Translation tales

Whilst the majority of my translation clients are pleasant people, always respectful and appreciative of the work I produce, you do get the odd one from time to time…

Last week, a client complained that her article had been rejected because of the poor standard of English.  Glancing through, it quickly became evident that she had continued to add paragraphs here and there to the completed translation in her own very unique style of English (one of the many varieties of Spanglish).  I suppose she was hoping I wouldn’t notice, and would revise the article for free.

Another client also complained because his article had been returned due to poor use of English.  The reviewer complaining about the standard of English in the paper had also had these choice comments to make:

·         There is useful to add a sentence to making generalization from results that obtained this study in abstract.

·         I drown regression line from means R2 degree is bigger than you.

·         Because there is other meaning this word that saturated with rain.

·         It was be a term very generally, is it need?

·         Is...unfortunately it aren't understood clearly.

·         this term needn’t sufficient...

·         ...you should be controlled regression line for this character.

·         ...probability of significant is low.

·         It should be useful with make to regression analysis.

·         There is useful to added these terms.

·         How meant replication?

No wonder he had found the English difficult to understand.  I revised the article unwillingly, explaining to the author that this reviewer was unlikely to change his opinion until he’d had a few more years learning English himself and was currently in no position to judge use of English.

Then there was the author who sent in her own English translation for “correction”.  She had clearly used Google translate, which can be hilarious if you aren’t being paid to correct.  I was surprised at the frequency with which the word “hosiery” appeared in a text on earthquakes.  It didn’t take me long to realize that she was referring to “statistical means” (both “medias” in Spanish – context is all).

Today I am translating an article where to save money (translations are usually charged by the word) the author has removed all bibliographical references, statistics, titles and proper names.  She will probably save herself 25 cents in the long run; meanwhile, I do not know whether to use he, she, they, it, this, these…She will also probably copy and paste poorly constructed English in unsuitable places and then complain when her translation is returned.

Perhaps my worst though, was a long article which had been lifted almost in its entirety from a seminal book in English on the subject.  By chance, I found said book on the Internet whilst searching for some obscure term.  As I worked through the Spanish text, it became increasingly clear that the “author” (plagiarist) had read this book, translated the passages he wished to use into Spanish himself, and then sent the resulting rubbish for translation.    I struggled with my conscience and increasing irritation, but when I came to a passage where he had translated “scarce” in English (from the seminal text) for “sacred” in Spanish, I cracked, and sent the article back unfinished.  My choices would have been to translate the gobbledygook he had sent me, in which case it would be returned for inaccuracy and poor research (which authors in my experience always tend to blame on the translator for not understanding their gems of wisdom sufficiently, or being incapable of translating them accurately), or to use the seminal text to correct his worst errors, thus becoming guilty myself of plagiarism.  Fortunately, this particular text had arrived through an agency, so it wasn’t me who had to explain to the author why his text had been returned incompletely translated.  Shortly afterwards I received another, much shorter text “written” by same “author”, through the same agency.  This time he had lifted his text from Wikipedia…