- www.goihata.com
When we receive a document to translate it is very important to check the writing quality in the original. There is a tacit axiom in translation which every one of us knows: the translation will never be much better than the original (or in tech-talk: GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out!) If the original is an incoherent, illogical piece of nonsense, so the translation will be. If the source text is a brilliant piece of erudition with great literary merit, then the translation should surely be the same.
The point is Translators cannot go much above the quality of the original, and translation buyers should not necessarily blame a bad translation on the Translator. Of course, we must always do our best to render the information in the optimum manner even though it is best not to rewrite the original or improve its style or content, insert our own clever ideas or original phrases… just translate and offer quality work free of errors and omissions before deadline time. Be a competent, responsible, and capable professional who will honor agreements and produce quality work.
Make sure that there are no errors, omissions, spelling or punctuation mistakes, and that you deliver your translation on time in the form requested and expected by your client. If not sure about the client-s expectations, always ask while in time. If you do it this way, you will get more work. if not, you will only cause grief.
If a text is truly beyond understanding, the only responsible course of action would be to contact the client and leave the decision regarding whether to translate it or not into your customer’s hand. You may lose a job this way, but you will likely win the confidence of the client. The latter is ultimately worth far more than the former, no doubt!
Paulina Torres De Witt
- www.goihata.com
Posts Tagged ‘Japanese translator in Spain’
Coherence when translating
Friday, April 11th, 2008La comunicación del traductor
Thursday, December 20th, 2007– www.goihata.com
Como Traductores nos desempeñamos en el campo de la comunicación a través de las palabras y tanto la comunicación como las palabras forman parte de la esencia humana. Nuestro rol histórico es innegable pues hemos sido protagonistas de la evolución humana a través de la información. Somos investigadores de significados. Existen muchas reglas en todos los idiomas y sobre todas ellas está el sentido común y las experiencias adquiridas pues cada uno de nosotros nos hemos convertido en un diccionario viviente: Nunca dos personas podrán hacer una traducción idéntica! El lenguaje es tan versátil que podemos conferirle una interpretación personal. Al trabajar entramos en un ambiente de aprendizaje ya que aprendemos más sobre la materia que traducimos a la vez que desarrollamos una libertad creativa que no choca con la metodología. No importa el tipo de documento a traducir ya que todo documento implica un ejercicio literario que nos permite transmitir, enseñar y comunicar ideas aplicando el conocimiento de los aspectos lingüísticos y el enfoque cognitivo de la comunicación entre culturas, superando, en aquellos casos en los que se presenten, desafíos tales como tergiversaciones, fallas en la interpretación y equívocos al trabajar con idiomas que se hablan en lugares geográfica y culturalmente diversos garantizando así la coherencia con la terminología adecuada y la exactitud conceptual.
Hay textos que recalcan varios aspectos del pensamiento y el lenguaje humano que usan simbolismos, metáforas y juegos de palabras específicos de cada cultura que apelan a emociones, valores y estados de ánimo y no giran en torno al pensamiento crítico. Ahí es donde entra en juego nuestro talento y conocimiento para comprender cabalmente la intención del autor y poder adaptar el significado del texto a otro idioma y a otra cultura encontrando un contexto igual y su equivalente lingüístico que comunique exactamente el mismo concepto.
– Paulina Torres De Witt
– www.goihata.com
The correct language translation price
Friday, November 9th, 2007– www.goihata.com
Which is correct the translation price? There is no such “correct price”, the translation price moves up and down influenced by many factors like;
* Supply and demand situation; when competition is tough prices drop and the contrary happens when professionals are in high demand.
* The text’s difficulty; Translation is a niche business, customers are highly recommended to find the right translator for the specific field. It is not the same the translation of patents and intellectual property or publicity and marketing text. A good translator for a medical subject, is not necessarily so at marketing.
* The language combination: Is not the same to translate into a very closely related language like Portuguese (from Spanish) or into a language poles apart, using a completely different alphabet, syntax and cultural background.
* The country where the translator is located: Scandinavian language translations tend to be more highly valued than others in the southern part of Europe, and does not make much sense to search for such translators in Timbuctoo.
* The translation format: It is more time consuming to translate an MSWord document with images and embedded text than plain straightforward text.
* The program being used: Elegantly presented documents in QuarkXpress, Freehand, Adobe Indesign, and other DTP document translation is more laborious.
* Documents with a lot of repetitive text: Technical manuals often have repetitive text that can be reused using a Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) program like Wordfast. Some discounts can be applied for the repetitive text in these cases.
Having mentioned all the above, we still come across bad-expensive translations and good-cheap translations. But the customer should weigh up the risks and take all the necessary steps to minimize them.
If the translation is going to be used in a marketing campaign costing a huge amount of money, it is not recommended to take risks by trying to save a few pennies.
And always remember the bad translation is the most expensive of all translations.
Complexity of Japanese Spanish translations
Saturday, November 3rd, 2007Language and culture are deeply related and the language stands as the maximum expression of that culture. The Japanese and Spanish cultures are worlds apart as their geographical location. Each language has its own idioms and borrows expressions from their religious background and people’s way of thinking. The language is the mirror image of the culture of that country and when translating from Spanish to Japanese language we also need to do cultural translation.
Some issues encountered by Japanese Spanish translators. Idioms with deep cultural roots
Well known biblical expression like “man can not live by bread alone” which means that human beings need something more than material things. The people need something more to enrich the mind and soul. This expression would have little meaning in a country without a Christian heritage.
Or Japanese expressions like “hito no fundoshi de sumo wo toru”, which means to practise Sumo using a borrowed fundoshi (a sumo wrestler’s belt). This could be translated as “it is not comfortable to depend on others to do something”.
The Spanish language has gender and singular and plural, from the sentence itself we discover that the action was done by a male or female and if the object is one or many. Spanish is a straight and direct language and this is not perceived as being rude or impolite.
In Japanese there is no gender neither singular/ plural articles that suggest the number,
In Japanese we could say “ringo wo tabemashita” which literally translated means “ate apple” which could be any of the following combinations: He/she ate apple/s. He or she ate one apple or many apples.
One more issue is the length of the text. Spanish text normally takes a lot more space than Japanese and when asked to make a Spanish replica of a Japanese manual or web site. The physical dimensions are a big constrain. How do we solve all this? With many headaches.
David Sawada Japanese Spanish translator
www.goihata.com