5 ms·

Imagine a translator who is 50% fluent in source language and 100% fluent (native) in target language. He would often misunderstand the source text and, even th

by Grue3 11y ago

Imagine a translator who is 50% fluent in source language and 100% fluent (native) in target language. He would often misunderstand the source text and, even though he can produce target language natively, the translation would be incorrect. Now imagine a translator who is 100% fluent in source language and 50% fluent in target language. He completely understands the source text and, using only simple sentences, can accurately convey the meaning in the target language. This thought experiment demonstrates that the knowledge of source language is far more important for the accuracy of translation.

indians_pro 11y ago
i think ur parent assumed without saying that both translators were equally (well?) versed in the source language, so ur example does not compute.
igravious 11y ago
Think about it this way. Case 1: SRC->TGT (fluent) gives you a grammatically correct text that may have bits that are lost in translation. Misunderstood idioms and connotations. A reduction in nuance. Case 2: (fluent) SRC->TGT gives you an incorrect text that contains errors of syntax and semantics, that doesn't use natural sentence construction. It'll reads like it was written by someone with less than a perfect grasp on the language, which will be true. They won't be able to accurately convey the meaning because they won't have an accurate grasp of the target language. Also in case 1 you can consult expert quality reference texts to make up for your lack of knowledge in the source language. Not so in case 2.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
Both of those people would be equally unacceptable as a professional translator. It's true that #2 would be better if those were your only two options, but that's an unrealistic limitation. A guy who is 99% fluent in source and 100% fluent in target will generally produce a flawless translation--if he happens across a word or idiom in the source that he doesn't quite understand, it will stand out to him, and he will pause to research it before continuing. A guy who is 100% fluent in source and 99% fluent in target will produce a perfectly clear but very slightly stilted translation, because he's not aware of the few mistakes that he makes. If you're translating a commercial product and you have my two guys to choose between, you would want #1.
- diskcat 11y ago
  >A guy who is 100% fluent in source and 99% fluent in target will produce a perfectly clear but very slightly stilted translation,because he's not aware of the few mistakes that he makes. Why isn't the reverse true? It is only that the lossyness of the conversion process is invisible in the result, so somebody reading it would not know that it's wrong, it still produces the same quality of translation i.e. that its not perfect (or as good as can be). Additionally, there are so many words in english that it's not possible to know them all, and so one has to assume that all people are at most 99%. But my english alarm doesnt go off everytime a word like 'mellifluous' isn't used. So I even doubt the claim that a guy who is 99% in the target language will make a 'stilted' translation. There exists a skill level where a person can produce a text that won't read as 'wrong' but won't be as good as it could possibly be and this skill level is sufficient to not have a text feel stilted. Not to mention most people do not have the same writing skills, and a very good high school student writer writes a much more pleasing text than his schoolmate who is not very good.
dagw 11y ago
Translating is often more than mechanically trying to convey the rough meaning. You want to capture the rhythm and flow and poetry (or lack of) in the original. You want to try to map idioms an word play from one language to another, and so and so forth. This requires a near-native level of understanding of the language you are translating to I have a friend who is a translator and one of the hardest things for him in the beginning was not to act as a editor. If the original has a long, badly structured sentence with a misplaced comma, then you have to try to translate that into a long, badly structured sentence with a misplaced comma.
Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
I think fluency in the target language is more important for the reasons PhasmaFelis and igravious say. Or to put it more bluntly, because understanding is generally an easier task than speaking/writing. For example with my level of English (a lowish C2), I can understand all kinds of texts, including literary texts (I read lots of novels), but there is no way I can write English at a literary level. I would tell the facts of the story just fine, but the special "feeling" that good writers give to the text would be lost. Curiously, this notion (that the best translator is one who is native or 100% fluent in the target language) is widely accepted in Western cultures, but someone told me that in China is the other way around. When they hire Chinese to English translators, they especially value their knowledge of Chinese, not English. Which may partially explain the "Engrish" phenomenon...
- Grue3 11y ago
  Well, if I wanted a Chinese text explained to me, I'd rather have a native Chinese explain it to me than somebody who is fluent in my own language and studied Chinese. I see it all the time with translations from English to Russian. Because I know English better than most translators, I can spot all sorts of mistakes. I'm pretty sure a native English speaker, even with mediocre proficiency in Russian wouldn't have made those mistakes.
gutnor 11y ago
Translation also requires you to produce a style that is consistent with the source material. Professional translation is used to produce a similar quality document as the source material. If you translate english legalese into Spanish, you expect Spanish legalese output. Writing skills and specific domain experience is necessary. That is easier to achieve that level in your native language living in the target country. Nowadays, translator are rarely used for "meaning translation" ( like translating journal article for the managers ) as there is always some foreigner guy speaking that language and able to "explain" rather than translate the material. Except for less common language like Hebrew, Japanese, ... or big governmental organisations. BTW I think the requirement is reversed for interpretation. You need to be native of the source language, because you need to convey the meaning regardless of the form.

