays.

In the event of a poor translation, it would be very "uneconomical" for the publisher to try and find another translator, but at the same time, publishers are not able to control the level of quality, he said.

"Say a publisher has a contract with the printers half a year ahead, [the case with bad translations]. To commission the translation from someone else will mean doubling the publisher's losses which, in turn, will be reflected in the book's higher price," he said.

"Before the publisher signs the contract with a translator, the latter is asked to translate a short sample of about two pages of text," Krusanov explained.

"If the test is successful, then the contract is signed. But the problem is that the translator might work with someone to do the test or really put some effort in while preparing the sample. As a result the quality of translation on the contract might be wretched".

Viktor Toporov, a well-known literary critic and a translator, recalled that as recently as six years ago translators were simply "taken on their word" and nobody in publishing houses ever attempted to check the quality of the end result. But the situation is gradually changing.

"To a large extent, such naive perceptions are slowly shifting back to normal," Toporov said. One of the ways out of the current crisis lies in improving the training of translators, Molchanova said.

"Until they start to train translators on specifically tailored programs (and not only on philological ones), the translation of applied literature will continue to be done by those who over five years [in university] studied Shakespeare and the language as cultural heritage — and fiction will continue to be translated by the rest," she said.

Ironically, the English subtitles in the film Autumn Marathon, at least of the VHS version, are said to be less than well-translated. Another review (of the DVD) describes the English subtitles as "excellent." Were they redone for the DVD?