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The direct approach...
Jul. 18th, 2013 11:08 pmIt's said that in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. However, I've found that, in practice...
You get the idea.
A salient example is my own profession, where I have heard learned experts, who are generally academics, state that interpreters who think they can translate (and by extension, translators who think they can interpret) are deluding themselves. The same for translators who work both into and out of their native languages.
There are at least two issues with such claims, at least in my view. But first, permit me to address the raised eyebrows of readers who might be wondering what the difference may be between interpreters and translators. In ten words or less: interpreters speak, while translators write. There are distinct skills that come into play with each respective activity, but an explanation would be even more of a digression...
So what are the issues? Well, first, I've seen quite a number of interpreters besides myself who can ably translate (and translators who can interpret). And while my observation may be dismissed as biased or deluded, the fact is that I and a number of other interpreter/translators of my acquaintance appear to make a reasonably good living doing what many academics say cannot be done.
As far as bidirectional translation is concerned, the academics may have a point. I've run into entirely too many translators who've hung out shingles claiming bidirectional skills when what they have is only a rough approximation when translating out of their native language. Such translations may be understandable, but are almost always perceived by the reader as translations. On the other hand, I know several individuals who are able to translate both into and out of their native language equally well, but these tend to be folks who spent their formative years immersed in those two languages.
The problem with translating out of your native language is generally a lack of facility with the written nuances of the "other" language. The key word in the previous sentence is "written," because you can get away with grammatical murder while speaking, just as can native speakers when they make an utterance. (You want to make someone sound like a moron? Quote them word for word. When written out, normal speech—with its pauses, corrections, repetitions, and so on—typically reads as if the speaker has an IQ south of 80.)
The second issue is almost purely one of what is often called "educating the client," although I think "educating the freelancer" is an equally apt name. When clients hire someone billed as an "interpreter" (or "translator"), they naturally assume this means the person that can both interpret and translate in both directions. Theoretically, I suppose, such clients ought to be brought along to the understanding of the difference between interpreters and translators. Practically speaking, however, there is no shortage of freelancers who are more than happy to (try to) accommodate such clients with claims of being able to walk on water while carrying barbells, linguistically speaking.
I am not so bold. I will not take interpreting assignments that involve significant amounts of into-Russian translation. Over the years of my participation in various launch campaigns, for example, things have arranged themselves in such a way that I get most or all of the Russian documents that go into English, while the native Russian interpreters handle all the English documents going into Russian.
However, I'm the only interpreter on staff at the moment, which puts me in an interesting position, for early this afternoon, I was given a letter to translate into Russian.
Now, there's a memorable scene in one of my favorite movies, Quigley Down Under, where the bad guy decides to take advantage of the hero's apparent lack of familiarity with pistols, and so decides, after having Quigley beaten, to murder him by staging a "fair" gunfight between Quigley, at one end, and himself and two cronies, at the other. Quigley shoots all three of his opponents before they can bring their guns to bear, and then explains his misunderstood remark about pistols to the dying bad guy: "I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it."
In my case, by analogy, just because I avoid translating into Russian doesn't mean I can't do so (on occasion and for short items), although my skill translating into Russian is admittedly nothing like Quigley's skill with a .45 Colt. But I digress...
That "interesting position" I was in has to do with the fact that native English-speakers who have a reasonable grasp of Russian almost invariably have no idea how to go about striking the correct "register" using the printed Russian word in business correspondence, which I ascribe to the informal nature of American messages of this sort, vis à vis the much more formal approach exhibited in Russian correspondence.
No matter. Today, I decided to simply sidestep that problem and just translate the text in a grammatically correct manner. The letter almost sounds as if I was speaking. I escaped with one grammatical error in my rough draft (which was caught by Word) and then I ran the text past the logistics coordinator, whose native language is Russian, and who offered a couple of well-received tweaks, whereupon I sent off the letter.
