When localization is needed: why is it so hard to find a good translator
The process of creating translated and original content is not too different between them: a truly high-quality translation requires not only knowledge of the language, but also creative effort. If the author of the original text has the task to clearly state his thoughts in, as a rule, his own language, the translator should equally understand what the author wanted to say - and be able to retell it in accordance with the norms of the target language so that it is pleasant to read.
Typical translation difficulties
A classic example of a symbiosis of language knowledge and creativity in the course of translation is the activity of the Strugatsky brothers. In addition to creating their own works, they both worked as translators from English and Japanese under pseudonyms S. Berezhkov, S. Pobedin and S. Vitin. And if you read Asimov’s Soviet editions “How They Had Fun,” Norton “Sargasses in Space” or Wyndham “Day of Triffids” - then these were the Strugatsky translations.
The most surprising thing about the translator’s work is that if this is not a microwave or iron instruction, then by complexity, the difference between the translations of the blog entry and the book is small. The main differences are in volumes. In fact, all of the above boils down to a simple and banal truth: if the author of the original source should have knowledge of the topic and a high level of language proficiency, the translator needs knowledge of the topic and level of two languages.
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Let's consider the spherical situation in the vacuum of translation from English to Russian, when the translator is a native speaker of Russian.
The pitfalls of translating from English to Russian are in the area of ​​belonging of these languages ​​to various groups. English belongs to the group of analytical languages, and Russian - to the group of synthetic ( inflectional ) languages. Simply put, everyone knows that Russian and English have radically different norms of word formation, the arrangement of words in a sentence, and so on.
Objectively, high-quality translation into any language is formed from the following aspects:
Even if the proposed text for translation seems to you, as a reader, simple, as a customer, you need to pay maximum attention at several stages:
Let us name several basic features, according to which it is preferable to choose a translator to localize the project itself and the content in it.
The first. If you translate into a non-analytical language, then it is desirable that the translator be his carrier. Obviously, no one can know it better than the carrier itself. These languages ​​do not have a strict word order and rules for constructing sentences, therefore it takes years or even decades for foreigners to study them completely.
The second. Avoid exotic translation directions. If for some reason the project manager “blasted off” to translate from Hebrew into Chinese, then pour him some tea and calm him, apparently, he has stress, and he does not give himself a report. The best option is to make a “strong” localization in English and when adding new exotic languages ​​to make a start from it. At the same time, you can easily find translators working in the field of less standard language pairs, but formed geographically and historically. These pairs can be called Spanish-Portuguese, German-French, German-Turkish and so on. You may be convinced that such an approach is redundant, and you will have experts at your disposal who will cope with the task, but this is an unreasonable risk.
Third. Freelance is a minefield. A good freelance translator is almost like a unicorn: everyone believes in its existence, but few have seen it. Moreover, if you need a higher class translation, the amount of work done in the translator's portfolio is not at all an indication that you will get what you want. Very often, people who work efficiently are simply not capable of translating such a number of texts in terms of working days. Therefore, if you are looking for an artist for your project for the first time, then you will have to spend a significant amount of time and effort on selecting the right person.
You will come across the fact that some potential performers will refuse to perform the test task for several kilo-orders for free, some will agree, and then disappear from the radar, and another part will try to deceive you by completing the test task with particular diligence that will not be observed during the work. There is also a category of translators who are ready to take on any work, even without delving into the essence of the order. After the start, it turns out that they do not have enough specialized knowledge or desire to understand the topic.
Fourth. Not all agencies are equally helpful. Translation agencies are on the other side of freelancing and are positioned as a better service. A serious advantage of working with them is that your cooperation can be brought to a fundamentally different legal level. Yes, right now we are talking about official documents, contracts and all this paperwork. However, it should be understood that translators, in fact, are the same everywhere, and business processes, on the contrary, are much slower.
In addition to searching for the translator itself, you will have to attend to the search for an editor who would monitor the work of localizers and conduct the reception of work. This is especially true in cases where you yourself do not own or do not sufficiently possess the target language of localization and translation. Again, as with translators, the best option is a native speaker. Of course, you can do without an editor, but this approach is justified only with small volumes, for example, when localizing the interface, which can be corrected with the help of the feedback of users.
But you should not dump the actual deed on the consumer: if there are too many errors in localization or translation, they can scare away a potential client. We focus on this, as in recent years, too many projects, in pursuit of release dates, are, in fact, in a state of "eternal beta"; Developers on the go “finish” everything that is possible, starting from functions and ending with design and localization.
