Talk:Translation: Difference between revisions

• Wikipedia Translation — project to aid translation of articles in foreign Wikipedias into English. Sign up at it: "... How little we really know of how much we fail."

Apogr 19:01, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Problems in/caused by translation (into Hungarian) Translation may also be deemed to be a mental process whereby on the input of a text in L1 you produce an output in L2, usually in writing. The process takes place under several constraints, such as to the purpose, time available, the translator's knowledge, the tools used and the format and media of the text, etc. If the idea is to produce, as a result of the translation process, a mutation of the original text (usually fiction) by complying with the rules of retaining the original format or genre, you create a piece of translation that is recognised as a works of art on its own rights. Therefore, such translations are a subject of literary criticism, rather than seeing it as an information technology product that may be judged on the grounds of properly delivering a particular code/message in terms of accuracy, timeliness, completeness, reliability and authenticity. Most translations from English concern announcements, news and reports on facts, policies, novelties and innovations that may not have their equivalent wording readily available in the target language and thus they have to be created on an ad hoc basis. Since the totality of translation works is done in an unsystematic and uncoordinated fashion, despite various modern CAT tools that emphasise the importance of shared glossaries and dictionaries, the resulting condition is that L2, the target language is going through an unwanted and uneven transformation in terms of spelling, vocabulary, grammar and usage. Translation business in Hungary is up for grab and the works may be done by numerous, linguistically unqualified people who may not be aware of the problems of non-compliance with the rules of their native tongue. This may be understood better, if you consider that translation is not a listed profession in the Hungarian DOT, and localisation is another sign of not taking the issue seriously. In localisation the efforts made to sell the product abroad dominate the process, making self-defensive linguistic considerations thereby a low priority only.

see also translation memory, comment. Good editing job done! thank you: originator apogr

insert: localisation has been with us for a long time. It refelects the basic fact that translation is done under a number of constraints, some of which are difficult to resolve. Remember that the titles of movie films, the tranlation of poems, etc. are all examples of localisation, whereas the translation of software components, including on-screen instructions, user manuals, program specifications, etc., pose new constraints due to the economy on space of writing in the source language and the cut on the occurence of repeated phrases.

In contrast to the original defintion and wording of the concept of translation above, I am more inclined to describe this activity at the highest level of abstraction as an activity akin to copying, an other important and universal operation, with the difference that here the resulting copy deemed to be equivalent to the original has no resemblance to the original, yet believed to be equivalent for use in lieu of the source (primarily text) on the agreement by people that have sufficient insigth into and undersatnding of the universes of both languages. Apogr 09:31, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

" Computer and video games usually have Japanese as the source language and English as the target language." seems to be pretty centered around english speakers. It seems likely to me, that more people play computer games translated from English than from Japanase. Generally I think that sentence doesn't belong there -- Fuqnbastard 14:46, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This strikes me as needlessly snarky:

the translation of literary works, which are characterized by more "artistic" pretensions

A friend who is an interpreter for the deaf educated me regarding a subtle problem with this phrasing:

a distinction is made between translation, where both the source and target texts are written

Because there can be sign-language translations of taped performances, which are in turn taped, he prefers "fixed text to fixed text" for translation.

Disambiguation Requested I came here looking for Translation (geometry) (or Translate (geometry), which redirects to Translation (geometry)), the geometric act of moving vectors across a plane (or higher dimensional space) without changing any of their other properties.

I found "fan translation" listed under the "see also" under "Translation of religious texts". I suspect that was a mistake, perhaps an artifact of an earlier version of the page.

I wasn't sure where to put it, though, so I just stuck it under the main "see also" heading, since, as far as I know, no one really considers video games to be "religious texts" (although, come to think of it, I know some people who might appreciate the irony). --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 17:13, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the following links as they are in my opinion redundant (be bold!). My reasons are listed. If you think the reasoning is invalid or irrelevant then by all means re-instate the link, but I would appreciate if you could justify it here... --HappyDog 01:55, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Translation Services — A portal for translators and people looking for resources in translation.

  This is advertising, and not relevant to the article.

• The Altavista Babelfish, online machine translation software

  This is one of the links in 'list of on-line translation resources'

• Google language tools

  One of the items on the page is a translator, but we already have a list of on-line translators. Rest of page is Google-specific (e.g. view site in other languages)

• Open Source translation tools for South African languages

  This doesn't seem relevant, particularly on an English language site.

• Translation Dictionaries

  A hard-to-navigate site that has no instructions. I don't think we should link here even if it's relevant. Too confusing.

• Online dictionary of English and 7 other European and Asian languages

  Seems too specific to include in the article. This is one of the borderline cases though. At the moment it might be useful, but a list of on-line dictionaries would be better and fairer.

The following links I have left. I have included them below, along with my reasoning.

• List of internet translators

  A more complete list would be better, but until then this gives a good selection of translation resources to the reader.

• Internet Language Translation -- English, French, German, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, Czech & Italian

  This appears to be a meta-page which uses other translation engines. Very useful, though a better title could probably be found. Can this replace the first entry? Or is it favouring one site too much?

• Translation Journal

  One for professional translators, I think. Don't know whether to keep or not, but have left for now.

• On the Relative (Un)translatability of Puns

  An article about translation. Quite appropriate to an article on translation. Could do with some more examples like this.

• Directory of Translation Agencies & Freelance Translators

  Can't tell if this is a commercial site or not. If it is a directory of translators and agencies it may have a place here.

• Wikipedia Translation — project to aid translation of articles in foreign Wikipedias into English. Sign up at Wikipedia:Translators available, or view a list of pending translations at Wikipedia:Translation into English.

  Useful to get people involved with translating Wikipedia.

