Why I discourge translators from trying to translate both ways....

[Warren Smith]

I received the following inquiry from someone who wants to work for my firm.

 

Perhaps this fellow is OK for translating into his native tongue -- but I wonder if he has any idea how bad his English is. (I don't think that even Google Translate is this bad.)

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Dear Sir/Madame,

 

I'm [REDACTED] - a Hanoian (native Vietnamese). Knowing you open translator vacancy, I'm writing to apply for that. I've edited for Quill Content Limited that bases in London UK, translated 10 Netflix video projects for Visual Data, that bases in Los Angeles USA, have translated some documents of healthcare, technique, finance, business materials, life science etc, then market research (questionnaire, survey). And I've translated some books such as Holiday Celebrations in USA and 301 Funny Stories etc, ... for Vietnam Culture & Information Publisher.

 

 As you see in my resume attached.

 

In other hand, I've achieved bachelor degree in translation and used to translate with SDL Trados , Wordfast translation software. So I've achieved knowledge of nature of translation craft.

 

I locates in Hanoi, Vietnam, therefore my timezone is GMT+7, I'm a full time freelancer (at least of 05 hours per day with daily output of 1,500 source words.

[Jon Johanning]

It's amazing how many non-native English speakers seem to think English is an "easy language." I think, in many cases, it's because we just use the alphabet without all of the decorations the Vietnamese put on it, and don't have all the inflections so many languages sport. How hard can it be?

Jon Johanning

jjoha...@igc.org

[Cliff Bender]

Warren,

Most of your posts have a question you cannot (or do not want to expend the energy to) solve. So is there a question in this post? If not, what is the purpose of your post?

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[Warren Smith]

Nope. No question. Just an observation pursuant to a previous conversation that we had here.

 

W

[Toshi Ishizaki]

!!!

このスレッド、まだ削除されていないのに驚いています。

検索すれば、1分もかからずに応募した本人（おそらく）とみられる方が特定できてしまうのに。

個人情報の扱いがかなり軽視されていませんか？

石崎敏明 － 英文和訳限定の金融翻訳者

2021年1月26日(火) 6:42 Warren Smith <Warren...@comcast.net>:

Nope. No question. Just an observation pursuant to a previous conversation that we had here.

 

W

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[Warren Smith]

You may have good point. (I am the one who brought up the issue some time ago that printouts of exchanges on Honyaku have been introduced in evidence in court, so we are exposed to risk by our participation here.)

 

I would be more concerned in this case if this fellow were a Japanese translator (so that he or she would be in our immediate circles), and if s/he weren't sending out massive, indiscriminant email blasts to people s/he doesn't know. That is, this particular translator appears to be spamming this information far and wide through a robot with a purchased mail list, so I am not particularly worried about releasing any private information. (I certainly would not have done this with a personal email [or worse yet -- documents I have reviewed in court cases translated by members of this forum] -- such an infraction would be unthinkable!)

 

Still, I guess you are right... it was somewhat rude of me to point out somebody else's shortcomings, even if it was to make the point that some people (and I would argue MOST people) are unable to judge accurately the quality of documents written in a non-native language, due to a fundamental asymmetry in feedback processes in reading vs. writing.

 

<Discussing that briefly...>

The asymmetry comes from the fact that when someone reads a source text in a non-native language, that person becomes very aware of the limitations of his or her understanding of the text, as the translator struggles to make sense of it and understand its nuances. If there are words or concepts we don't understand, the fact becomes inescapable to us. If we have a misapprehension about the meaning of a word, then it creates tension in the context, causing us to discover our errors in understandings. The process of creating a document is very different; we can remain perpetually blind to defects in our expression because there is no mechanism that inherently works to bring our deficiencies to our attention (aside from third-party teachers or reviewers).

<End of digression...>

 

Please understand that my posting was not to ridicule this person, but to show just how blind even an experienced professional can be to his or her own weaknesses in written expression in the foreign language.

 

But the point remains -- you are right. I agree that it is important to not only be cautious, but to be kind, and I will be a bit more careful in the future.

 

Thanks for the well-deserved dope-slap.

Warren Smith

 

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