Here we are for another blog post. Welcome once again! It is always a pleasure sharing some reflections/views/impressions about being a translator. We live some great experiences from one project to another. Even though the technology is widely present in the life of the professional of the word, the metaphor to get down to the text is still illustrative to express the idea according to which the text in a foreign language has difficulties and peculiarities, which means that it is a constant challenge for a translator. Thus, I believe the translation activity can be a source of great joy and pleasure – which doesn’t mean that the job is not difficult; on the contrary! It requires commitment, a certain degree of study, and dedication. In today’s post, I would like to share some thoughts after having concluded some projects.
As I previously said on the blog
post The Relationship Between a Translator and His Peers, the translation activity has
the word as its raw material. That is, in the word, we find an endless source
of linguistic possibilities. They become palpable as soon as two or more
languages establish a fruitful relationship of coexistence according to the
existential itinerary of the professional of the word. A word can bring about a
myriad of interpretations and it can even gain nuances of complexities or
ambiguities if we bear in mind the variety of texts we work with. How can we
deal with these nuances? Could a word evoke the contours of an emotion? Or an
image? Perhaps an idea? Or even a concept? An action? There are certain modern
languages shared and spoken in the communities that have common origins, and
even though they have their particularities, characteristics, and rules, in
general, some of them have some familiarities among themselves, if we consider
the reciprocal influences during the process of linguistic evolution and word
formation. For example, the Portuguese word razão, has a certain
similarity to the English word reason, which, in turn, is similar
to the French word raison. There are countless languages all over
the world.
On the other hand, on the blog post Someone Said that Translation Is… I considered that
translation does not have an a priori value. And we are the ones, human beings, who attribute value to the
translation after discovering its value. In the case of a book, after a careful
and enjoyable reading, we discover its importance, and then, nourished by that
wonderful experience, we can attribute value to that work. Affective value?
Existential value? Philosophical value? I would say that translators promote
the meeting between reader and author, and I have the impression that the
meeting point is in the text. Furthermore, in addition to what is commonly
called literary translation, that is, the branch more focused on the
translation of books, there is also technical translation. For example, when
someone buys a computer, whether a laptop or desktop computer, depending on the
manufacturer, most likely the equipment will be accompanied by the
manufacturer’s manuals indicating a series of information: From the most
technical details concerning the equipment – such as operating characteristics,
electrical specifications, configuration specifications, and the details about
the electronic components – to the most basic details about the operating
system. In other words, if the manufacturer provides a translated version of
the manual to the public to which the product would be eventually offered, all the
instructions will be extremely useful to the user of the equipment insofar as
those instructions indicate the information and technical recommendations
necessary for proper usage. Thus, in this case, we can attribute the value of
utility to the translation, since the translated text offers a whole
informative and instructive apparatus.
In light of this, from a few projects to
this moment, and going through some interesting experiences, especially after
delivering some creative translation projects – gaming and transcreation – I
have appreciated even more the importance of ensuring the intelligibility of
the translated text in the target language. And, for this reason, I would like
to invite you to join me.
It is usual to have a certain inclination
to believe that words have an intrinsic meaning. That is, there are words, they
are articulated in sentences, and thanks to the meaning that each one of them
has, it is possible to make them intelligible. That’s great, that’s the way it
is. But is it wise to think of an intrinsic meaning for words? Let’s take the
word "book" as an example. If we follow this inclination and think that the
word has an intrinsic meaning, the simple fact of speaking, listening, writing,
or reading the word "book" results in the intelligibility of the meaning.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that things may not be as simple as that. Let’s
imagine the following situation. On a sunny Sunday morning, someone feels like
going out. The desire calls for a cultural adventure. This person goes to a
bookstore, then the desire is satisfied. Once there, the reader begins to walk
around and sees countless "books" organized on shelves. Initially, a
superficial glance leads the reader to believe that they are books. Very well.
