| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | What qualifies you to translate out of your chosen source language(s)? Thread poster: 564354352 (X)
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564354352 (X) 
Denmark
Local time: 22:45
Danish to English
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As a follow-up to the very interesting discussion on why people might or might not translate into any other language than their native language, I am very curious to learn how people feel qualified to translate out of their chosen source language(s) into their native language.
My impression is that a lot of the debate about people's 'justified right' to translate into a non-native language is related to people translating into English (which is rapidly taking on the role of the worl... See more As a follow-up to the very interesting discussion on why people might or might not translate into any other language than their native language, I am very curious to learn how people feel qualified to translate out of their chosen source language(s) into their native language.
My impression is that a lot of the debate about people's 'justified right' to translate into a non-native language is related to people translating into English (which is rapidly taking on the role of the world's lingua franca). Is it at all possible that native English-speakers feel that they should have the sole right to translate into this wonderful language, which can never really be mastered to perfection by anyone who does not have this as their native language?
I am wondering whether different educational systems have a role to play in creating different perspectives of whether or not we should translate into anything but our native language.
I dare not speak in sweeping general terms about what goes on in other countries, but I know for a fact that English is compulsory at school in Denmark from a very early age (year one = age 6 or 7 now), which means that everybody growing up in Denmark is taught English for at least 9 or 10 years, and the vast majority for 12-13 years as they continue through upper secondary or vocational education. And that's before they even start 'professional' language studies at business school or university. Add to this that Danes grow up with a barrage of communication in English on TV and through many other media, and you might rightly say that English is our second language, but of course, it never becomes our second native language.
Language studies at business school are 3-year-courses for a BA and an additional 2 years if you continue to do an MA. Most language students would also spend at least one term at a university abroad or working in some kind of internship abroad. And that's before even starting in their first real job.
Pretty good ballast, don't you think?
By comparison, I wonder what kind of training and experience people have when they set themselves up as translators from Danish to English? I'm not suggesting they don't qualify, I am simply and genuinely curious. I would be delighted to discover that Danish is taught to any professional level anywhere else in the world... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:45
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I think too many of these discussions are from an inward-looking translators' point of view.
Surely what matters is the end user's point of view.
Put yourself in the position of the end user, paying for a translation of an important document into another language.
Wouldn't you normally expect and PREFER that this should be done by a translator who is native in the target language?
| | | | Cecile T.
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:45
English to French
| I have to write a title but find it annoying :) | Feb 19, 2016 |
While I think that the language you grew up in and that shaped your culture is the only one that you should be translating into, I do feel that Scandinavians may be an exception to look up to They are multi-lingual and depending on the type of text to translate, they may be as good as an English-native in certain cases...I just think it depends on what the document is.
Also, the world is changing: the next generation... See more While I think that the language you grew up in and that shaped your culture is the only one that you should be translating into, I do feel that Scandinavians may be an exception to look up to They are multi-lingual and depending on the type of text to translate, they may be as good as an English-native in certain cases...I just think it depends on what the document is.
Also, the world is changing: the next generations will speak English as well as English natives, maybe they will be even more aware of the grammatical fabric than the latter; I certainly recall many times I realised that the most literate, grammatically precise and articulate were Polish or German employees in a UK company.
But then localization matters: does the culture of the target-market come into play? If we are talking structural engineering or toothpaste notice then maybe not so much but if it is advertising or film subtitling then yes, there is a big difference and UK-English is not Polish or Danish-English, as the cultures are different.
[Edited at 2016-02-19 16:36 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 13:45
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
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| My answer (for Scandinavian languages) | Feb 19, 2016 |
I lived in Norway for 20 years, speak and write Norwegian at a near-native level, and have a degree from the University of Oslo.
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Tom in London wrote:
I think too many of these discussions are from an inward-looking translators' point of view.
Surely what matters is the end user's point of view.
Little disagreement there. I mostly translate for Poles, who mostly prefer a source-native translator, or perhaps a Polish-native translator for any sort of translation involving Polish, with the exception of those foreign-bred translators who actually are near-native, in which case they might as well work into Polish too. I've even seen English-native translators pull it off, which means people who grew up with an uninflected language and only learned our inflection-heavy language as adults, which means they're either geniuses or extremely hard-working folks. I sometimes translate into English for native speakers of that language, too, and they are pleased, though such requests are comparatively rarer due to the cultural preference for target-native translation among English-native linguists and translation managers (end clients less so).
