Translation

[Karen Kay <karenk -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Richard Lippincott said:
> Laurie Rubin writes:

> >The main problem is that the software is going to be translated
> >into Japanese, so the development opinion is, what does it matter.

> As we say in Massachusetts, "Dawn breaks over Marblehead." My first thought,
> and you've probably already had the same idea, would be to take some of those
> "typical" examples of bad Japanese/English translations and use them as
> examples: "This is what matters. We'll be producing stuff like this."

Yup.

> Which leads to a question I've never heard anyone ask: Are those examples of
> bad translation really -all- translation problems? I've always assumed that
> they were originally good writing, poorly translated. What if the stuff is
 just
> plain bad writing, and the translation only compounds the problem?

As someone who translates from Japanese to English, I would like to
make two comments. The first one is that the bad examples of Japanese
-> English translation I've seen on the list were *not* done by native
speakers of English. I've occasionally had trouble getting hired
specifically because I'm not a native speaker of Japanese; maybe I
should start collecting examples of bad translations, too! You want a
native speaker of the language your document is being translated
*into*.

The second comment I have is that with the stuff I've translated,
often it's perfectly fine Japanese--but I end up using a lot of
passive constructions in my translation because it's unclear who the
actor is.  Editing can get rid of some of the passives, but never
all. When you translate documentation, often you don't have the
product to work with, so you can't figure out how the stuff really
works. You're dependent on the original documentation--and if it isn't
clear and unambiguous, you're screwed.

So I'm with clear and consistent from the start. Anyone who thinks
that doesn't matter is nuts, or has never had to translate!

Karen
  karenk -at- netcom -dot- com