# Translations: Should our translations be strictly correct or easily understood?



## Nunty

I recently got well and truly tangled up in a couple of translations about an Order of friars (not monks) who live in convents (not monasteries). I was going through all the agonies of ... whatever it is that has lots of agonies... trying to decide whether to use the correct terms, which the average person would think was a mistake, or the wrong terms, which the average person believed to be correct. If anyone is interested, there were two EO threads about it here and here. The latter is the starker example.

In these two cases, I had a split decision. For the first, I used the correct term with a clever write-around to explain; for the second I grit my teeth and used the wrong term because the client himself uses it. ("I know it's wrong," he said, "but that's what everyone says." Wimp.)

Now, I know I have a tendency to be a language fascist. Purity! Clarity! Define your terms and use them correctly! Don't talk down; make people stretch their minds! But language is first and foremost meant to communicate, no? So if I use a correct term that is not understood, have I gained anything? If I use a term that is understood but is incorrect, have I lost anything?

On the other hand, do as translators do we have an underlying pedagogic function? Should our translations strive toward educating the general reader? Or is that language-elitism?

I'd like to know, please:
1. What do you think about this? (Theory.)
2. How do you handle such issues? (Practice.)



PS I had lots of trouble figuring out what to call this thread. If anyone can think of something that is more indicative of the content, please PM me and I'll see if I can cajole a moderator into changing the title...


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## konungursvia

That's the art of translation, to be very correct and readily approachable and as natural as the original would be to natives of the original language. It's a balancing act, and one can hardly agree with any expression of bias toward one side or the other.

  That said, I'm currently translating _Os Lusiadas_ from 16th C. Portuguese into English, and am favoring accuracy AND readability over poetic form such as perfect rime, ideal meter and scansion, etc.


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## Sallyb36

I think it is ultimately important to translate accurately/correctly.
If someone reading it doesn't understand the translation then they wouldn't understand the original if the translation is accurate!  They need to learn more in which case.


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## Nunty

I often translate from ecclesiastical Latin into modern Hebrew. The particular difficulties I face here involve having to invent new vocabulary, dealing with centuries of parallel and very different linguistic development and popular misuse of certain terms. That, actually, is what I do for fun.

The question here involves, in this case, translating from modern French into modern English. These are simple translations of news items or magazine articles. The terms that got me spinning in circles the other day are so frequently used incorrectly that the "incorrect" usage has found its way into certain general, popular dictionaries. Language is dynamic. Do we simply bow to the vulgarization or "rage, rage against the dying of the light"?


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## Sallyb36

We rage!!!


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## Sallyb36

What would you do if you had children/were responsible for some of the next generation, would you bow to vulgarisation, or would you rage??


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## Nunty

Me, I'm a rager... Sort of. In nunnish terms.


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## moura

Nun-Translator, what a delightful subject! 
I have been in the translation field more or less since October last (I had 10 years of experience before, but long, long ago), and I still have a lot to learn.
But for me a thing is quite clear. The author or the writer is the one who wrote the text and I (as the translator) wish never to occupy his position, but to transmit with fidelity what he wrote.
But another think is also quite clear. The (in this case, Portuguese) reader must read this text I am giving him, as if it was written originally in Portuguese. What I mean by that is that the language must be fluent, without marks (in morphology, syntheses and so on) that may give him a glimpse of the starting language.
However, with these two bases, how about those expressions or term,s that doesn't exist in the target language? I that case, I think that there are 2 ways: one is trying to find a substitute, which does not prejudice the context; the other is with the translator note (TN). Once I read that the perfect translation would be that without a single TN. I have not this opinion. Annulling an original word, and giving another with a different sense, just to avoid a TN, is like re-writing the text. Then the final reader would have in his hand a book written by the translator, and not translated by the translator.
This is in general my idea. Of course there are exceptions (for instance, adapting an adult book for children reading, or translating a cooking book for another country, giving then the optional food choices, etc.etc.). But in terms of fiction and/or technique this how I see this issue.


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## Nunty

I think we agree on many things, moura. My usual image for the translator is a window. A spotlessly clean window of high quality glass is simply invisible. If the glass is of a slightly lower quality, or if it is a dusty day, we still see quite clearly, but the window itself is also in evidence. Very poor quality or very dirty windows absolutely obscure whatever is on the other side.

So what kind of "window" am I if I use a term that is strictly correct but generally misunderstood? Is the window any cleaner if I use the "wrong" term that everyone thinks is right?

On the other hand, what about the "rage factor", our role (if I can be a bit pretentious) as guardians of language?


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## Lugubert

To give you a view from another angle:

I translate only technical texts. Nowadays, it's practically only on pharmaceuticals and medical apparatus. I don't have to worry about textual beauty and most of the time not about the style of the original. My work has to be perfectly factually correct and easy to understand.