Put yourself in the position of the end user, paying for a translation of an important document into another language.
Wouldn't you normally expect and PREFER that this should be done by a translator who is native in the target language?
Depends. As an educated client I would prefer 1 or 2 sorta-obvious giveaways of the writer's non-native origin (which, in itself, is no problem at all; it would be if I were a cryptoxenophobe) in the whole text over 5 typically native errors per page.
I normally wouldn't trust a native speaker of English to translate out of Polish unless also native in the latter, because of comprehension issues and possible disbelief in what the source actually says (which has been a recurring issue in English-native proofreading/revision). However, I know a couple native speakers of English whom I'd trust with an into-Polish translation over any recent graduate of English studies, for reasons I've just mentioned.
For marketing or something similar, I would probably want a native speaker of the target language, but I'd get a proper copywriter to do the job from scratch, not a translator to translate something that had been written for an entirely different audience by an author similar to that old audience and not the new audience.
Legalese and officialese would doubtless come out wrong if translated into Polish by someone not familiar with the Polish brand, including native Poles who emigrated just after finishing secondary education. Chances are a Polish-born UK community interpreter would be able to translate sufficiently for the needs of a long-term UK-resident Polish party, but not really for a Polish court or a party living in Poland. This would be a much larger problem in EN-PL than in the opposite direction. Consequently, an English-native expat with 20 years of experience struggling with Polish bureaucracy (let alone working for Polish branches of international law firms) could be better for the task than a Polish-born translator who'd left for the UK at age 18 or 19.
As far as our legal and administrative system is concerned, to even begin to get it, you need to be a Polish-qualified lawyer or civil servant (and in the latter case you still don't really understand the law you apply and enforce) or an experienced victim, I mean, citizen/resident. In either case nationality itself doesn't matter that much. It only matters if you've got the scars (or not).
***
@Gitte: Competence.
[Edited at 2016-02-19 17:21 GMT]
| | | | | Yes, titles should be optional | Feb 19, 2016 |
Why I get to translate out of Danish? Because of my towering intellect. Must be.
I've never studied Danish
I can't speak Danish
I can't write Danish
I don't understand spoken Danish
I've spent less than four weeks in Denmark in my life
Most of that was more than 20 years ago
I don't watch Danish TV or read Danish newspapers
I've never read a Danish novel
I couldn't name the Danish prime minister
I have no Danish friends or relat... See more Why I get to translate out of Danish? Because of my towering intellect. Must be.
I've never studied Danish
I can't speak Danish
I can't write Danish
I don't understand spoken Danish
I've spent less than four weeks in Denmark in my life
Most of that was more than 20 years ago
I don't watch Danish TV or read Danish newspapers
I've never read a Danish novel
I couldn't name the Danish prime minister
I have no Danish friends or relatives
Oh, and I don't have a background or any training in any trade or specialist field
But yes, I make a third of my living translating from Danish. And I do it well.
I'm not in the office now and typing on a touch screen is tiresome so draw your own conclusions... ▲ Collapse
| | | | | The proof of the pudding is in the eating | Feb 19, 2016 |
We know all too well that a person may be completely bilingual, yet totally unfit to be a translator. Rephrasing that, I'd say that translation skills are quite separate from language skills, and a dedicated and diligent professional translator may in some cases be able to produce a professional-quality translation from a barely familiar language - the question is only how long it will take. It does, however, help a lot if the translator is already multilingual and has the intuition to extrapola... See more We know all too well that a person may be completely bilingual, yet totally unfit to be a translator. Rephrasing that, I'd say that translation skills are quite separate from language skills, and a dedicated and diligent professional translator may in some cases be able to produce a professional-quality translation from a barely familiar language - the question is only how long it will take. It does, however, help a lot if the translator is already multilingual and has the intuition to extrapolate from other languages. For example, a person with a good level of Danish would have little problem understanding Norwegian without studying it systematically, and one well-versed in German would understand Dutch fairly easily. Neither of these two may amount to a professional level, but add e.g. English, Danish and French to German, and the intuitive understanding of Dutch would vastly improve. However, one also needs to be diligent not to trust this intuition blindly but keep verifying it all along.
