Translation Software

The best translation software will not solve universal errors - and even the best translators fluent in both languages cannot. I do not know who the Taiwan govt uses, but many of the transaltions to English of official documents carry consistenty the same mistakes - and Chinese, also fluent in English, claim there is no mistake when I show it to them. So every serious translation project needs a native speaker of both languages, or at least the translator is a native speaker of the target language.

Or maybe there is an underlying understanding of what the Chinese really means that is hard to express.

For instance the Health Insurance Legislation gives you from 12.00 midnight to 12.00 midnight on the same day to apply or face a $NT3000 fine (You have an ARC for 4 months - you cannot apply until the 4 months are up - next day you face a $NT3000 fine for not applying) .

[quote=“ax”]of course anyone can google…
I did a search for “translation software” 3,170,000 hits
much more that “cat tool” which hits 1,450.000

ax[/quote]

Yes, but you did not compare two equivalent terms. It’s entirely possible that there might be more hits for “apple” than “orange”, but it doesn’t tell us which is more commonly used to refer to a small, red, fruit.

You need to know what you’re comparing before you start analyzing.

[quote=“rian”]The best translation software will not solve universal errors - and even the best translators fluent in both languages cannot. I do not know who the Taiwan govt uses, but many of the transaltions to English of official documents carry consistenty the same mistakes - and Chinese, also fluent in English, claim there is no mistake when I show it to them. So every serious translation project needs a native speaker of both languages, or at least the translator is a native speaker of the target language.

[/quote]

You’re not factoring in another important link in the translation food chain in Taiwanese government work: the mythical proofreader. Usually an employee of the department in question, not selected specifically for his or her English skills, the Proofreader is charged with Making Sure the Translation was Done Well. Of course, since the Proofreader is part of the department, he or she is of higher rank than a mere Translator, so he or she is under pressure to Find Something to Improve Upon, lest his or her Boss feel he or she is Not Contributing. And, we all know that Chinese know English better than native speakers. How could they not, after all that study? :laughing:

Seriously, I’ve had jobs go out in perfect English and turn up later in a form so traumatized that I could hardly recognize my own work. And that’s starting with text written by me, an educated, native speaker who is an experienced translator…imagine what the Proofreader can do when turned loose on text created by any of the Very Qualified Non-Native Speaking Translators employed at Very Low Rates by various Translation Agencies around the island. The mind boggles. :unamused: :laughing:

I see no difficulty with a competent (read, well-educated, native English speaking, has spent some years actually acquiring Chinese, and has considerable experience in Chinese-English translation) translator turning out an accurate and stylistically acceptable translation of a Chinese original. Some of the heavier bureaucratic stuff is hard to render in a very “native-English-like” tone sometimes, but that is the mark of a really GOOD translator, as opposed to those who merely do an acceptable job.

The problem is that this kind of translator can and does command considerably higher rates per word than government agencies budget for. Therefore, the work goes to non-native speakers, who cannot write natively, are low-paid, and don’t have the time or experience to do a good job. Or it goes to an Agency, which subcontracts to a non-native speaker (I have even known cases where agencies subcontract to university students in the English department for work into English!!). But it’s funny: while most Westerners have an deep-rooted feeling that there’s “something” about being a native speaker, and for that reason would never compare their Chinese with that of an educated native speaker no matter how good it might be, many Chinese lack that kind of feeling, and feel that their perceptions about English are as strong as those of an educated native English speaker. And writing is a less forgiving medium than speech. I’ve had endless arguments on other fora about this idea, for example, when trying to tell them for the 10,000th time that the word “senior” is NOT a noun meaning someone with more seniority than you have.

I see what you say - but I have had more than one Chinese who is also competent in English say the English says exactly the same as the Chinese - but the English makes no sense if your first language is English. They have on ocassions loudly insisted that the English and Chinese are the same - so there must be some underlying Chinese understanding that cannot pass the translation - such as the National Health thing I mention above

Obviously a proffesional translater must translate exactly what the words are, while one can be a little freer when translating for your own use.