As the curiosity is enormous, and there are many books to be explored, the
reader goes towards one of them motivated by the desire to skim some of
its pages. Without realizing it, the reader goes to the language section, and,
instead of catching a book from the shelf, they catch a dictionary. At this
moment, they think: – Gosh! It’s a dictionary… Notice that the reader’s expectations were frustrated
when they found a dictionary among many books. Once they hastily judged all of that being books, the reader ended up disregarding
all the other possible nuances. From that point on, and more attentive, the
reader began to notice the existence of types of books on the shelves. The
reader goes to the Literature section, and when they get there, they notice that there are foreign literature, national literature, 20th-century
literature, etc.; in the History section, they notice that there are books on
ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary history; something similar happens
in the Philosophy section (if the reader has the opportunity to explore this
universe, they will notice that philosophers have been building their thoughts
throughout the history of philosophy). There is an illustrative saying about
this: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Avoiding hasty judgment during the
translation activity seems to be an adequate and recommendable practice,
especially in the treatment of words. When the professional of the word is in
front of a text in a foreign language, depending on the area in which they work, there will be difficulties and challenges along the way, as I said
earlier. When it comes to the Information Technology texts, the area in which I
work and the one that I have an affinity, one of the biggest challenges is
dealing with the number of technical terms, concepts, product names, and
technologies that require linguistic treatment. This world is relatively new,
and many people are still getting used to the usage of technology in their
daily lives. In my opinion, one of the biggest challenges for the professional
translator in this area would be exactly how to deal with all this terminology.
On one hand, there are products and technologies – applications, computing,
network computing, cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence,
the Internet, social networks, communication protocols, and so on. –; on the
other, the consumer market – companies and individuals. How to deal with all
this terminology and produce a successful linguistic result? We know that many
of these words originate in English. How to deal with and translate them into
the target language?
When I refer to the avoidance of hasty
judgment in translation, my idea is instead to promote more intelligibility to
the meaning of the words. In the Philosophical Investigations, a
book by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) posthumously published and commonly
inserted in the second phase of his thought, the Austrian philosopher presents,
among other things, a stimulating reflection on language. Among many ideas
outlined in the Investigations, Wittgenstein is concerned with the
usage of words. For him, there are different species of words. For example, "chair"; this is a word whose usage, and not the supposed intrinsic meaning,
determines the intelligibility of the sense. When I say: "I am in front of the
computer, at my desk, seated in this chair, writing this text", I use the word "chair" in this context. On the other hand, when I say: "The massage chair was
placed in the main room", I use the word "chair" differently. Or, still, when I
evoke a scene from the movie The Pianist: "The pianist took a seat
in the chair, went towards the piano keyboard, and played an excerpt from
Ballad No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, by Frédéric Chopin."
In the first context, the usage
associates the object chair with a sense related to work activity. Finding the
words, organizing them harmonically in a text, and making the message
intelligible is one of the skills with which the professional of the word puts
into practice daily. But this is not all. We are bringing words within the
reach of the reading public and thus we are also practicing linguistic
sensibility. Those who read are never alone. The text can be extremely
enjoyable and its reading can also be remarkable. Here the chair, among other
things, gets easier the work of the professional of the word. Being there, we
spend many hours of the day trying to find the most appropriate solution and
still try to deliver, with the help of our skills, the best in linguistic terms
to our clients. The existential itinerary of the professional of the word has
its idiosyncrasies. In the second context, however, the usage associates the
object chair in a sense related to a moment in which the person who sits there does
not work. Someone spends hours on it, but there is no work activity. Things are
going on in the world and the person who sits there does nothing at all. The
massage chair is in the main room, and so, in the main room, it stays, because
it is turned towards the person who sits there. Here, the chair is not made for
work. And in the third context (…)
Wittgenstein’s word treatment is
extremely fruitful. Earlier we identified a kind of word. "Chair". This species
of word evokes an object situated in the external world. However, there are
other extremely interesting species of word. As I said earlier, I had the
opportunity to complete some work for the video game and transcreation areas
recently. For both areas, one kind of remarkable word, and one that is present
during the process of language treatment, would be "creativity". I have the
impression that "creativity" is, unlike "chair", one of a different species of
word. If, on the one hand, "chair" evokes an object in the outside world, I
have the impression that "creativity", on the other hand, evokes something more
related to mental phenomena.
Video games are part of the everyday life
of many players. There are many different profiles. From those who have
followed all the technological development of consoles in the last few years to
those who play on the computer, and those who are just taking their first
steps. The game genres are also diversified and they are gaining new
enthusiasts each passing day. If, on the one hand, game developers use a lot of
computer logic and mathematical calculations to make a game come true, on the
other hand, there is still a whole creative side to it that is no less
important. A game’s plot, the story, and the characters are incredibly complex
and elaborate these days. There is a whole creative process involved – the
imagination and fantasy are explored in such a way that playfulness is
produced. And just think that a few years ago the old-but-gold Atari was the
source of much fun for gamers of past generations. There are so many things
that have changed since then, and we currently see cutting-edge technology in
this industry.