When I worked in a team for a major computer company, the first quality criterion was that our output should be 40% shorter than their USAian originals. The Swedish subsidiary thought that the English manuals were unnecessarily talkative. So, for example, instead of "Now please press the K key" we wrote "Tryck på K" (Press K). We had to delete unnecessary small talk, and were allowed to assume that the reader was moderately intelligent, and ignore the most patronizing instructions.

For a few long-time customers, when I now translate instructions, I often make changes. I delete unnecessary repetitions, and I add points on for example safety and handling that the author has overlooked. In the most extreme case, I don't even always tell them what I've changed, unless it will be a major improvement to future originals. (I worked in that company for many years, and there still are some people who know me from that time.)

This is of course not possible with new customers/products, but I then generously add TN's, like "Asking this is probably illegal in Sweden", "Shouldn't I add this note on how to make the dilution: ..." etc.

I always try to imagine the person standing before the gadget and looking in "my" manual. What do they need to know? How do I explain it so that the operator, patient, bystanders and apparatus all survive?


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## Nunty

That is an interesting other angle, Lugubert. Some years ago I was a medical translator, specializing in translations for court cases (malpractice, disability, etc.). I had to do notorizable translations, with just about no leeway, but translations that the reader would understand, nonetheless. There, for instance, I might have a problem with the word "abortion" which means one thing in medical literature and another in the popular mind. I did use TNs for that kind of work.

But here, it's really a different question. Has no one else ever come up against this correct-but-misunderstood vs incorrect-but-generally-used sort of problem? I'm not sure a TN (which was not an option) would have solved it.

PS I was delighted to see your use of USAian. I usually say USAn, myself.


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## ireney

Well, there are  cases:

a) the word/phrase has no equivalent. In this case, if it can be described with a few words that's what I do. If not I use the word in the original language with a nice little TN. Believe it or not, that's the case with "simple" words sometimes such as "mantra".

b) The word/phrase has an equivalent but there's a good chance the people might not know its meaning. Open a dictionary you! 

c) The word/phrase has an equivalent but people think that it means a different thing (having followed your EO requests I know what you mean!). That's when trouble starts. Opening dictionaries, asking well educated people for their opinion etc.  TNs are my friends.

Whoever said no TNs had probably not thought things through. So what if for example, I had to translate Halloween in Greek or Apokries in English? These two are similar but not the same. Sure, I could just transcribe them and send the reader searching. That was not, however, the intention of the author. 

Ecclesiastical terms are my nightmare. As you may know there are quite a few differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic church and many more between Orthodox Christian and other denominations and religions. Well, we're not all that cosmopolitan religion-wise and very few terms from other denominations or religions are know.

And there's always the publishing house to think of. For instance, a book I was proofreading was called "Chapterhouse. Dune."; there was actually a planet called so (Chapterhouse I mean, Dune is just the name of the series at this point). OK, so the translator was *ahem* careless so he translated Chapterhouse as "The house of chapters [book chapters]" using a form that actually brought in mind Das Kapital  of Karl Marx.
This was of course out of the question. I translated it using the right term but the publishing house would have none of that. They said no one knew the word. I finally had to give in of course. To make a long and painful story short they opted for "Metropolis" for the planet and "Sisterhood of Dune" for the title. Go figure.


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## Etcetera

Nun-Translator said:


> Now, I know I have a tendency to be a language fascist. Purity! Clarity! Define your terms and use them correctly! Don't talk down; make people stretch their minds! But language is first and foremost meant to communicate, no? So if I use a correct term that is not understood, have I gained anything? If I use a term that is understood but is incorrect, have I lost anything?


I would, perhaps, use the correct term and make a footnote explaining why I am using this word, not the one the audience know. 
But it happens sometimes that the 'incorrect' term has long been established in the language, and you have nothing to do but to use it, however little you might like it.


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## .   1

I think that you are caught on the horns of a dilemma with little chance of extrication.
You have an absolute responsibility as a translator to stay true to the intent of the original text so accuracy is the key.
You must also cater to your audience by making the text accessable to them.
This is what separates you from a machine.  It also means that a machine will not be able to easily replace you.
I enjoy to read words that I do not understand as I am then required to think and research for myself but this is not always a good thing depending on the text that I am reading.
I think that you have answered your own question.
Use the correct word then employ some creative editing to give context to the difficult word.
I love the way you rage sister.

.,,


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## Lugubert

Nun-colleague,

We have a very small abortion problem in Sweden. Even physicians accept layman's language, so I would use the equivalent of miscarriage in any setting when referring to a spontaneous abortion. I might use more technical language in a text going into the catalogue for prescription drugs, but I normally asssume for example that a doctor will understand "thighbone" but the average layman wouldn't get "femur".

There have been official campaigns to make the medical profession as well as civil servants use transparent language. We've done away with Latin like "iter semel" on recipes for something like "may be used once more".

I have never met a lawyer, but my impression is that they always have used Swedish, not Latin.

For 'incorrect' etc., it has taken me quite some time to accept that "anti-semitic" refers only to aversion against a minority of the Semitic people.


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## Etcetera

Translation of medical terms into Russian is especially difficult, because someterms, which in English sound pretty nice and rather understandable even for non-professionals, become something terribly complicated. And here you hardly have any choice!


