Cruel and Unusual Cliche

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Time for another whine.

Tuesday get a call from the boss. “We need your help with a translation competition on Saturday. We need a native speaker to read a speech for the competitors to translate”

You need me to write a speech? ses I

“No, we will provide the speech, you just have to read it out”

So, foolishly, I agree. Thursday no speech recieved, so I make enquiries.

Turns out I have to read the speech once for each competitor, and there will be 15-20 competitors.

Presumably I’m cheaper than an MP3 player, (though I don’t see how I can be more consistent, even compared to the crappy equipment in this place.)

I’m quite pissed off about that, but I’m persuaded its too late to back out. Still no speech. They’ll email it to me.

Friday afternoon STILL no fucking speech, and I tell them if I don’t get it by 17.00 I won’t be there on Saturday, so at 16.45 I get a paper copy by runner, since no one can apparently manage to send me an email.

So I have to transcribe it. Here it is. By any non-Chinese standard I’d say its pretty bad. Of course we’ve all seen worse, but perhaps we havn’t had to read it out “once more with feeling” 20 times.

Dilemma. I can clean this up some, but if I eliminate the bullshit there isn’t much left. And maybe translators do need practice with meaningless verbiage, because there’s an awful lot of it about.

EDIT: Oops - Come to think of it, since the competition isn’t 'till this afternoon, I’d better defer posting the speech text until its over.

Bet y’all can hardly wait, eh? ENDEDIT

Original_Speech_Transcript, with my initial (hostile) comments

First of all, I would like to welcome all the participants in this important event, especially representatives from authorities [What the hell does THAT mean?], public and private institutions, as well as the experts from more than 34 [more than? did the abacus jam at 34?]countries who are here today. The motto of this Workshop, _ Climate Change and Sustainable Cities, [motto?]without any doubt—points out one of the most important challenges for the present and future of mankind. The difficulty of the challenge makes co-operation a must. We have to promote co-operation and consensus between the different towns and municipalities of the world. .[Why? What is so important about consensus in this context? This is empty rhetoric]

According to a recent study by the International Energy Agency, cities account for somewhere between 60 and 80% of world energy use and 76% of the worlds energy related CO2 emissions. [One might wonder why one of these figures has a range of 20%, while the other very closely related figure is quoted as 76% precisely.] The good news is that many cities have already realized this message and are on the front lines of climate change mitigation and environmental conservation.

This conference seeks to take stock of some of the most promising initiatives, such as the installation of energy efficient technologies, climate-sensitive urban planning, and the approval of financing measures to catalyse the green economy. [“the approval of” seems entirely redundant here] There is no doubt that improvements in urban design, housing stock [Housing stock means the number of houses, which is irrelevant, but I suppose its shorthand for a general improvement in then “greeness” of houses, so OK], public transit, and waste management are crucial components of a strategy to combat climate change. Through the several sessions, participants will be able to assess the extent to which greening cities can indeed produce significant economic as well as ecological advantages [This is a clumsy and circular sentence, since whoever wrote it can’t decide whether they are asking or answering a question. For example, why “assess the extent” when you’re already told it is “indeed””significant”?]

The climate change issue now more than ever is politically visible at the local level. Rather than simply encourage the formation of new policies , this Conference [caps? And I thought it was a Workshop?] seeks to understand which green policies have worked and why. Given the recent creation of green new deal programmes in cities and countries around the globe, we need to begin develop more serious metrics [“more serious” is either Chinglish, or it implies earlier metrics were frivolous]on the actual outcomes of these programmes. . [Nope. You’d need to do that at or before the start of the programme, otherwise the programme wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) be implemented]

2

This is a very, very typical opening speech for events in Taiwan. I’ve interpreted dozens of them. All that’s missing is the specific list of names to be thanked complete with extremely long titles.

“Housing stock” is a term; it’s not wrong.

I’m willing to be that this was a fairly predictible opening speech that was “edited” a little bit by a Chinese speaker.
If the competition is consecutive interpretation, having a real person read the speech over and over makes sense (from their perspective, not yours). You need a live speaker to see how the entrants interact with him. If it’s simultaneous, there’s really no point.

3

[quote=“ironlady”]This is a very, very typical opening speech for events in Taiwan. I’ve interpreted dozens of them. All that’s missing is the specific list of names to be thanked complete with extremely long titles.

“Housing stock” is a term; it’s not wrong.

I’m willing to be that this was a fairly predictible opening speech that was “edited” a little bit by a Chinese speaker.
If the competition is consecutive interpretation, having a real person read the speech over and over makes sense (from their perspective, not yours). You need a live speaker to see how the entrants interact with him. If it’s simultaneous, there’s really no point.[/quote]

Thanks for your response. You’re probably correct that its typical, and therefore perhaps appropriate. That isn’t necessarily incompatible with it being bloody awful.

Housing stock is a term, but here I’d say it makes no sense, since its normally used to refer to the number of available houses. If the intention is to refer to house design, then this isn’t the way to do it.

