Horrible translations using software

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Permalink Reply by James H Smith on July 21, 2010 at 12:39am

Hi Rick

You're right. I find that sometimes a literal translation can "distort" the original meaning or context of a phrase or sentence; and software can only, at best, give a "word for word" translation. I am not very "au fait" with software;
I imagine it can handle individual words, and maybe common phrases, but when it comes to uncommon phrases and whole sentences, it must get "lost" !!
I tend to settle for a translation that gives the least possible amount of "distortion". This usually involves the use of an Oxford French dictionary,and a good "dose" of thinking !
After much thought, the best I can come up with is:

encourager une attitude responsable à l'égard de sécurité.

I hope it doesn't lose much of it's original "spirit".

Bonne chance
À bientôt.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Shousha on July 23, 2010 at 7:52pm

Hi James,

This is great, thanks. According to the medical people around it does lose a bit of the strength of the word "culture" though. This is a tough one because the word "culture" is perfectly acceptable in French. However, I feel it's the wrong word for the phrase.

Since time is money, Iwill have to make a decision between your phrase and the older one shortly (like in the next twenty-four hours). I'll let you know what gives and if I found something else again.

Thanks very much for your help.

Sincerely,

Rick Shousha
Montreal

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 25, 2010 at 6:11pm

With this kind of "sound-bite", it's usually better to sound out a few French people (or native speakers of whatever language you're translating into), and in an ideal world, that is part of what a decent translator or translation company will do. So whatever I and others say here, you should in a sense take it with a pinch of salt at least until you have feedback from various people.

That said, for culture in this sense, if you don't like the word culture in French, I would suggest esprit is fairly close to the idea. So for example, something like favoriser un esprit de sécurité. That said, I'm not sure there's actually anything terribly wrong with culture.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Shousha on July 26, 2010 at 2:53pm

Hello Neil,

Thanks for the note but, believe it or not, the reason I signed up for this board in the first place is because I was not impressed with the quality of work from the professional company we used for the original translation work.

Over the years, I've always, every single time, found people who have more expertise on one of these boards, than with a professional outfit. For instance, your answer here is right on, thanks! I will most likely be using your phrase in the future.

On the flip side, my mother tongue is French so I will have a look at this board on a regular basis, and see if I can contribute as well as you have done.

Cheers,

Rick Shousha
Montreal

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 27, 2010 at 7:13pm

Rick -- believe me, I fully understand your frustration as I am a translator myself and regularly collaborate with or outsource to other translators. The situation is quite complex, but I think there are a number of factors at play (and if you look at the forums of translators' sites, you'll see a lot of colleagues bemoaning similar problems):

- especially at the lower price level, there is a lot of incompetence in the translation industry-- people with only very basic training (if any formal training at all) in languages and little aptitude for writing and research underestimate the skills actually required to perform a good quality translation;
- clients don't appreciate just how skilled a job translation is and how much work can be involved and simply don't budget enough money for good quality translations;
- with the constant drive by clients for lower and lower prices, some otherwise competent translators are forced to spend less time on a translation than they otherwise would have done, and don't the best quality they could (I don't necessarily use that as an excuse in favour of translators-- ideally, good translators should simply refuse to work to a budget that is too low);
- there are actually some cases where a poor quality translation is good enough or where clients can't tell the difference, and some clients, rather than complaining, simply make do with a poor quality translation so long as it's as cheap as possible-- this in turn, unfortunately, means that there are many outfits churning out poor quality translations which are nonetheless viable businesses;
- (as kind of a re-wording of the last point): the focus on too-good-to-be-true prices means that there are many translation agencies that cut corners, or who by default are forced to offer prices that mean they have to use cheaper, less competent translators, not include proofreading, not offer their translators support with terminology research etc;
- just like the output of marketing companies, novelists etc, translation is an artistic product and highly subject to personal taste-- what one person thinks is overliteral may be praised for its technical accuracy by somebody else; what one reader thinks is beautifully poetic may be condemned as overly flowery by another. Finding the right translator for your needs can sometimes be an investment in time.

If a translation agency submitted work of a poor quality to you, then I think you should discuss the issue with them. Unfortunately, people running some agencies are just "box shifters" and don't actually have much linguistic competence themselves. If that's the case, they may not actually be aware of the problem, but, if they're a reputable organisation, they should have the shoddy translation re-done and/or proofread at their expense. Maybe you can discuss the budget with them as well-- perhaps they felt overly pressured to use a cheap translator and didn't appreciate that you would be happy to pay them more money for better quality. (Of course, a decent translator or translation company would generally discuss this with you at the outset...)

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