In addition to all the development and
creation, a game also contains words. There is dialog between characters and
there is text in the graphic elements of the games. And this is where the
professional of the word comes into the scene along with the translation
agencies. For example, imagine that a game was developed in the English or
French language. Let’s say that the studio that developed the game wants to
provide it to a certain audience. For example, for the Brazilian community. At
this point, it is common for the game developer to get in touch with a
translation agency to request the linguistic treatment of the entire game, in
case there is no specific department to take care of this. The translation
agency, in turn, on receiving a translation or machine translation post-editing
project in the language pairs English>Portuguese or French>Portuguese,
will contact the linguist that provides services in these language pairs – by
the way, the example is illustrative, since these are the two language pairs I
work with. The professional of the word, in turn, on receiving the project from
the translation agency, will have the opportunity to deal with unpredictable
challenges, since a game may involve other areas of expertise. Think, for
example, of a racing game. There is all the automotive terminology involved.
Let’s say, the parts that make a hot-rodded car, the whole visual and aesthetic
part, the interior. Also, if the race takes place on a street circuit, there
are the names and details of these places. There is also the linguistic
register. If the race is a race between the buddies against the police, there
may be stories and dialogues between the characters with a lot of slang and
colloquialisms. In my opinion, the feeling I get coming from working on the
first projects in this area is that it seems to be one of the most challenging
areas. Just an example, depending on the project, there may even be limitations
regarding the number of characters in the translated text, since certain
graphic elements have screen space limitations. I have a lot to learn in this
area and a lot to explore, for sure.
Another area that I have worked on
recently is transcreation. This is a style of translation that involves
creativity. In general, a company wants to launch a product in a certain
market. For this, there is a whole localization strategy involved in this process,
and as I said earlier, translation is one part of the whole process. Well, all
the linguistic treatment related to the product will be done by the
professional of the word along with the translation agencies. The process of
work assignment is analogous to what I described above. I received these
assignments from a client for whom I have been working for some time. I have a
great professional relationship with this client and I could say that the
assignments have a certain constancy. I translate a lot of Information
Technology projects for this agency and I have recently started to receive
projects from other areas – transcreation, medical press releases, and even a
website. All right, the transcreation jobs were for the same client that hired
the translation agency. The whole process went smoothly and I was pleased with
the final result. It was a nice project and I finished it with great pleasure.
Now, if you allow me, I will share
some of my impressions on the experiences involving transcreation. First of
all, I received the job offers by e-mail on two consecutive Fridays, late in
the afternoon. Both offers are for the English>Portuguese language pair.
Before assigning the job, firstly the translation agency sends an e-mail with
an offer to check the availability of the professional of the word. In this
first contact, the client kindly sends a sample for a preliminary evaluation of
the text to receive the linguistic treatment. In addition, the client also
indicates the translation tool to be used in the project, in this case,
Wordfast Pro – I have already had the opportunity to work with some CAT tools,
and I would like to highlight my positive experiences with Trados Studio, memoQ
(the feature Create view is wonderful), Smartcat, Wordbee,
Memsource Cloud, Passolo, XTM, Lingotek, and Wordfast itself (the feature Transcheck
Report caught my attention).
On the first project received on the
first Friday, I checked the offer email with the material and I was confident
enough to translate it. I conducted the project without any major problems the
first weekend and the delivery was done some days later, according to the
deadline. On the following Friday, I ended up receiving the second offer – the
translation agency received the material from their same client to be
translated on Wordfast Pro as well – and I accepted it. However, I found some
difficulty getting the color of a product translated in this second project. I
spent hours trying to find a linguistic solution, but I was unhappy with
everything I had found. I finally decided to go back through all the reference
material the client had sent me to make sure I had not neglected anything. And,
indeed, I had! I discovered a document with the references for the product in
question and more: A promotional image illustrating it; there was a Word
document with a photo and other details; in the foreground, an image of the
product, and in the background – imagine! –, a Phenomenon of Nature with the
exact colors of the product. So that was it! A color inspired by that. From
this experience, finding the solution was much easier, and I was delighted with
the result. I could say that there is a lot to learn in the area of
transcreation as well, but I feel enthusiastic about the first experiences I
had during the two projects. Each project offers different challenges, and the
courage to go through the sinuosities of each one can be a considerable element
to the professional’s repertoire of skills. Count on me if you need my
linguistic services.
Thank you very much for your attention,
and I hope you enjoyed the reading. See you in the next post!
About the painting:
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)
Jeune homme au piano
1876
Oil on canvas
Artizon Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Brazilian Portuguese Translations, Brazilian Portuguese Translator #brazilianportuguesetranslations #brazilianportuguesetranslator