However, as noted above, I’ve just realised this post is perhaps a bit premature so I’ve deleted the speech text for now. Apologies

4

I havn’t been told, but I assume its the former.

I don’t THINK I’ll be doing any explicit “interaction” (apart from the perhaps subconscious reponse of a speaker to thier audience), especially as I’ll probably just read it out (I baulk at spending the time to learn this stuff by rote).

I suppose if whoever is judging this has to monitor the way the translator responds to the speaker “live” then they can’t realistically do this for more than one person at a time. Another good reason, (along with the lack of standardisation) not to attempt it, IMHO.

Could be a lot worse, I could be judging it, which sounds fraught.

5

It sounds like a total bloody nightmare for all concerned, particularly you.
Reminds me of being made to judge speech contests. In one memorable one, 49 out of 50 participants quoted MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. And these were not college kids; they were diplomats in training.

6

Yeh, it was pretty grim.

I suppose the speech, considered as Chinglish, isn’t really so very bad, (I’ll edit the text in above) though everyone (except possibly the contestants, who presumably only heard it once) got very, very sick of it.

I think it is Chinglish, though, (albeit in a mild form) so I dunno why it was so vital to have a native speaker read it.

The format was contestant comes in and faces the audience from a dais, I, sitting behind and to the left, so no eye contact, further weakening the point of having a more or less “live” (at least initially) speaker, read my Chinglish spiel and they do a spot translation into Chinese, then my Taiwanese-equivalent-bionic-voice-recorder on the right wing does a Chinese spiel which is renedered by the victim into Chinglish. This seemed to be tougher for them (lots of numbers) and no one finished it within the time limit.

Whole thing took about 4 hours, including a 10 minute break.

14 contestants. There could have been 20 :astonished:

NEVER AGAIN (I keep saying that).

7

[quote=“Ducked”][more than? did the abacus jam at 34?] * * * [motto?][/quote] Aren’t you being rather tough on Mr. Acevedo?

[quote=“Ducked”][One might wonder why one of these figures has a range of 20%, while the other very closely related figure is quoted as 76% precisely.][/quote] Maybe those were the best data available to Mr. Bonturi.

8

The speech is very typical Chinese-style rhetoric, of the quality that one hears in speeches and reads in intros ad nauseam here. Which is why I prefer to tear them apart and re-write them entirely, if allowed to do so.

9

To be honest it doesn’t sound that bad. Well, OK, yeah, it’s awful, but you hear the same kind of nonsense boilerplate crap at any corporate or government event anywhere in the world. Academic events may sound marginally more eloquent until you parse them and realize they’re saying even less.

For example, check out the first post from that Dressed or Undressed or whatever salad restaurant: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 9&t=115295

10

Yeah, it’s classic stuff. It could have been easily translated as (in Chinese): Hey guys! We’re having a conference and I wrote a speech about it!

Reminds me of the bit in ‘Lost in Translation’ (good movie, btw) when Bill Murray’s character listens to a long rambling request from a (Japanese) director, then asks his translator “What did he say?”. After a bit of thought, the answer comes back: “He wants you to turn and look at the camera”.

11

I will say again – this is PRECISELY the kind of speech I’ve handled many, many times at conferences in Taiwan. It is not in any way inauthentic, which makes it a good choice for this sort of contest. In fact, it’s better than most. There aren’t any glaring grammatical errors, and it reads reasonably smoothly for a speech that has to get in that amount of statistics.

I know it’s no fun reading it 20 times. But let’s not exaggerate and make this into something it wasn’t.

12

[quote=“ironlady”]I will say again – this is PRECISELY the kind of speech I’ve handled many, many times at conferences in Taiwan. It is not in any way inauthentic, which makes it a good choice for this sort of contest. In fact, it’s better than most. There aren’t any glaring grammatical errors, and it reads reasonably smoothly for a speech that has to get in that amount of statistics.

I know it’s no fun reading it 20 times. But let’s not exaggerate and make this into something it wasn’t.[/quote]

Yeh, I think I acknowledge that above. I will say again “I suppose the speech, considered as Chinglish, isn’t really so very bad”

A grudging admission, to be fair, but my patience, along with everyone else involved, had recently been stretched a bit. Maybe that should have been “considered as bullshit”?

And it was only 14 times. Let’s not exaggerate and make this into something it wasn’t.
:smiley:

13

Sure, why not? I havn’t tried to trace the source, and I don’t see why it matters. This "more than"followed by an exact count is admittedly a standard piece of nonsense, though, and maybe no one else finds it irritating.

Maybe so, but two numbers with such apparently different provenances should be attributed separately, unless you’re assuming that the audience, as in this case, won’t think about the content and are already in a coma.

14

You’re right. There’s no need to use “more than” after a number that’s not a “round” number.

The Chinese looooove to use “more than”, even when not necessary, and even when “less than” would more forcefully make the point. (e.g. “He completed the obstacle course in record time, taking him more than 25 minutes!”) Sometimes I think the 多 often ends up being placed after numbers as a matter of habit or unthinking reflex.