“la parole exportée”

I feel definitely out of step today.

If I was into the French TV market, I might be on duty, waiting for sensational news from Mumbai. Interpreting words of death, injury, fire, unrest…

But I’m glad I’m not, because I don’t feel like doing that. I’ve often been asked why I refuse to work for television. I have several, some very personal, reasons for that, but today, my answer would be a clear No. I don’t want to be part of it.

I would very much rather sit at a negotiation table, helping warring parties to try to reconcile their views, come to an understanding, than take part in spreading more doom and gloom. I am not criticizing the work of reporters, who are doing their job in extremely dangerous conditions. But I have chosen to do a different job.

On a barely different level, I came across a bewildering article in the New York Times today, about French Huguenots who fled religious intolerance and settled in Florida even before the Pilgrim Fathers came to New England on the Mayflower. Well… Politics has a lot to answer for, in the treatment of History.

This being said, I have lots of thanks to give, the first and foremost being that I’ve had the luck to be born in a time and space of peace and prosperity. We in the West are so often tempted to take this for granted.

One comment our clients almost systematically make about our work is: ‘You’re doing a wonderful job! How do you manage to translate our jargon?’, ‘It must be so difficult’…

Well it’s reassuring to see that other professions are also finding their jargon difficult at times.

This piece found on NPR is an example of it. It was on yesterday’s edition of All Things Considered and it was about financial jargon.

Next time I interpret for someone speaking of RFS or DDGS or IPCC or UNFCCC (CCNUCC in French…) I’ll remember ‘Aunt Millie’. From now on, she’ll be my guardian angel, and my source of inspiration.

A lady is selling her house. This is the beginning of her blog post, the heading of which reads: (Totally) Lost in Translation. What a good start.

I thought I’d share with you some highlights of the rather charming French translation of our house details on the website of a supposedly bilingual estate agency. Read it and weep………

“Pretty ensemble of properties of the stone well hidden near the end of a step through a road with little or no passage traffic”

Would you like to see this kind of ad when your house is for sale? The rest of this hilarious description is here, in French and in (so-called) English, with the lady’s own comments. Have fun…

My conclusion?

It’s not just the realtor’s credibility that is at stake, but so is the seller’s. The realtor may be good in his/her field, selling houses. But not in translation. Of course, in this day and age, prospective buyers will take a look at the pictures of houses, rather than read generally hyped-up descriptions, whatever the language.

Instead of providing an attractive, well-informed ad, targeting the English buyers they are probably courting, this botched-up translation could generate extra, unnecessary questions: What are these sellers talking about? Who are they? Can we trust them? Can we trust this realtor?

That is one big reason why quality matters in translation. You want to establish confidence. In you, in your work, and in your clients. It’s as simple as that.