On the other hand, from a client's standpoint, it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) matter what formal qualifications a translator has if (s)he produces excellent translations within reasonable timeframes and at the price this client is willing to pay. Again, if the translator is diligent and professional, (s)he should be able to properly assess his/her own ability to handle a given language pair and subject, and then decide to accept or refuse the job. I suspect it generally happens reasonably often (at least it happened to me more than once) that a satisfied old client asks: "I know you translate from X, do you by any chance translate from Y (a related language)?" In my cases, I honestly admitted I didn't but generally understood the written language and would be willing to give it a try, and would only ask for payment if they are satisfied. In fact, I knew I had enough resources to produce a good translation, but wanted to know if I could do it quickly enough for it to make sense as commercial work. Having proved myself, I could then include that source language in my list. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 04:45
Chinese to English
| Objective vs. subjective qualifications | Feb 19, 2016 |
Very interesting topic. I think that in general it seems to me to be safer to leave the source language qualification question to be answered subjectively - i.e. to let translators decide for themselves whether they can/can't translate a text out of a particular language - for two reasons. The first is that it seems easier to determine whether you can read a text than it is to determine whether you can write a similar text. I take a look at a piece of writing in Chinese, and literally the first ... See more Very interesting topic. I think that in general it seems to me to be safer to leave the source language qualification question to be answered subjectively - i.e. to let translators decide for themselves whether they can/can't translate a text out of a particular language - for two reasons. The first is that it seems easier to determine whether you can read a text than it is to determine whether you can write a similar text. I take a look at a piece of writing in Chinese, and literally the first thing I know about it is whether I understand it or not. The second reason is that we make these kinds of decisions all the time anyway. I certainly couldn't accept every kind of text; regardless of knowledge of the source language, there are always going to be texts I can't understand, and recognising that is part of every translator's job. So I guess the theory is that they can use those same skills to determine whether a particular text is in a specialist area that they can command, and whether it's in a language of which they have sufficient command.
My personal objective qualifications are: I did half a degree in my source language, have lived in my source language country for over ten years, and studied interpreting in both directions at a postgrad/professional level. But for me the subjective qualification is more important: when I look at a text, do I 'get' it? Of course there are many levels of 'getting,' but I think the first level is a bit of a qualitative shift. That 'zero to one' shift (as the kids say) where you go from "eh?" to "oh!" is like a light going on, and once it's on, you have the minimal conditions for translation. ▲ Collapse
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| Question seems valid and relevant | Feb 20, 2016 |
I used to send out a formal profile as a PDF with most of my offers and I included the Kleines Deutsches Sprachdiplom from the Goethe-Institut as one of my qualifications. It's not their hardest test (there is also a Großes Deutches Sprachdiplom), but it is recognized as C2 and the format of these tests is artificial enough that I am not sure I would have passed the GDS without actually preparing for it.
My offers now sum up my qualifications in three lines and the only qualificati... See more I used to send out a formal profile as a PDF with most of my offers and I included the Kleines Deutsches Sprachdiplom from the Goethe-Institut as one of my qualifications. It's not their hardest test (there is also a Großes Deutches Sprachdiplom), but it is recognized as C2 and the format of these tests is artificial enough that I am not sure I would have passed the GDS without actually preparing for it.
My offers now sum up my qualifications in three lines and the only qualification listed for my source-language knowledge is my master's degree (Magister Artium) from a German university in the subject-matter field that I work in.
I think that is the key with regard to the source texts: What reasons can I give potential clients to assume that I am able to understand the texts they send me? The second time around, the (actual and perceived) quality of the translation is obviously far more important than any qualifications.
Personally, I feel competent after having lived (most of my friends are German and I have always spoken German with my wife), worked, and studied in Germany for over ten years. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Let's not do a 180 degree turn | Feb 20, 2016 |
Gitte Hovedskov, MCIL wrote:
As a follow-up to the very interesting discussion on why people might or might not translate into any other language than their native language, I am very curious to learn how people feel qualified to translate out of their chosen source language(s) into their native language.
