Native English speakers as translators 有什麽不對嗎？

[rose~]

Occaisionally I do some work in my spare time for a Chinese charity, and sometimes they ask me to correct some English proofs for publication (which I often forward to an American friend to check my American English (sh) ). My contact is quite senior in the organization and is a work contact of a friend of a good friend, so I have to tread carefully as it involves my friend too, but recently I tried suggesting that I could just directly translate the Chinese into English rather than correcting other people's work.

There are several reasons why I feel this would be better- one is they don't send me the Chinese original so when a translation makes no sense in English, often I am just totally fabricating something new out of the air as I have nothing else to go from. Also, the quality of the originals varies widely, from almost perfect to quite poor. Correcting the worst ones takes me much, much longer than an original translation would, I think. Finally, my own selfish reason is that I find correcting work totally mind-numbing compared to translation.

One of my friends once seemed really surprised that a foreigner should do translation at all. She asked me once what my goals were in studying Chinese and I said that it would improve my career opportunities as I would be able to do simple translation into English for whatever firm I would work for. Her response basically was to question why anyone would want a "foreigner " (although I'm not a foreigner here) to translate when they could have a native Chinese.

I've always been taught that translation is best done into one's native language, but quite often I feel that the assumption is that a translation should only be done by native Chinese speakers, regardless of the direction of the translation. That's also what I experienced working in mainland China. I just wonder whether this will improve as my Chinese skills improve or what? Do other native English speakers find they are given more proofreading than translation to do? I'm curious as I don't have much contact with others in a similar situation.

Sorry for complaining, it's just something frustraing I have found over the last year or so. I'm not a translator, (as in a professional), but then neither are any of the other people involved in these situations.

[Lu]

I completely agree with you that translation is best done towards one's native language. I suspect the most obvious reason that most companies in China have it done by Chinese is that Chinese tend to be cheaper than foreigners. But maybe roddy can shed more light on this issue.

And it can be even more stupid. A friend of mine was once asked to translate a manual for a tv set from English to Dutch. This was for a Taiwanese company in Holland. This would completely make sense, except that the friend was Chinese, and had no more than a basic knowledge of Dutch.

[trevelyan]

Yeah... there's definitely a perception here in China that translating on the cheap and getting the results edited is cheaper than simply paying for a competent translation. No reason for anyone who reads Chinese to be complicit in that though. I turn down editing jobs unless someone is willing to pay enough to justify the effort.

Your friend who made the disparaging remark wasn't actually literate in Chinese, was he? I can't imagine someone with good Chinese translating news, but being able to read and write and otherwise communicate with Chinese colleagues is essential for doing pretty much anything.

[roddy]

Cost is probably the main issue - simply put, it's a lot cheaper to get a local translator than a foreign one. Availability - there aren't that many foreign translators floating around, and few if any companies are going to employ one full-time. Dealing with freelancers just adds an extra layer of hassle. There are also often concerns - sometimes assumptions - that the foreigner won't be able to understand the Chinese text properly.

Often, people just don't care. The instruction manual Lu mentions is going to have a captive audience. Nobody checks the manual for quality of translation before they buy a microwave. A lot of C>E translation is for websites or newsletters that no actual English-speaker is likely to look at - it's just part of a company's effort to be 'international'. Getting a native speaker to proof something is more about looking like you are trying to produce a quality document rather than actually doing so.

As you say, usually you need to pull the entire thing apart and put it back together again, and you'd be better off starting from scratch. Problem is you then have a document which is unrecognizable to the Chinese client, who has been doing translations the original way for years. He can't accept your version without tacitly admitting all those others were wrong. Much better to assume that everything is fine, and foreigners are only necessary for making minor aesthetic adjustments - making it more 'natural' when often it needs to be made 'comprehensible.'

This would be less of a problem if Chinese companies actually used competent local translators. However, it's usually a case of 'Hey, that new guy did English at university, lets get him to translate this,' failing to recognize that a degree in English does not mean a) good translation skills or even B) good English skills.

I've been lucky enough to work with and know some highly skilled local Chinese translators, but in every case they are either graduates of quality translation courses, or people who've actually got a passion for English rather than a degree in it. But then they charge a premium, and you come back to money issues again.

All of my translation work now is what I think of as 'foreign-facing' - it's for genuinely international organizations, or Chinese ones that know their English-language communications are actually read by people who need to read them. I wouldn't do editing work normally, and if I did I'd want the Chinese original and would price it very similarly to actual translation work - because that's what I'd be doing.

In your case - perhaps you can ask for the Chinese original 'so you can practice your Chinese'.

[ironlady]

There are arguments both for and against translating only into your native (or strongest) language, but generally professional translators in the West work only into the native (or strongest -- I won't keep saying this below, I promise!) language.

For interpretation, most folks working Chinese<>English go both ways, and of course most of them are native Chinese speakers. But interpretation does not leave any artefacts behind -- there is no written record. There might possibly be a recording, but you won't find many interpreters cheerfully agreeing to that in the first place! Translation, however, leaves a very obvious artefact behind, and if the quality of the written language of the translation is poor, there are consequences. Slips of grammar during simultaneous interpreting are "forgiven" by the audience most of the time, but slips in a written document are not as forgivable.

There are texts for which IMHO a native Chinese-speaking translator is the better choice for going into English; but there are also English texts for which a native English-speaking translator might be the better choice for going into Chinese. Both are few and far between, however.

There is undoubtedly a widespread belief on the part of many Chinese that "no foreigner could ever learn Chinese well enough to translate." We get it all the time. Yet there is an interesting phenomenon with native Chinese speaking translators claiming two native languages (when this is often obviously not the case judging from the materials in which they make these claims!) I've only heard one native English speaker claim that his Mandarin was as good as that of an educated native Chinese speaker (and he's probably right), and I've never seen a professional non-ethnically Chinese translator native in English claim native competence in Chinese. Just suggest to a Chinese that you translate something into Chinese and see the reaction!!

That being said, I've been making a good living at Chinese>English work for the last 20 years, so it can be done. China might not be the right market for it, though, as you are fighting "chabuduo-zhuyi" and many other stereotypes, not to mention pure economics, guanxi and face.