| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53] > | Ten common myths about translation quality
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| | Lincoln Hui 
Hong Kong
Local time: 05:04
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
| On Idiomania | Jul 26, 2013 |
"Idiomatically correct language" is a nonsensical term. You think your English is idiomatically correct? No it's not, says your friend who thinks HIS English is idiomatically correct, whose girlfriend slaps him and says that HER English is idiomatically correct. Two translators both born to school teachers growing up in the same district of London who went to the same schools can have vastly different writing styles, much less those who grew up in different cities to different parents working in... See more "Idiomatically correct language" is a nonsensical term. You think your English is idiomatically correct? No it's not, says your friend who thinks HIS English is idiomatically correct, whose girlfriend slaps him and says that HER English is idiomatically correct. Two translators both born to school teachers growing up in the same district of London who went to the same schools can have vastly different writing styles, much less those who grew up in different cities to different parents working in different trades - heck, twins are not obliged to write the same way. Putting sentences together is, frankly, a product of your logical thinking, and an English professor will do so differently from a chemist who will do so differently from his colleague in lab coat. The Elements of Style was not written for the benefit of non-native speakers; it is an attempt to tie up the conventions of good writing in English for native speakers. Any "idioms" that exist in modern English only extends as far as its pages, if at all.
This is not a case of every road leading to Rome, because US and UK English already contain legitimate grammatical differences, not to mention differences in vocabulary and accepted tone. Adding to that do you make of Aussie and Kiwi and Canadian English and any other variations, which may follow one spelling or another but claim their own conventions and vocabulary? Is the expression "could care less" idiomatically correct?
We haven't even touched the issue of time. English of the 1800s ain't English today and it ain't English of Shakespeare's time, and let's not get into Ye Olde English. Tolkien would have raised an uproar in the 16th century for his butchering of the fine English language, and in turn his style is no longer in common usage. The changes are even more significant for languages that have undergone sea changes in the last century or so; written Chinese for example has been revolutionized since the 19th century, and frankly words written down as late as the 1960s might seem archaic and stiff to today's writers. Oh, and Chinese syntax is also quite flexible, while English is hardly unmalleable itself.
What is sometimes called "idiomatic differences" are a function of culture, not linguistics. Badly written English are another thing altogether and simply represent bad translators and bad writers who are usually bad readers as well, native or not. I still have nightmares about a paper that I had to peer review in a class that was written with the language competency of a 12-year old (and I am being generous - I certainly did not write nearly that badly when I was 12), and my esteemed classmate had clearly misunderstood the entirety of the assigned reading, essentially interpreting the author's opinions as being the polar opposites of what they actually were.
Anyway, I digress; if there really is a difference between how native writers and competent non-native writers write, I have yet to see legitimate proof of it, just people reiterating the same points over and over again citing ethereal "idioms". I won't even talk about English; I have observed enough foreigners who have moved to China/TW/HK, lived in Chinese societies and worked with Chinese long enough that I, at least, cannot tell the difference between their writing and those of native Chinese writers. It is absolutely possible and even probable that they have some limitations in vocabulary, or encounter problems with particularly specialized language and archaic Chinese - I do not read pre-17th Century English particularly well myself - but these are areas that they do not need to encounter in their translation work, and most native speakers would struggle equally. More importantly, these are problems that apply more to reading than to writing. If anything, non-native speakers struggle with source texts that include cultural references, slang, etc. if KudoZ postings are any indication. Why not bar translators from translating from their second language?
This is again hardly limited to non-native speakers. Central Pennsylvania has some expressions that are gobbledygook to someone from New York, for example. One cannot claim insult from a blanket statement on Europe being monolingual but be fine with blanket statements and one-sided assumptions on non-native speakers. If someone learned classroom math through primary and secondary school and went on to earn a PhD in Biology, is he more of a mathematician than a biologist?
Terminology and definitions change, and as far as I know every field has had at least one important definition or concept that had been overturned or seriously challenged in the last century. They also do not mean the same thing for professionals and laymen; the phrase "Classical Music", for example, is typically replaced by "Concert Music" or "Western Art Music" in academic circles. I would simply point out that like all professionals, translators know very little about their profession outside of their area of expertise.
...but as I said to my college roommate once, I don't actually know a word of English; I simply bang on random keys on my keyboard, and the result just happens to come out reading like English.
[Edited at 2013-07-26 18:54 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | | You re right, but he considered himself | Jul 26, 2013 |
a native speaker of Middle English, and felt a special affinity for that language -- perhaps this is why this confusion.
[Edited at 2013-07-26 18:42 GMT]
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Reply to a hidden post. |
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Reply to a hidden post. | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Reply to a hidden post. | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Reply to a hidden post. | | professional | Jul 26, 2013 |
Lincoln Hui wrote:
I would simply point out that like all professionals, translators know very little about their professional outside of their area of expertise.
Could you clarify what you mean by "professional" (highlighted in bold)? Is this a typo for "profession"? You used it before and I didn't understand.