God, how I wish that were true! One of my biggest headaches comes from rendering translations from so-called qualified native-speaking translators into something I can pass on to a client with a straight face (no names, because I know you know one or two of them.) I wish I could afford you, Ironlady, but I’m only too aware – experience costs!

Yes, I’d hve to agree with ironlady. Having done plenty of marketing and technical copy myself … somehow it gets garbled when it passes across the PMs desk. When I protest, I get all sorts of resentment. Of course the laoban knows more than anyone else.

However, I’ve learned over time how to write copy that will not get changed much. I’ve started writing Taiwanese-English copy for clients. I actually OUT-Taiwanese-ify it. I put in all thosse wordy, run-on sentences with over-the-top adjectives and modifiers. I throw in a few subject-verb agreement errors free of charge. They love it!

Hello? This just means that they are NOT competent in English, despite:
–that MA degree they did in an English-speaking country (while hanging out with no one other than Taiwanese and speaking Chinese 24/7, then having someone ghost-write or heavily edit their theses)
–having studied English for X years at fine buxibans island-wide
–having listened to ICRT since the age of five :unamused:
–etc. etc.

IMHO this all goes back to valuing (or not valuing) the special something that an educated native speaker has in his or her native language. The Taiwanese generally do NOT value it; Westerners generally do. Therefore, to the Taiwanese, the opinion of a non-native speaker (whom they perceive to be competent in English, based usually on “qualifications” or self-assessment) is as valuable or more valuable, as reliable or more reliable, than that of a professional native-English-speaking linguist. (I differentiate here to eliminate some of the hordes of FOB English teacher wannabees who can’t spell in their own language, seem to have passed English in the States by the skin of their teeth, and are typically hired for cushy ‘editing’ jobs because they will tolerate the pay involved. Not saying all English teachers are so, but the hordes do exist!)

I’ve said it before: if there were a Chinese-language newspaper in the States (oh, wait a minute – there is!), would it be edited by a bignose? Heck no (and indeed, it isn’t). And, surprise surprise, there are not many Chinese errors in it – certainly nothing so obvious as what one sees daily in the local English dailies.

Ironlady - very true - I have detected a lack of serious consideration of the translation issue by Chinese (including my wife). So does the Health Insurance legislation say in Chinese that you have zero seconds between becoming eligible and required to apply and being liable for a $NT3000 fine?

This is a common misconception, and most common among either those who have not done much translation, or those who have but have never really thought about it much.

Being an interpreter is the single activity that has most improved my Chinese-to-English translation skills. Why? Because as an interpreter, you have to remember that “words are the enemy”! If translation were merely replacing each word with its ‘equivalent’ in the target language (we’ll assume that there ARE equivalents for the sake of argument), then anyone could do it, and there would be good translation software available (which there isn’t).

The art of translation (well, not to get too fancy – maybe better to say "the basis for an outstanding translation as opposed to a pedestrian one) is translating the MEANING, not the WORDS. There are few instances where the actual word chosen is more important than expressing the meaning in smooth, native-like English. (Political speeches and legal documents come to mind as exceptions. You should see the list of ‘standard expressions’ we have in the US for translating PRC political double-take – they don’t sound much like English, but it’s like a code so that non-Chinese-speakers can ‘know’ what was said in the Chinese original, since nuance is so important in politics in the PRC. We could say that this is a case of a special group of end-users who have a very specific purpose for the product.)

I’d say 95% of translators never get past the “replacing one set of words with another” stage. And most non-native-speakers CANNOT get past that stage (especially Taiwanese, who through no fault of their own were pretty much brainwashed to believe in equivalents). People fall back on their native language for structure and usage when they lack knowledge in the second language; that’s what happens many times when people write or translate into their second language, and it’s a major source of ‘unacceptability’.