It seems you're doing a 180 degree turn here and take something that is most logical for any professional translator and question it.
Why on earth should a professional translator not translate out of their non-native source language?
And translating into your native language shouldn't be questioned at all among translators. That is the most logical thing to do.
On the other hand, you only should work as a translator at all when your command of your second language is excellent.
Even thinking for a moment of translating into your non-native second language will require an exceptional command of that language and will always be trumped by native speakers in many if not most circumstances.
And before someone brings up the old argument that your regular native speaker guy or gal in the street isn't as "proficient" in the use of their own native language than a fantastic non-native translator, that's no argument. Native speakers who are also translators (and that's the people I'm talking about) not only use their language genuinely, as any native speaker (educated or not) does, but have added education, talent, skill, often lots of experience in certain subjects and read, write, speak and listen to a second language, having an excellent command of that language.
Let's not get carried away.
One can discuss a lot in English and seem to be very apt at it but it doesn't prove too much with regard to translating. We all use English frequently in our profession for communication. That's not enough to translate from any language into English. (IMO)
Unfortunately, many non-native English speakers are not aware of their shortcomings in English. But be assured that a native speaker can spot the mistakes just in regular conversations and will, especially on a professional level, as a translator comparing source and target text.
Translating accurately and beautifully into one's non-native language is an exception, never the rule. And it will always be that way.
Anything else is simply wishful thinking.
PS: and learning English in school in a country where English is not the main official language will never be the same as growing up in a native English environment. Just to make that point.
[Edited at 2016-02-20 20:12 GMT]
| | | | 564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 22:45
Danish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
It seems you're doing a 180 degree turn here and take something that is most logical for any professional translator and question it.
...
And translating into your native language shouldn't be questioned at all among translators. That is the most logical thing to do.
Why is it acceptable to question why people translate into a non-native language but not acceptable to ask why people feel qualified to translate out of a native or non-native language?
We all need to be qualified (through training or experience) to handle both our source and our target languages at a professional level. I am, regardless of what you may think, genuinely interested in knowing how people have mastered non-native languages at a level that enables them to translate out of those languages.
The fact that you see things in one way does not make your particular point of view a universal truth.
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 22:45
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
| You've lost me..... | Feb 21, 2016 |
Gitte Hovedskov, MCIL wrote:
As a follow-up to the very interesting discussion on why people might or might not translate into any other language than their native language, I am very curious to learn how people feel qualified to translate out of their chosen source language(s) into their native language.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're asking why a translator decides to translate into their native language from the source language they have chosen.
I'm flummoxed, Gitte.
I can understand the reasons many people may question the wisdom/honesty of people translating into a language other than their own, be it English or any other language.
It's hardly the latest hot topic (although we'll never see the end of this debate either; and it was brought up by Bernhard in an epic thread not too long ago).
There are two camps here and ne'er the twain shall meet.
We all know that. Not news.
But expressing curiosity as to why translators do the bleedin' obvious.....
...well, flummoxed.
(Why do farmers farm? Why do teachers teach? Why do cobblers cobble? - we shall never know)
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564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 22:45
Danish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | What's obvious to some may not be so obvious to others | Feb 21, 2016 |
Andy Watkinson wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're asking why a translator decides to translate into their native language from the source language they have chosen.
But expressing curiosity as to why translators do the bleedin' obvious.....
OK, I will correct you and others who seem to misunderstand me (maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough in my non-native language  ) :
I am simply asking what it is that makes people feel they know a source language well enough to translate from this language into their native language (or into any other language, for that matter).
I am NOT asking why people translate into their native language at all. We all know why people do that. I am simply posing a question about what makes people feel qualified to translate from specific languages.
Let me reiterate that I am curious to hear how people acquire professional knowledge about languages, particularly minority languages, if there is no obvious way to learn such languages in their own countries. Why would such a question seem so weird to you?
Again, as I said, I have reasonable doubts that Danish would be taught anywhere else in the world (with a few exceptions, of course, or maybe as a part of a two-year-course in Scandinavian culture or languages), so how do people become so good at understanding this weird little language that they can translate from it with any level of confidence?
Chris has already given a fair answer: His towering intellect.
Why are people so reluctant to explain how they qualify?
