metal56 wrote:Machjo wrote:metal56 wrote:You seem to focus more on interpreting for you examples, there, Machjo. The on-the-spot demands of such a profession are not the same as the demands of the article or papers writer, I imagine. I've come across very few native speaker academic papers that have the same amount of errors as those found in the paper mentioned above.
True. But the Quebec government website example still stands as 'written'.
So, do we blame the English teacher, the writer, the secretary or the editor, there?
I'll give a tongue-in-cheek answer:
They're all to blame!
The English teacher is to blame for not having ensured that these future translator, writer, secretary and editor never learnt English properly (after all, English is compulsory for all in Quebec's highschools).
The writer should not have been so lazy in highschool. Had he studied hard, there would have been no need for a translator.
The secretary should have been less lazy in highschool too; then she could have cought and corrected the faults.
The editor should have known English too.
And of course the translator is at fault too.
OK, on a more serious note, we have to look at it from a larger cultural perspective.
As for science articles, I'm sure most editors would rather edit work done by native speakers (less to correct). But I'm sure you could see how this could lead to certian injustices. This also leads to another question: who should pay for the translation, from the standpoint of justice; the English-speakers who'll benefit from it, or the non-native speakers who want it translated? There's an obvious imbalance here. By the way, I've met linguists who could barely speak English yet had many brilliant ideas to contribute. Luckily, others ensure their work gets translated. But I'm sure you'd agree that a so-so English linguist has an advantage over the reasonably good non-native speaker (no translation costs involved, and people respect his lack of language errors).
Now as for government websites, in Canada I was wholly private sector, so I don't know how it works there in government. But in the rivate sector, I was getting pretty good pay, and a job still waiting for me.
Here in China, I'm public sector, not so good pay, part time work (and teaching to supplement, along with writing a book, or should I say series), but a learning experience (why I'm here).
Here in China, one problem is the sheer shortage of Chinese translators in less-spoken languages a (euphemism for anything other than English, and maybe Japanese and Korean, and maybe Russian). As a result, they must sometimes rely on English as a bridge language from which documents are to be translated to many other languages.
Their budget does not allow for many high-quality translators, so to compensate, they hire a crew of incompetents and a small handful of qualified editors. This creates all kinds of inefficiencies and backlogs, with the editors too busy to edit everything.
From this standpoint, I would blame, ultimately, administrative incompetence. If they were smart, they'd translate into a more ideal first language. If the language is easier, then the Chiense could learn it to fluency in a short period of time. This would allow for the development of more human resources at lower cost, which would spill over in the ability to find and retain human resources at reasonable cost too.
The ease-of-learning of the ideal language would allow the translator to master it (which is seldom the case with English).
This ease-of-learning would mean also that people in other countries could master this language in a short time too (after all, the Chinese are not the only ones failing to learn English on a massive domographic scale), thus allowing them to then translate a perfect translation from the ideal language to their mother tongue, again at relatively low cost. High quality translation at low cost. What more could one want?
Unfortunately, the administration, both public and private sector, is seldom bilingual itself, and is usually not open to recommendations from translators even when the translators speak with a unanymous voice.
As a rule, we translators are generally perceived as nothing more than extremely expensive but indispensable secretarial staff that knows nothing of the realities of business (which is a gross generalization).
