atw: Re: Looks good, but ....

A point to be made here is also that the English usage that we as native 
speakers find so 'odd' and 'wrong' is actually deemed acceptable by English 
speakers in the target country. 

Language is a reflection of / inseparable from culture and the turns of phrase 
that we are assuming mark the writer of that media copy as a non-native speaker 
may merely be the utterances of a native speaker of yet another variation of 
English, in this case peculiar to Thailand!

When I read the sentence: 'With its sleek, compact body, and the over-all 
beautiful design and color, it also has one of the most useful
features equipped: GPRS connectivity.' I can immediately tell that this copy 
was written using English other than the one I use from day to day... but I 
have personally had my work localised in ways that made it 'wrong' for me 
grammatically and stylistically yet it was more acceptable to locals than my 
'right' version was. We speak a lingua franca, folks, and that's the price you 
pay.  If that copy was destined for Australian audiences, you'd have good cause 
to shudder.  I'm betting it never will be. 

Cheers
Miriam


> 
> From: "Robert Kloiber" <robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 28/04/2004 14:04:47
> To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: atw: Re: Looks good, but ....
> 
> 
> This is a typical case of not choosing a native speaker of the target
> language,
> (i.e., English in this case).
> Often these jobs are passed on to someone in the company's office who has 
> 'some' knowledge of the target language, just to save some money. They
> don't
> realise, however, what damage a bad translation does to their commercial
> image.
> 
> A responsible translation company will choose a translator who is:
> 1. a native speaker of the target language, and
> 2. has the appropriate technical background knowledge to understand the
> context.
> 
> Whilst one can blame the translator for taking on a job he/she isn't
> capable of
> carrying out correctly, the final responsibility lies with whoever has
> chosen that
> particular translator.
> 
> Robert Kloiber
> Academy Translations
> 
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> 
> On 28/04/2004 at 11:38 AM Michael Lewis wrote:
> 
> > Cathy Morison:
> > 
> > > Just came across this rather attractive brochure which isn't quite up
> to
> > > scratch in the English language department.
> > > 
> > > http://www.inet.co.th/inet-istyle/2/pdf_files/tipeng.pdf
> > 
> > Yebbut -- and this is a point we should remember about our own work --
> > the 
> > English problems were almost certainly put there by a translator. The
> > original, in 
> > Finnish or Urdu or whatever, was probaly fine.
> > 
> > But I've also seen versions of material I've written, with subsequent
> > updates by 
> > other people, that have made my hair curl. I'm glad my name isn't
> > actually on the 
> > cover . . .
> > 
> > 
> > Michael Lewis
> 
> 
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