I'm not asking IF people qualify to do so, I am just asking HOW?
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 02:15
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER | That is a refreshingly new take on this vexing question | Feb 21, 2016 |
I have always held the view that ace translators should be ambidextrous, that is, they should be equally competent in both their source and target languages and their associated cultures. Without this, in demanding translation situations, it is never easy, and often impossible, to arrive at accurate and elegant translations that when independently read, would be indistinguishable from original writing in that language.
Since the ideal of proficiency in any language is what an educat... See more I have always held the view that ace translators should be ambidextrous, that is, they should be equally competent in both their source and target languages and their associated cultures. Without this, in demanding translation situations, it is never easy, and often impossible, to arrive at accurate and elegant translations that when independently read, would be indistinguishable from original writing in that language.
Since the ideal of proficiency in any language is what an educated, upper class, adult member of that language and culture with superior levels of intelligence would achieve in that language, the above means that any good professional translator should have competency levels in both his source and target languages that would be equal to the type ideal proficiency, as defined above - which in common understanding, we refer to as native level proficiency.
This of course does not mean all translators and translations compulsorily have to meet the above criterion. Many translations can be effectively done by even those who have only second language level competency in the source. But such translators would be able to take up only specific types of translation jobs, which do not demand in depth understanding of source language and culture, but a general understanding would suffice, for the purpose of the required translation is merely to capture the essential meaning of the source text, and not the linguistic and cultural nuance.
Since a major part of all writing is of the above type - all scientific and technical writing falls in this category, in most cases, not having sufficient source language proficiency does not really affect the functionality of the translation output of these translators.
In other words, there is room for the half-finished translators as well as the master translators, and no one should really complain.
The reverse is also true. Many translation requirements do not require native level proficiency in target language - back translations, translations meant for machine processing (which are never actually read by humans) such as translations done for search engine optimization, for example, and some type of technical translations meant for a limited viewership fall in this category.
That is why all this discussion on the native language issue is pointless, as there are translations and translations, and translators and translators, and the world has a niche for all of them.
Coming to the other question of how I feel confident of translating from my non-native source language English, the situation in India is in many respects similar to the one described by you of Denmark - in many upscale schools, English is taught from kindergarten on wards (age 4 onwards), and the output of many such schools know only English at a proficient level when they grow up and no other language, including their native language. In my case, even though I attended such an school, I had an early aptitude for learning languages and grew up in a predominantly Hindi milieu, which is why I developed above-average linguistic skills in English and Hindi. This preordained me for a career in translation, but I did not become a translator till late into my forties. I had a long stint of over twenty years as a copy writer in English and Hindi and primarily viewed myself as a writer and not as a translator. It was the coming of the Internet to India around 1990s and my accidental discovery of proz.com and the dawning of the fact that it is possible to earn a living out of my unique combination of linguistic skills in two dominant international languages, English and Hindi, that made a translator out of me.
[Edited at 2016-02-21 07:27 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 22:45
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| I will address just one point. | Feb 21, 2016 |
Something caught my attention and that's the argument "have lived in the source language country for xy years".
Well, in regards with this... The most proficient person in my native language I have come to meet never resided in this country (visiting yes, residing no). They studied Serbo-Croatian at Uni level for 5 years at the University of Vienna. Their use of the language was so excellent I couldn't believe they were non-native and kept asking questions about their heritage (full... See more Something caught my attention and that's the argument "have lived in the source language country for xy years".
Well, in regards with this... The most proficient person in my native language I have come to meet never resided in this country (visiting yes, residing no). They studied Serbo-Croatian at Uni level for 5 years at the University of Vienna. Their use of the language was so excellent I couldn't believe they were non-native and kept asking questions about their heritage (full German heritage).
On the other hand, I know foreigners who have been living in this country for 15+, 20+ years and they still make basic grammatical errors, their vocabulary is poor, etc. These are the people that make the kind of errors while using the language that I wouldn't trust them to translate from it (not professionally).
So this argument is not necessarily valid (I am not saying it can't be sometimes, but not necessarily). Just because someone lives in a country XY, it doesn't mean they are soaking in the language actively or accurately, you would probably require professional guidance for that.
[Edited at 2016-02-21 08:40 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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