And if the fact-check for gross errors looks relatively simple, then the next aspect of localization and translation is a check for stylistic compliance with the norms of the target language, this is still an adventure.
English is very often used as a base for UI, content and FAQ. A person who speaks and reads fluent English often doesn’t notice the difference between the English and the native text, but for a native speaker who does not speak the original language, foreign elements can be seen. Stylistic errors may be waiting for you everywhere: from the use of English-language constructs that are unacceptable in the target language of the translation, to the overt abuse of anglicisms.
English-language "tracing paper" is a separate scourge of modern translators. If you give an example in Russian, then very often in translated materials the following phrases and constructions are found. Do you know, for example, that the well-established form of the signature “Regards, imenerek” is in fact an example of Anglicism, which is deeply ingrained in our speech?
Grammatically, there is no reason to put a comma in the signature, but they put it because of the “traditions”, which, as you guessed, grew out of an English-language construction as well. There was no comma in the Russian language of the 19th century sample, it appeared in the 20th century, and so after “Regards” it remained, although there is no reason to be set apart from traditions and the desire to distinguish intonation. This is mentioned on a variety of resources, including the ubiquitous Gramote.ru .
As a result, the English version:
Turned into:
Although there is no reason not to write simply:
Tracing paper has the ability to penetrate the language and take root in it (“vegetable person” from English “vegetable” and the verb “to vegetate” - “vegetate”, “challenges of our time” from English. “Challenge” - “difficult task”, "Problem") therefore we will give some more examples of cripples and literalism , the use of which distinguishes a bad translator from a good one.
In English, the situation is extremely common when a new sentence or even a paragraph, connected in meaning with the previous text, begins with the word “For”, which is translated into Russian “as”. For the Russian language, sentences that begin with “since” are separated from the previous construction by a comma and not a full stop. If you see in the translation “Since”, when “For” is originally written, you should think about it.
If your translator literally preserves the structure of text paragraphs, especially if the text is extremely fragmented, this is another cause for concern. In Russian, a paragraph is not only a way to focus the reader’s attention on a new segment of the text, but also points to a new integral semantic block, in which the sentences are closely interconnected. In English, paragraphs are used differently, often to highlight a new thought, however petty it may be. That is, if you need to translate and adapt not a conditional FAQ or guide, but, say, a blog of your expert, in which he shares his thoughts and gives practical advice, then a competent approach to forming paragraphs in the target language is extremely important and the translator should not be guided structure of the source, and the norms of the target language.
Well, it is obvious that a bad translator from a good one is distinguished by an understanding and correct translation of phraseological units. For the sake of justice, I would like to note that in every language there are untranslatable phraseological units. For example, the American "Send The Elevator Back Down", which was born in Manhattan with its skyscrapers, literally translates as "to lift the elevator back down", and in fact means "to assist those who are below you in the hierarchy / in the worst position." Or translate "Earworm" so that it blends harmoniously into the text, if not difficult, then certainly it is problematic.
Do not expect to find a good translator on the first attempt, unless he got you on a reliable recommendation. The process of reading in another language and the process of translating from that language are completely different things. If you think that this is not true, try translating any English text or news into Russian so that it does not betray anything of foreign origin. And you will be surprised how difficult it is in writing to adapt the text to another language.
In the work on translation and localization always need to pay attention not only to the final cost and duration of the work, but also the details. Practically everything depends on the degree of involvement of the translator in the process: the more he is motivated to make the perfect translation and adaptation, the more context he has, the better for you.
Extensive portfolio of the artist does not always mean quality work. If you think that your texts have a fundamentally different level of complexity against the background of numerous manuals and FAQs, which are usually translated, the number of projects completed by the contractor is not the indicator you should focus on. It is necessary to look at their complexity.
Any translation work takes time, and a lot of time. If you read this text in 15 minutes, it does not mean that it can be translated in an hour or even two. The usual speed of a good translator is 8-10 thousand characters in the original language per working day. There are monsters that translate many times more, but in this case the probability of marriage increases.
The most important thing is attention, patience and time. It is impossible to localize a project or translate a solid layer of content in an extremely short time so that later it would not be a shame for the result. Therefore, you should never put these events on the back burner in the hope that it "will somehow resolve itself very quickly." Do not resolve.
