Another in a continuing series...
Mar. 1st, 2008 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpOkay, I have taken a swing at stuff that's completely off the wall and wrong, and at segments of questionable quality. So, while I'm in the mood, let me take a third swing, at examples of translations that may look okay, but ought probably to be changed. Here's an example:
The document to be translated indicates the form's number is "IBF 200" which turns out to have a name in English: Initial Incident Report. The source of this information is an online Exxon document having to do with oil spill response. There is one little wrinkle: lacking additional information, there would appear to be is something of a mismatch between "spill observation report" and "initial incident report."
So what's it gonna be, punk? Keep the suggested translation, which works, or replace it with something of reasonable provenance that would not exactly be your first choice?
In this case, I'll go with the terminology used in the Exxon document. Doing so is, of course, no guarantee that it's right. In the past, I recall one egregious case where, in fact, the officially translated name of a document (published, by the way, in the document) was so off the wall that I refused to use it (but footnoted the fact). However, with the exception of such anomalies, it's best to keep in mind Damon Runyon's advice on how "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet!" Betting requires judgment, and in a lot of ways, that's what the translation racket is all about.
My, but I am feeling positively professorial today! And I have procrastinated enough to issue a generous ration of wasted time to each grunt in a Chinese infantry division. I must and I will put my head down and finish the assignment!
Cheers...
{0>In this case, "Spill Observation Report" works fairly well as a translation. (The Russian "форма" is there because proper Russian requires it to be; there is no such requirement in English, but I digress...)
Форма отчета о наблюдении за разливом
<}79{>
Spill Observation Report
<0}
The document to be translated indicates the form's number is "IBF 200" which turns out to have a name in English: Initial Incident Report. The source of this information is an online Exxon document having to do with oil spill response. There is one little wrinkle: lacking additional information, there would appear to be is something of a mismatch between "spill observation report" and "initial incident report."
So what's it gonna be, punk? Keep the suggested translation, which works, or replace it with something of reasonable provenance that would not exactly be your first choice?
In this case, I'll go with the terminology used in the Exxon document. Doing so is, of course, no guarantee that it's right. In the past, I recall one egregious case where, in fact, the officially translated name of a document (published, by the way, in the document) was so off the wall that I refused to use it (but footnoted the fact). However, with the exception of such anomalies, it's best to keep in mind Damon Runyon's advice on how "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet!" Betting requires judgment, and in a lot of ways, that's what the translation racket is all about.
My, but I am feeling positively professorial today! And I have procrastinated enough to issue a generous ration of wasted time to each grunt in a Chinese infantry division. I must and I will put my head down and finish the assignment!
Cheers...