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## Nunty

OK, Daddyo, but try this for a situation. I often translate content for the website of a local Church institution. There are words that are commonly understood by laypeople in French (source language) but their translations are not understood by laypeople in English. I see my role as translator to be a communicator as well, not just the button someone pushes to get output on a 1:1 correspondence.


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## Nunty

Ireney, I _do_ understand about ecclesiastical terminology... We who live in rite-enriched environments have translation joys that others can only dream of...

I once read an essay by someone who translated western Catholic literature into Japanese. I wish I still had it. He was very wise and practical, too.


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## Nunty

I resist lowering the register, but when I have a good idea of the lacunae in the target audience's vocabulary or general knowledge I use write-arounds. (For the Internet translations I don't have the space for TNs and they would interfere with the flow.) For the Latin-Hebrew translations I do make pretty frequent use of explanatory footnotes and make a lexicon or glossary that I append to the end of the document.

The thing is, in addition to everything else we've said about translation, I want it to sound smooth and gracious, too.


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## .   1

Nun-Translator said:


> The thing is, in addition to everything else we've said about translation, I want it to sound smooth and gracious, too.


I am quite confident that you will never have a difficulty in displaying your grace.
I find your questions fascinating and informative on a level that I did not think possible in public forums.
A lively lovely linguists' dream come true.

.,,


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## Nunty

Oh dear, the Lord of Punctuation is making me blush...

Say something on topic, dear man.


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## fenixpollo

Here are a couple of related threads in CD. Hope they provide some amusement, Sister. 

*Should you translate errors in the source text?*

*In translation, what should be preserved: source culture or target comprehension?*

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. I see points on both sides, and I think that one must approach translations on a case-by-case basis... balancing the needs of the customer and the audience.

Cheers.


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## Maja

Nun-Translator said:


> On the other hand, do as translators do we have an underlying pedagogic function? Should our translations strive toward educating the general reader? Or is that language-elitism?
> I'd like to know,  please:
> 1. What do you think about this? (Theory.)
> 2. How do you handle  such issues? (Practice.)


 1. Yes, of course!!! We  do have pedagogic responsibility and obligation to translate properly (and that  is smt too big of responsibility that keeps me up at night!!!). 
My position is: I  have no right to change anything that smo else wrote (apart from some  lapses or errors) as I am merely a translator!!! 
2. In practice, it  depends on the text how literal I would be. I usually translate as closely to the original as possible! If there are things that cannot be translated or are not really understandable I put footnotes with explanations. If it is slang or colloquialism, I try to find equivalents. I also try to "capture" an author's style, although usually much is lost in translation. 
There are, of course, many words of which I don't even know the meaning in my own mother tongue (like some car parts, or medical expressions etc.) but I just translate them as they are because there are probable much readers who do. 

Cheers!

P.S. the title is  indicative enough, no need to change it


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## macta123

If the matter is high formal or legal - the translations should be accurate.

Otherwise, for less formal translations or informal translation - the information should reach to whom the translation is done (Easily understood!)


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## badgrammar

As many have said, it all depends on the translation (as well as the instructions given to you by your client).  

Is it a medical book?  I'd go for accuarcy, and would quickly alert my client if anything in the original text looked strange to me.

Is it some kind of commercial/advertising document, whose ultimate goal is to sell a prouct (be it an idea, a car, soap or a trip to Vegas?).  Then you go for something that sells, you have a lot of liberty, and your client will thank you for it (hopefully ).  

Is it fiction?  Or a screenplay?  Or for specific use (dubbing, subtitling, a viseo game)? Then, as always, *you need to consult your client. * , and ask what he or she wants, needs and expects.   However, as in the case of our beloved nun-translator, the client may not always be able to give you a direct answer...

All humor aside though, sister, who do you translate these texts for?  Is it something you do for yourself, for the church in general?  I mean, is there someone for whom you do this work who could better tell you what they need?


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## Nunty

It was a general question, Badgrammar, arising out of a specific situation. I was interested to hear what other people thought. I seem to have badly expressed myself (yet again) because most of the answers do not relate to what I thought I had asked. 

Truth to tell, I thought this thread had died some time ago...

(Can a thread die?)


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## badgrammar

No, old threads never die...


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## maxiogee

Six days  isn't "old" (says the fifty-five year old!).


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## Sallyb36

old threads never die, they just get "bumped"


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## loladamore

> one must approach translations on a case-by-case basis


 
I agree wholeheartedly with this. *What* are you translating, *for whom*, and with *what purpose* in mind? Once those questions are answered you can decide on the *HOW*.



> the information should reach to whom the translation is done


 
We should all have this sentiment at heart - the message should reach its target.



> My position is: I have no right to change anything that smo else wrote (apart from some lapses or errors) as I am merely a translator!!!


 
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What do you mean *merely* a translator? How (very) dare you!
Oh dear, I think I'd better go and get some fresh air before I carry on in this thread...


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