What is a Translation

A turn-of-the-century Russian translator said: "Translation is like a woman, if she is beautiful, she is not faithful; if she is faithful, she is not beautiful." I hope you will ignore the blatant sexism in the statement and instead see one of the kernels of truth in translation. Translators must strike a balance between fidelity to the source text and readability in the target language. We have all seen material that is so obviously translated as to sound awkward in our native languages, and in some cases as to bear enough hallmarks of the source language as to be readily identifiable as coming from it. The best translation is the one that no one recognizes as a translation. In other words, the document should read as though it were written in the target language originally. This implies, by extension, that the translator’s time and effort are transparent, and the translator ends up being invisible. In other words, you do your best work when no one realizes you have done anything.

Achieving this level of translation is challenging, to say the least. Imagine walking a tightrope blindfolded during a wind storm, with people throwing heavy objects at you and shaking the rope. This represents the balancing act. Now add to it the often unreasonable deadline which agencies require of translators by having someone behind you on the rope poking you in the seat of your pants with a pitchfork. Sound frustrating? It can be. But if you enjoy a challenge and know how to deal with your languages, it’s not too bad after you’ve been at if for a while (I suppose the same can be said for tightrope walking).

The trick is to let your clients decide what they want. Since they have to live with the results of your work, let them choose. Patiently explain to them the options they have, how long each might take, and how much each possible version will cost. They’ll decide if they want a literal, if unreadable, translation or if they want a Pulitzer Prize-winning text.

If your client can’t decide, doesn’t know, or won’t tell you, then follow the advice of Buddha and take the middle path. This is easier with some languages and some subject areas than others. Although most people think that technical material is easiest for stylistic considerations, consider this. Academic style varies from nation to nation. In English, we generally present our thesis, then give the evidence, develop the argument, and then reach the conclusion. However, in Japanese, we usually present a vague thesis, give the evidence slowly with lots of discussion, and then reach some tentative statement about the thesis in the form of a conclusion. Other differences exist among other language pairs. Somehow you have to deal with these differences.

Another potential pitfall with technical translation is that often the client cannot let you see or touch the object in question. If you are translating a computer system manual, it’s very helpful to see and even work a little with the system. The same holds for a video game, home audio component, or for that matter a scanning electron microscope, which I realize is hardly something you want in your home, but I have translated manuals and technical specifications for such technology. Sometimes seeing the product in question is not possible, the system or software may still be in development, so you are effectively flying blind, trying to land yourself at a destination you’ve never seen. You might have to create terminology for the system, only to find that the client wants something else. You then have to go back and change everything you did.

The most difficult problem is when you encounter something in one language that doesn’t exist in the other. Financial instruments, legal procedures, government and business structures, and so on vary from nation to nation and culture to culture. Although standard glossaries exist for the most commonplace of these, in other words those that you might hear about on Headline News, translators are usually dealing with new or specialized material and information, so you might be stuck having to christen something on your own, or leave it in the A language and put in a translator’s note explaining what the term means.

There is a Golden Triangle in any form of business. It is an equilateral triangle (meaning that all three sides are the same size), with the first side being Quality, the second, Time, and the last, Price. If you consider an ideal project to be a balance of all three, and therefore rest in the center of the triangle, you can see what happens when you want to lower costs (imagine your job moving toward the Price side). Quality goes down and Time remains the same. If you want a cheap job done quickly, then Quality really drops. Conversely, if you want a job whose Quality is excellent, then Price and Time both rise. Keep this in mind when you consider your translation speed and what you charge; you will want to be flexible in both areas to give your clients what they want.