Still no official word on my tenure here, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
Speaking of which... I guess I should start not losing any sleep, here, real soon.
You get the idea.
A salient example is my own profession, where I have heard learned experts, who are generally academics, state that interpreters who think they can translate (and by extension, translators who think they can interpret) are deluding themselves. The same for translators who work both into and out of their native languages.
There are at least two issues with such claims, at least in my view. But first, permit me to address the raised eyebrows of readers who might be wondering what the difference may be between interpreters and translators. In ten words or less: interpreters speak, while translators write. There are distinct skills that come into play with each respective activity, but an explanation would be even more of a digression...
So what are the issues? Well, first, I've seen quite a number of interpreters besides myself who can ably translate (and translators who can interpret). And while my observation may be dismissed as biased or deluded, the fact is that I and a number of other interpreter/translators of my acquaintance appear to make a reasonably good living doing what many academics say cannot be done.
As far as bidirectional translation is concerned, the academics may have a point. I've run into entirely too many translators who've hung out shingles claiming bidirectional skills when what they have is only a rough approximation when translating out of their native language. Such translations may be understandable, but are almost always perceived by the reader as translations. On the other hand, I know several individuals who are able to translate both into and out of their native language equally well, but these tend to be folks who spent their formative years immersed in those two languages.
The problem with translating out of your native language is generally a lack of facility with the written nuances of the "other" language. The key word in the previous sentence is "written," because you can get away with grammatical murder while speaking, just as can native speakers when they make an utterance. (You want to make someone sound like a moron? Quote them word for word. When written out, normal speech—with its pauses, corrections, repetitions, and so on—typically reads as if the speaker has an IQ south of 80.)
The second issue is almost purely one of what is often called "educating the client," although I think "educating the freelancer" is an equally apt name. When clients hire someone billed as an "interpreter" (or "translator"), they naturally assume this means the person that can both interpret and translate in both directions. Theoretically, I suppose, such clients ought to be brought along to the understanding of the difference between interpreters and translators. Practically speaking, however, there is no shortage of freelancers who are more than happy to (try to) accommodate such clients with claims of being able to walk on water while carrying barbells, linguistically speaking.
I am not so bold. I will not take interpreting assignments that involve significant amounts of into-Russian translation. Over the years of my participation in various launch campaigns, for example, things have arranged themselves in such a way that I get most or all of the Russian documents that go into English, while the native Russian interpreters handle all the English documents going into Russian.
However, I'm the only interpreter on staff at the moment, which puts me in an interesting position, for early this afternoon, I was given a letter to translate into Russian.
Now, there's a memorable scene in one of my favorite movies, Quigley Down Under, where the bad guy decides to take advantage of the hero's apparent lack of familiarity with pistols, and so decides, after having Quigley beaten, to murder him by staging a "fair" gunfight between Quigley, at one end, and himself and two cronies, at the other. Quigley shoots all three of his opponents before they can bring their guns to bear, and then explains his misunderstood remark about pistols to the dying bad guy: "I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it."
In my case, by analogy, just because I avoid translating into Russian doesn't mean I can't do so (on occasion and for short items), although my skill translating into Russian is admittedly nothing like Quigley's skill with a .45 Colt. But I digress...
That "interesting position" I was in has to do with the fact that native English-speakers who have a reasonable grasp of Russian almost invariably have no idea how to go about striking the correct "register" using the printed Russian word in business correspondence, which I ascribe to the informal nature of American messages of this sort, vis à vis the much more formal approach exhibited in Russian correspondence.
No matter. Today, I decided to simply sidestep that problem and just translate the text in a grammatically correct manner. The letter almost sounds as if I was speaking. I escaped with one grammatical error in my rough draft (which was caught by Word) and then I ran the text past the logistics coordinator, whose native language is Russian, and who offered a couple of well-received tweaks, whereupon I sent off the letter.
Still no official word on my tenure here, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
Speaking of which... I guess I should start not losing any sleep, here, real soon.