by Grue3 11y ago

indians_pro 11y ago

i think ur parent assumed without saying that both translators were equally (well?) versed in the source language, so ur example does not compute.

igravious 11y ago

Think about it this way. Case 1: SRC->TGT (fluent) gives you a grammatically correct text that may have bits that are lost in translation. Misunderstood idioms and connotations. A reduction in nuance. Case 2: (fluent) SRC->TGT gives you an incorrect text that contains errors of syntax and semantics, that doesn't use natural sentence construction. It'll reads like it was written by someone with less than a perfect grasp on the language, which will be true. They won't be able to accurately convey the meaning because they won't have an accurate grasp of the target language. Also in case 1 you can consult expert quality reference texts to make up for your lack of knowledge in the source language. Not so in case 2.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

Both of those people would be equally unacceptable as a professional translator. It's true that #2 would be better if those were your only two options, but that's an unrealistic limitation. A guy who is 99% fluent in source and 100% fluent in target will generally produce a flawless translation--if he happens across a word or idiom in the source that he doesn't quite understand, it will stand out to him, and he will pause to research it before continuing. A guy who is 100% fluent in source and 99% fluent in target will produce a perfectly clear but very slightly stilted translation, because he's not aware of the few mistakes that he makes. If you're translating a commercial product and you have my two guys to choose between, you would want #1.

diskcat 11y ago
>A guy who is 100% fluent in source and 99% fluent in target will produce a perfectly clear but very slightly stilted translation,because he's not aware of the few mistakes that he makes. Why isn't the reverse true? It is only that the lossyness of the conversion process is invisible in the result, so somebody reading it would not know that it's wrong, it still produces the same quality of translation i.e. that its not perfect (or as good as can be). Additionally, there are so many words in english that it's not possible to know them all, and so one has to assume that all people are at most 99%. But my english alarm doesnt go off everytime a word like 'mellifluous' isn't used. So I even doubt the claim that a guy who is 99% in the target language will make a 'stilted' translation. There exists a skill level where a person can produce a text that won't read as 'wrong' but won't be as good as it could possibly be and this skill level is sufficient to not have a text feel stilted. Not to mention most people do not have the same writing skills, and a very good high school student writer writes a much more pleasing text than his schoolmate who is not very good.

dagw 11y ago

Translating is often more than mechanically trying to convey the rough meaning. You want to capture the rhythm and flow and poetry (or lack of) in the original. You want to try to map idioms an word play from one language to another, and so and so forth. This requires a near-native level of understanding of the language you are translating to I have a friend who is a translator and one of the hardest things for him in the beginning was not to act as a editor. If the original has a long, badly structured sentence with a misplaced comma, then you have to try to translate that into a long, badly structured sentence with a misplaced comma.

Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago

I think fluency in the target language is more important for the reasons PhasmaFelis and igravious say. Or to put it more bluntly, because understanding is generally an easier task than speaking/writing. For example with my level of English (a lowish C2), I can understand all kinds of texts, including literary texts (I read lots of novels), but there is no way I can write English at a literary level. I would tell the facts of the story just fine, but the special "feeling" that good writers give to the text would be lost. Curiously, this notion (that the best translator is one who is native or 100% fluent in the target language) is widely accepted in Western cultures, but someone told me that in China is the other way around. When they hire Chinese to English translators, they especially value their knowledge of Chinese, not English. Which may partially explain the "Engrish" phenomenon...

Grue3 11y ago
Well, if I wanted a Chinese text explained to me, I'd rather have a native Chinese explain it to me than somebody who is fluent in my own language and studied Chinese. I see it all the time with translations from English to Russian. Because I know English better than most translators, I can spot all sorts of mistakes. I'm pretty sure a native English speaker, even with mediocre proficiency in Russian wouldn't have made those mistakes.

gutnor 11y ago

Translation also requires you to produce a style that is consistent with the source material. Professional translation is used to produce a similar quality document as the source material. If you translate english legalese into Spanish, you expect Spanish legalese output. Writing skills and specific domain experience is necessary. That is easier to achieve that level in your native language living in the target country. Nowadays, translator are rarely used for "meaning translation" ( like translating journal article for the managers ) as there is always some foreigner guy speaking that language and able to "explain" rather than translate the material. Except for less common language like Hebrew, Japanese, ... or big governmental organisations. BTW I think the requirement is reversed for interpretation. You need to be native of the source language, because you need to convey the meaning regardless of the form.