| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | Foreigners telling me how to write English Thread poster: philgoddard
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I can take criticism as well as the next person, but there's one thing that drives me up the wall: foreigners telling me my English is wrong.
Maybe this is because English is the world's lingua franca. Countless millions have appropriated it as their second language, speak it pretty well, forget that it's other people's first language, and become blind to their own imperfections.
I've been told off twice this week.
1.
I did a job for a London agenc... See more I can take criticism as well as the next person, but there's one thing that drives me up the wall: foreigners telling me my English is wrong.
Maybe this is because English is the world's lingua franca. Countless millions have appropriated it as their second language, speak it pretty well, forget that it's other people's first language, and become blind to their own imperfections.
I've been told off twice this week.
1.
I did a job for a London agency I've been working with for thirty years.
The end client was a German pet-store chain, and the job was a very brief radio commercial in which a customer asks an employee a question and gets a silly answer. The German wordplay didn't translate, so I produced some of my own:
"Excuse me, do you have any kittens going cheap?"
"No, sir, all of our kittens go miaow".
I know it's an old joke, but I think it's funny, and the agency said it was "excellent".
The next day the client complained about the ad, said it didn't work, and asked us to produce another one. The agency, to their credit, declined, and passed on the client's comments to me:
"I assume here that the word cheap is being confused with chirp, from what I can see I could be wrong but I have read it so many times and still don’t get the joke.
"Cheap means in English (not expensive), chirp is the sound a bird makes. They don’t mean the same and they are pronounced very differently (a native speaker would notice this immediately), so the pun doesn’t make sense. A bird says chirp chirp, not cheap cheap.”
2.
Another agency sent me a job today. This time, both the agency and the end client were Dutch, and the job was a press release for an art gallery.
The agency said the client had complained about the last job I did because I didn't put the periods in the same places as in the source text.
I said this was because in Dutch, it's OK to have lots of short, staccato sentences. Like this. It's not OK in English. You have to vary the sentence length. That sometimes means combining short sentences into long ones.
Today, the agency asked me to reproduce the Dutch text using exactly the same sentence structure.
So I can either stand by my principles and refuse to produce a substandard translation that sounds weird, or just shrug and say the customer is always right, even when they're wrong.
Has this happened to you, in English or your own mother tongue?
[Edited at 2023-09-01 16:05 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Unedited since 2 weeks | | On reviewers from hell | Sep 1, 2023 |
Some 30 years ago, a client asked me to change my translation for something completely wrong (for the Portuguese-speaking: “não hesite em” by “não exite em” (???!!!). To avoid long discussions with a good client, I decided to submit my translation and the change proposed to an independent reviewer and act accordingly to his decision. The client was “forced” to accept our arguments… Problem solved!
| | | | S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 12:34
English to Romanian
A client with whom I was hoping to have a long-term collaboration decided to cease it stating that I had completely misunderstood the English language and the context used and subsequently produced subpar Romanian translations. I asked for an example of such mistakes (or several examples) but they said they actually had to re-translate huge chunks of written material and couldn't pinpoint a specific error.
I let it go as there was nothing else I could do.
More than a ye... See more A client with whom I was hoping to have a long-term collaboration decided to cease it stating that I had completely misunderstood the English language and the context used and subsequently produced subpar Romanian translations. I asked for an example of such mistakes (or several examples) but they said they actually had to re-translate huge chunks of written material and couldn't pinpoint a specific error.
I let it go as there was nothing else I could do.
More than a year later I discovered what they had actually done: not translation, but adaptation. Which I had not been informed of in the first place. Their version still bears my name... ▲ Collapse
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philgoddard wrote:
Today, the agency asked me to reproduce the Dutch text using exactly the same sentence structure.
...
Has this happened to you, in English or your own mother tongue?
I have experienced this situation for the past 27 years with Japanese translation companies, even those I have been collaborating with from the outset. When they become uneasy about my translations because they diverge significantly from the structure of the source text, they hire a meticulous Japanese proofreader to "rectify" them, meaning to render them entirely literal, including commas and periods. Numerous Japanese reviewers eagerly await the opportunity to showcase their skills in a language that is not theirs.
Upon realizing these unwarranted revisions, I always object, and absolve myself of any responsibility. Not much has changed in all these years, but thankfully I do not need to work for a living anymore, so I am just crossing out the name of these translation companies from my list, one by one.
It is widely recognized that the Japanese are not particularly well-versed in foreign languages, but it surprises me that this occurs in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, where I would anticipate a much greater familiarity with the English language.
[Edited at 2023-09-02 01:14 GMT]
[Edited at 2023-09-02 03:26 GMT]
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I sympathize completely, Phil. Dealing with such nonsense from unqualified reviewers can be a real drag on an otherwise healthy business relationship.
philgoddard wrote:
The end client was a German pet-store chain, and the job was a very brief radio commercial in which a customer asks an employee a question and gets a silly answer. The German wordplay didn't translate, so I produced some of my own:
"Excuse me, do you have any kittens going cheap?"