A classic example of a symbiosis of language knowledge and creativity in the course of translation is the activity of the Strugatsky brothers. In addition to creating their own works, they both worked as translators from English and Japanese under pseudonyms S. Berezhkov, S. Pobedin and S. Vitin. And if you read Asimov’s Soviet editions “How They Had Fun,” Norton “Sargasses in Space” or Wyndham “Day of Triffids” - then these were the Strugatsky translations.
How to organize work with the text
The most surprising thing about the translator’s work is that if this is not a microwave or iron instruction, then by complexity, the difference between the translations of the blog entry and the book is small. The main differences are in volumes. In fact, all of the above boils down to a simple and banal truth: if the author of the original source should have knowledge of the topic and a high level of language proficiency, the translator needs knowledge of the topic and level of two languages.
')
Let's consider the spherical situation in the vacuum of translation from English to Russian, when the translator is a native speaker of Russian.
The pitfalls of translating from English to Russian are in the area of ​​belonging of these languages ​​to various groups. English belongs to the group of analytical languages, and Russian - to the group of synthetic ( inflectional ) languages. Simply put, everyone knows that Russian and English have radically different norms of word formation, the arrangement of words in a sentence, and so on.
Objectively, high-quality translation into any language is formed from the following aspects:
- the content of the original source;
- the correspondence of the final translation to the original source;
- the level of proficiency of the original language by the translator;
- level of knowledge of the final language by the translator.
Even if the proposed text for translation seems to you, as a reader, simple, as a customer, you need to pay maximum attention at several stages:
- selection of the performer;
- checking the result for actual errors;
- checking the result for stylistic errors.
Recruitment
Let us name several basic features, according to which it is preferable to choose a translator to localize the project itself and the content in it.
The first. If you translate into a non-analytical language, then it is desirable that the translator be his carrier. Obviously, no one can know it better than the carrier itself. These languages ​​do not have a strict word order and rules for constructing sentences, therefore it takes years or even decades for foreigners to study them completely.
The second. Avoid exotic translation directions. If for some reason the project manager “blasted off” to translate from Hebrew into Chinese, then pour him some tea and calm him, apparently, he has stress, and he does not give himself a report. The best option is to make a “strong” localization in English and when adding new exotic languages ​​to make a start from it. At the same time, you can easily find translators working in the field of less standard language pairs, but formed geographically and historically. These pairs can be called Spanish-Portuguese, German-French, German-Turkish and so on. You may be convinced that such an approach is redundant, and you will have experts at your disposal who will cope with the task, but this is an unreasonable risk.
Third. Freelance is a minefield. A good freelance translator is almost like a unicorn: everyone believes in its existence, but few have seen it. Moreover, if you need a higher class translation, the amount of work done in the translator's portfolio is not at all an indication that you will get what you want. Very often, people who work efficiently are simply not capable of translating such a number of texts in terms of working days. Therefore, if you are looking for an artist for your project for the first time, then you will have to spend a significant amount of time and effort on selecting the right person.
You will come across the fact that some potential performers will refuse to perform the test task for several kilo-orders for free, some will agree, and then disappear from the radar, and another part will try to deceive you by completing the test task with particular diligence that will not be observed during the work. There is also a category of translators who are ready to take on any work, even without delving into the essence of the order. After the start, it turns out that they do not have enough specialized knowledge or desire to understand the topic.
Fourth. Not all agencies are equally helpful. Translation agencies are on the other side of freelancing and are positioned as a better service. A serious advantage of working with them is that your cooperation can be brought to a fundamentally different legal level. Yes, right now we are talking about official documents, contracts and all this paperwork. However, it should be understood that translators, in fact, are the same everywhere, and business processes, on the contrary, are much slower.
Actual error checking
In addition to searching for the translator itself, you will have to attend to the search for an editor who would monitor the work of localizers and conduct the reception of work. This is especially true in cases where you yourself do not own or do not sufficiently possess the target language of localization and translation. Again, as with translators, the best option is a native speaker. Of course, you can do without an editor, but this approach is justified only with small volumes, for example, when localizing the interface, which can be corrected with the help of the feedback of users.
But you should not dump the actual deed on the consumer: if there are too many errors in localization or translation, they can scare away a potential client. We focus on this, as in recent years, too many projects, in pursuit of release dates, are, in fact, in a state of "eternal beta"; Developers on the go “finish” everything that is possible, starting from functions and ending with design and localization.