• Translation exchange

  Why this link has been removed? It's an innovative tool that I didn't found anywhere else and it's not a commercial site...

It's rather disingenuous to fall back on word borrowing in an attempt to show that difficult-to-translate words can often be easily translated. The article additionally seems to have forgotten the criteria it set in the previous section, namely fidelity and transparency — pâté de foie gras meets neither of these. The argument that this is better than "inflamed liver paste" is a strawman: nobody would present the latter as an accurate translation. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 01:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also wonder why it was translated as "inflamed", which seems to have little to do with either the product or the French name. I have changed it to "fat liver paste", in the hopes that someone later will try to fit in better with the explanation. I do think it's useful, however, to indicate that the names of typically foreign items are usually not translated. Lesgles 18:03, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Is there any need of listing all translation and interpreting associations, even from non-English speaking countries? If that's the case, then look at this link! [1] Regards --Adriano 19:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This article really needs to be split into translation and translator. Right now, both topics are handled here. Scriberius 16:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed! --Cultural Freedom talk 07:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The list of noted translators is so skewed and full of holes, I wonder if there is any use having this section. What are the criteria for listing people here? Real contributions? Recognition in the field? Or the whims of contributors? For instance, I have nothing against Nancy Andrew, but what is the justification for having the translator of one very recent work of Japanese fiction in the list, but none of the other greats in that field (except for Arthur Waley, who I myself added)? What about such great past translators of Russian literature like Constance Garnett? I am sure that one could keep adding people to the list, but in the end, what is the point of a raggedy list of translators with no guiding principle on who should be in it? Surely it would be better to simply have a link to the List of translators, or perhaps the Category:Translators to English (bad enough as that is) or other relevant categories. I really feel that this is an area in which Wikipedia definitely does not excel! Unless a better way can be found to come up with a decent (if not authoritative) list, would it not be better to leave this kind of list out? Bathrobe 04:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are many of the things that 24.149.57.49 is adding linkspam? I ask sincerely, I'm not quite able to judge. Thanks, --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-06-29 20:26 (UTC)

And then there's Drkpp --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-04 10:33 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the oft-repeated definitions are adequate — ie. that both refer to a transfer of meaning between two languages, but translation refers to written forms and interpreting to spoken forms. It seems to me that the essence of the difference is time, not mode. Interpreting is delivered "live", while translators have the time to deliberate, consult, revise, etc.

I'll give a couple of examples to illustrate: a team of translators have a 1-minute recording of a speech, and are given one day to produce an equivalent recording in another language. This may happen between two sign languages which have no written form. It seems to me that this is best understood as translation, not interpreting. Conversely, an interpreter may be simultaneously interpreting a video-recorded presentation, when a few words of text momentarily appear on-screen, which the interpreter interprets.

There are a number of other scenarios that make me question the above definition (written vs. spoken/signed). I had a go at distinguishing interpreting and translation on the interpreting article, if anyone wants to have a look. Anyone aware of academic discussion of these issues? It would be good to tighten the definitions here. ntennis 04:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a sign interpreter explained it to me, sign translation and sign interpretation are two different things. Sign-interpreting is live. He defined sign-translating as going from "fixed text to fixed text" (that has a nice, official-sounding ring to it), eg, a written English text to a videotaped signing performance (or vice-versa). Likewise, working off a tape in one language to produce a written text is translation, not interpreting. As a rule of thumb, if you have a chance to hide your mistakes, it's translating. adamrice 20:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to know how to translate a page in Wikipedia, from English to another language, say, the 'Redox' article. If I create a new page, named Redox, it already exists and I don't know where to specify the language in which I write. Could somebody give me an advice? Thank you.

First, looking at the "redox" article, it already exists in many other languages. If the language you want to translate it into is already there, have a look at it and see if you can improve it with new information from the English article. If it's a language not listed there--for example, Norwegian--it's possible the article really does exist at no.wikipedia.org, but hasn't been linked from the English yet. Look for it on the target-language wikipedia site and then link to it in the English Redox article. If it really does not exist, then go to the target-language site and create a new article there. Link it back to the English Redox article, and edit the English Redox article to link to it (and, if you are ambitious, the French one, the German one, etc). When editing a Wikipedia article, links to the equivalent article in other-language wikipedias always appear at the very end, in the form [[en:Redox]] (links to English) or [[de:Redoxreaktion]] (links to German). Also, please sign your comments with four tildes, like this: ~~~~. adamrice 20:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why does "target language" redirect to translation? Studying or speaking in a second language doesn't always necessarily have to do with translation. The two are hardly synonymous. Roehl Sybing 21:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried to find an article on target language and was re-directed here. I do not make the connection. Perhaps target is a technical term for translators, but target language is also the L2 or other language being learnt by a group of learners. A bad re-direct I think is.219.166.179.99 08:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC) I should have signed in.DDD DDD 08:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone up to adding a section on faux amis (false friends/cognates)?--Gilabrand 10:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In German the german word "Gift" in english means posion

See the False friend article and the List of false friends. —Grstain | Talk 18:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good, I linked the page to False Friends.

--Gilabrand 19:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Consequently, as has been recognized at least since the time of the translator Martin Luther, one translates best into the language that one knows best." While I tend to agree, this is still an opinion rather than a fact. In practice professional translations are not always done by native speakers of the target language. So I am removing this phrase unless somebody wishes to qualify it or at least source it. Lfh 16:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I feel the "decode/re-encode" paradigm is a wee bit too jargonny. Could these terms be replaced with understand and retell? Decode is actually problematic since there is no neutral medium outside of language (the code) to decode the text into before re-coding into another language. Maxschmelling 20:22, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. Why don't you give it a try? User:nihil novi, 8 July 2007.