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

Robert Kloiber:

> 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.

I think it's more likely that they don't realise that they have a bad 
translation on 
their hands in the first place. The people who commission translations are not, 
in 
general, native speakers of the target language. They are unable to make the 
judgement.

> 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.

Certainly. We should not blame the translator, unless we want to blame 
everyone who ever took on a job beyond their capabilities. But I suspect that 
some translators overstate -- or oversell -- their abilities; again, the 
decision-
maker is unable to make an accurate judgement.

Let's not underestimate the difficulty; finding both the language skills and 
the 
technical knowledge in a single head is rarely easy and often impossible. In 
many cases, the solution is to get the translation done by someone with good 
technical knowledge, and to get the result edited by someone with good 
language skills. Even that doesn't always work, but it's far preferable to only 
doing the first part and not the second.

And, to be fair to those translators, we also have to acknowledge that a lot of 
native speakers have imperfect language skills.


Michael Lewis

--------------------------------------
Brandle Pty Limited, Sydney, Australia
www.brandle.com.au
--------------------------------------


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