There are some cases where going into your second language is an advantage. For example, I’m actually stronger than some of my Chinese colleagues in interpreting really technical presentations into Chinese, because I can understand the English immediately and then choose a very straightforward and simple way to express the idea in Chinese. What I say is not always (OK, try ‘rarely’!) elegant, and it would NEVER stand as a written translation – but for interpreting, which is oral, it is acceptable. If it were to be a written translation, I would need to be heavily post-edited by a native Chinese speaker. Funny how it would never occur to me to present my product into Chinese as ‘acceptable’ or argue that my version is correct, against the judgements of educated native Chinese speakers – yet that is precisely what happens into English on a regular basis.

And that’s the basis of another sad fact – seemingly lacking the perception that English quality counts, or, more precisely, that their perception of English quality is not always accurate, the Taiwanese are putting a huge volume of crap English on the market, representing Taiwan. This does no good for Taiwan’s international or professional image, but the situation isn’t likely to change until the perception behind it does.

Well, it would be one heck of a moneymaker in a time of budgetary crisis. :laughing:

Aw, c’mon…we all know that libel suits related to Forumosa don’t stick… :laughing:

I love the word “moreover” - It almost guarentees that the writer is Chinese - or maybe jeremy:)

I vote for starting sentences with “Besides” in writing. :smiling_imp: :smiling_imp: :imp: :imp:

Here’s another example of how MT (not CAT) messes things up (and German and English have much more in common than Chinese and English!):

Computer translation is no fairytale

11 September 2003

HOMBERG - A little town in Germany that gave the world the Grimms’ fairytale Little Brother and Little Sister has pulped its English-language tourist brochure after admitting it was translated by computer.

Linguistic errors are common in the leaflets that small German towns hand to foreign tourists. But at Homberg-an-der-Efze, they did not even ask the usual high-school teacher to do the translation: instead, municipal officials used an Internet translating machine.

The result was sheer nonsense, with visitors being promised “casual value” (the literal translation of a German word for “leisure potential”) at the “free bath” (open-air swimming pool).

“We blundered,” admitted mayor Martin Wagner this week in the town north of Frankfurt. The 7,500 brochures had to be discarded. A staffer had wanted to save the authorities money rather than employ a professional translator.

expatica.com/germany.asp?pad … m_id=34146

In general terms as someone who is new to the Translation industry, i can see the common sense behind what Ironlady is saying, but as mentioned earlier, the downside to professionalism is COST. Can anybody give me a realistic price - presumably per word - that this is likely to cost.

As it is budget time for next year, i need to try and make the necessary allowances for this.

Most people who can produce a translation you would want to read after you get it (meaning it requires no “editing” or “cosmetics”, and can be used as it is delivered – camera-ready) charge from NT$3 to NT$4 per word.

Volume discounts are meaningless to a freelancer unless you can promise a set volume per month spread over a year. I would sign a year’s contract for a discounted rate if the company guarantees a certain volume per month (within what I can handle with my other clients, because throwing all your productive capacity behind one client is bad business), give the discounted rate on the months that the company reached that tier (for example, the first 10,000 words are NT$X.Y, 10001 to 14,999 are NT$X.T, etc.) Giving a human translator more work does NOT mean that s/he can make more money doing it, because we still have to translate it all word by word – there are no shortcuts. If it’s very technical, there might be some gain in speed as technical terms repeat themselves – if they do.

These rates are for Chinese > English, BTW. English > Chinese is much cheaper, but it’s perhaps harder to know what you’re getting b/c there are just so darn many people going into Chinese.

HTH
Terry

IS BABELFISH TOTALLY USELESS FOR TRANSLATING CHINESE > ENGLISH?

I was curious about the job title of an employee in my company, so I took the Chinese characters listed by his name and plugged them into Babelfish:

. . . told the program to translate that to English and it spit out:

What the hell is that supposed to mean? That’s not English. I requested English, not pinyin. And the program lacks a Pinyin>English service, so it looks like it can’t do what it claims to do. :s

Uh, that looks like a name. 郭 is a surname. You sure you copy and pasted the title and not the name?

Uh, that looks like a name. 郭 is a surname. You sure you copy and pasted the title and not the name?[/quote]

You’re right. That does appear to be his name. I did copy from the right location, but as you pointed out, on the Outlook program where his title is supposed be entered, someone entered his name instead. Oh well, didn’t matter anyway.