B
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Reply to a hidden post. | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 05:04
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Bernhard Sulzer wrote: Lincoln Hui wrote:
I would simply point out that like all professionals, translators know very little about their professional outside of their area of expertise. Could you clarify what you mean by "professional" (highlighted in bold)? Is this a typo for "profession"? You used it before and I didn't understand. B
Typo, now fixed.
| | | | | Idiomatically correct speech, native speech, and translation | Jul 26, 2013 |
Lincoln Hui wrote:
Because I am not convinced that there is such a thing as idiomatically correct language, whether English or Chinese or German or whatnot. It is a completely subjective concept and two native speakers would not necessarily agree on what the "correct" way to write something is. ...
You're entitled to your opinion, Lincoln, but that US and UK English are, in many regards, idiomatically different, is pretty much an accepted fact.
And I do believe that two native speakers of the same language will indeed agree about the idiomatically "correct" way in which something is expressed in writing or when speaking. There are usually many ways something can be expressed in a way that is idiomatically correct. But they will also agree on what is not at all idiomatic English.
I am not saying a non-native can't learn to speak or write "idiomatically correct" US-English or any other language. But their idiomatic US-English will usually be far less rich than that of a native speaker.
Now don't get me wrong, even though US-Americans will use some phrases that a person from the UK will hardly use, they will both recognize each other as English native speakers, and non-native English speakers as non-native speakers.
That is my own experience with German. I can tell if someone's native language is German, no matter if they're from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, South Tyrol or particular regions in Belgium or wherever German is an official language.
But if they didn't learn it there as children or if they learned it as adults, it is at least very unlikely that they are native speakers of German and any native German speaker will pick them out as non-natives. If they are all translators, it is also very unlikely that the non-native Germans will render a better translation into German than the native German speakers.
Nor do I say that if a non-native speaker uses many phrases of that language in an idiomatic (correct) way, he/she should be considered a native speaker.
Non-natives will either slip up, at least once in a while, or won't have the same amount of idiomatic vocabulary at their disposal, and they will not be as idiomatically consistent as natives when they construct speech/sentences.
At least for English, a good way to check if someone is a native speaker is to see where he/she was born, in which country they went to school, and to have a conversation with them in English.
Many of the points I am making here have already been made and discussed in this thread.
I recommend reading it:
http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_suggestions/227485-should_“native_language”_claims_be_verified.html
B
[Edited at 2013-07-26 19:41 GMT]
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:04
Hebrew to English
| Unidiomatic English (of a specific variant) is usually easy to spot | Jul 26, 2013 |
Lincoln Hui wrote:
Because I am not convinced that there is such a thing as idiomatically correct language, whether English or Chinese or German or whatnot. It is a completely subjective concept and two native speakers would not necessarily agree on what the "correct" way to write something is.* Time, space and usage always affect the "correct" way to use a language. The Elements of Style has already been criticized as being anachronistic despite regular updates; it has also been criticized as being outright incorrect grammatically, so who exactly do you trust? How many passives and zeds can a piece of writing bear before it becomes idiomatically incorrect? Do you identify someone who says "We shall fight on the beaches" to be a native speaker and another who says "Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter" to be non-native?
I'm not sure I agree. At least within national borders there are broadly accepted ways of saying things and deviation from these norms would be considered "unidiomatic". I think applying it to idiolects is perhaps taking it too far. In the translation market we are usually talking about US/UK English (I've never seen a request for anything other than these two variants to date....) and these two variants have idiomatic norms.
You may be able to determine whether someone is a competent writer. But I don't know what kind of criteria you can use to determine whether someone is a native writer.
I'm sure this has been discussed and methods proposed before - look on the epic summer thread from last year or the year before if you have time - but I usually would suggest the idiomatic test here too - there's a difference between someone writing "I could care less" and recognizing that as unidiomatic UK English but perfectly idiomatic US English and someone writing "I buy there fruit" and recognizing that as translationese/unidiomatic English of any variant (or at least of the variants that matter - the ones being requested).
[Edited at 2013-07-26 20:41 GMT]
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:04
Hebrew to English
You took the thoughts right out of my mind! Looks like we crossed posts, making many of the same points!
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:04
Hebrew to English
| Just to add.... | Jul 26, 2013 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
And I do believe that two native speakers of the same language will indeed agree about the idiomatically "correct" way in which something is expressed in writing or when speaking. There are usually many ways something can be expressed in a way that is idiomatically correct. But they will also agree on what is not at all idiomatic English.
That even though native speakers (of a specific variant) will sometimes argue till the cows come home about the correct usage of something, there's usually far more consensus on something which is definitely perceived as "wrong" (or unidiomatic).
| | | | | Interesting point | Jul 26, 2013 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
In the translation market we are usually talking about US/UK English (I've never seen a request for anything other than these two variants to date....) and these two variants have idiomatic norms.
Me neither. UK English, albeit the first version I was taught, is beyond my skill since 1975, so I have to turn such requests down. US English is okay for me, and nobody so far has said that my Californian version of it won't be acceptable on the East Coast.
However I see many other variants in software config menus, spellcheckers et al. For instance, Canadian English sounds to me like American English spoken faster, especially in T'ron'o (aka Toronto). There are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Jamaica, Belize, Caribbean, Singapore, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, etc. ... "variants" of English.
Eeffee deezy trendgee continews, summy day perhreppys der mightchee bee aye Brezilian Eenglish eespewlchekker too.
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