Check result for stylistic errors
And if the fact-check for gross errors looks relatively simple, then the next aspect of localization and translation is a check for stylistic compliance with the norms of the target language, this is still an adventure.
English is very often used as a base for UI, content and FAQ. A person who speaks and reads fluent English often doesn’t notice the difference between the English and the native text, but for a native speaker who does not speak the original language, foreign elements can be seen. Stylistic errors may be waiting for you everywhere: from the use of English-language constructs that are unacceptable in the target language of the translation, to the overt abuse of anglicisms.
English-language "tracing paper" is a separate scourge of modern translators. If you give an example in Russian, then very often in translated materials the following phrases and constructions are found. Do you know, for example, that the well-established form of the signature “Regards, imenerek” is in fact an example of Anglicism, which is deeply ingrained in our speech?
Grammatically, there is no reason to put a comma in the signature, but they put it because of the “traditions”, which, as you guessed, grew out of an English-language construction as well. There was no comma in the Russian language of the 19th century sample, it appeared in the 20th century, and so after “Regards” it remained, although there is no reason to be set apart from traditions and the desire to distinguish intonation. This is mentioned on a variety of resources, including the ubiquitous Gramote.ru .
As a result, the English version:
Regards, Ivan Ivanov Turned into:
, Although there is no reason not to write simply:
Tracing paper has the ability to penetrate the language and take root in it (“vegetable person” from English “vegetable” and the verb “to vegetate” - “vegetate”, “challenges of our time” from English. “Challenge” - “difficult task”, "Problem") therefore we will give some more examples of cripples and literalism , the use of which distinguishes a bad translator from a good one.
In English, the situation is extremely common when a new sentence or even a paragraph, connected in meaning with the previous text, begins with the word “For”, which is translated into Russian “as”. For the Russian language, sentences that begin with “since” are separated from the previous construction by a comma and not a full stop. If you see in the translation “Since”, when “For” is originally written, you should think about it.
If your translator literally preserves the structure of text paragraphs, especially if the text is extremely fragmented, this is another cause for concern. In Russian, a paragraph is not only a way to focus the reader’s attention on a new segment of the text, but also points to a new integral semantic block, in which the sentences are closely interconnected. In English, paragraphs are used differently, often to highlight a new thought, however petty it may be. That is, if you need to translate and adapt not a conditional FAQ or guide, but, say, a blog of your expert, in which he shares his thoughts and gives practical advice, then a competent approach to forming paragraphs in the target language is extremely important and the translator should not be guided structure of the source, and the norms of the target language.
Well, it is obvious that a bad translator from a good one is distinguished by an understanding and correct translation of phraseological units. For the sake of justice, I would like to note that in every language there are untranslatable phraseological units. For example, the American "Send The Elevator Back Down", which was born in Manhattan with its skyscrapers, literally translates as "to lift the elevator back down", and in fact means "to assist those who are below you in the hierarchy / in the worst position." Or translate "Earworm" so that it blends harmoniously into the text, if not difficult, then certainly it is problematic.
Total
Do not expect to find a good translator on the first attempt, unless he got you on a reliable recommendation. The process of reading in another language and the process of translating from that language are completely different things. If you think that this is not true, try translating any English text or news into Russian so that it does not betray anything of foreign origin. And you will be surprised how difficult it is in writing to adapt the text to another language.
In the work on translation and localization always need to pay attention not only to the final cost and duration of the work, but also the details. Practically everything depends on the degree of involvement of the translator in the process: the more he is motivated to make the perfect translation and adaptation, the more context he has, the better for you.
Extensive portfolio of the artist does not always mean quality work. If you think that your texts have a fundamentally different level of complexity against the background of numerous manuals and FAQs, which are usually translated, the number of projects completed by the contractor is not the indicator you should focus on. It is necessary to look at their complexity.
Any translation work takes time, and a lot of time. If you read this text in 15 minutes, it does not mean that it can be translated in an hour or even two. The usual speed of a good translator is 8-10 thousand characters in the original language per working day. There are monsters that translate many times more, but in this case the probability of marriage increases.
The most important thing is attention, patience and time. It is impossible to localize a project or translate a solid layer of content in an extremely short time so that later it would not be a shame for the result. Therefore, you should never put these events on the back burner in the hope that it "will somehow resolve itself very quickly." Do not resolve.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/334850/
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