"No, sir, all of our kittens go miaow".
I know it's an old joke, but I think it's funny, and the agency said it was "excellent".
Like another commenter, I'd love to hear what the original German joke or pun sounded like.
Just one little thing crossed my mind when I read the English joke you suggested using in the ad. Pet stores in Germany typically sell pet food, pet toys, and other pet paraphernalia. Larger ones also sell pets like guinea pigs, rabbits, and birds, but I've never seen a cat or dog being sold in a pet store. Is this situation different in the target market where your customer's English-language ad would air?
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philgoddard wrote:
Has this happened to you, in English or your own mother tongue?
Not exactly the same thing, but a similar idea.
I've done a lot of editing/translation work involving medical research papers that were submitted to peer-reviewed medical journals. Quite often, one or more of the peer reviewers would make a comment about the quality of the English not being up to the required standard.
Invariably, it was clear from the way the review was written that the reviewer was not a native English speaker. It appeared that, seeing that the paper originated from a non-English-speaking country, and being unable to find anything to criticise in the scientific content, they would make some generic remark about the language just to give the impression that they were being diligent.
This was so common that it even became a bit of a joke between me and regular clients ("They liked the paper, Philip, apart from the bad English  ") In one case, the same reviewer made one of these disparaging remarks, then later in the same review commented that the paper "is very well written". Obviously a boiler-plate review that hadn't been edited properly.
However, several times I had to explain the whole business to a new client who was understandably dismayed by this response.
So this topic for me is tiresomely familiar.
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 04:34
English to Russian
+ ...
Please remove me from your database. Happy chirping!
Most sincerely,
Me, dearest.
Case closed:-)
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Perhaps influenced by the fact that my company was based in Brussels at the time and had (and has) a French name (Bureau Portugais de Traduction), a reviewer once said that my translation had obviously been done by someone who wasn't Portuguese. I sent her a copy of my ID and stopped working with that agency...
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Maybe "non-mother tongue" would have been a better expression? Sorry, I know... another "foreigner" correcting your English... 
| | | | Kevin Fulton 
United States
Local time: 05:34
German to English
| Common occurrence, unfortunately | Sep 2, 2023 |
It's inevitable to encounter this situation over the course of a long translation career.
One end client complained that I was obviously not a native speaker of English. She also complained that I hadn't used company-internal standard terminology (not supplied).
Another, with a limited knowledge of English claimed that "partnership" was not the proper description of her company (Kommanditgesellschaft). I changed it to "closely held corporation" which she found unintelli... See more It's inevitable to encounter this situation over the course of a long translation career.
One end client complained that I was obviously not a native speaker of English. She also complained that I hadn't used company-internal standard terminology (not supplied).
Another, with a limited knowledge of English claimed that "partnership" was not the proper description of her company (Kommanditgesellschaft). I changed it to "closely held corporation" which she found unintelligible. I wasn't going to try to convince her that the legal form of her company wasn't a big selling point for her products in the US.
I regularly translated medical research articles for a well-known publisher. Occasionally there was feedback from the authors; in most cases the authors decided to amplify the text, which sometimes led the PMs to wonder whether I had omitted material from my translation. In one instance, however, the author decided to correct my word choices. For the most part the changes were immaterial, and I didn't care, until he changed "employ" to "use", with the explanation that "employ" meant to hire people.
Attempting to translate humor is a different issue altogether. As a wise man once said, the German sense of humor is no laughing matter. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep | Sep 2, 2023 |
philgoddard wrote:
"A bird says chirp chirp, not cheap cheap.”
Actually sparrows and other small birds do go "cheep cheep". Grammar.com says:
"Cheap has a homophone cheep which a high pitched, squeaky cry made by a bird. In simple words, the sound made by a bird is called cheep especially when that sound is short and high. The original word means a small squeaky sound made by a young bird but now it is used to describe the sound made by any bird."
Some non-native people do think their English is better than that of native speakers. Here's an example of two non-native people speaking what they think is excellent English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnUv2fhFy5E
[Edited at 2023-09-02 14:00 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
Anecdote 1 is quite funny and confirms the stereotype that Germans have no sense of humour.
Yes or as we say here, a German joke is no laughing matter.
| | | | | We have a counterpart term | Sep 2, 2023 |
Kevin Fulton wrote:
Another, with a limited knowledge of English claimed that "partnership" was not the proper description of her company (Kommanditgesellschaft). I changed it to "closely held corporation" which she found unintelligible
And I think it's always been translated into English as "limited partnership." Louisiana also has "partnership in commendam," but always a partnership and not something else. The problem is those reviewers never say what they actually want to see, "Just keep tossing in new versions, and I'll keep saying they're questionable." I known the kind
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 10:34
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
We've all been there.
And we don't need proofreaders or revisors to know that. Just take a look at Kudoz and the forums. There's always someone who thinks they can own a language.
I worked with a Spanish agency that hired a Polish in-house translator a few years later. Our communication was made in Spanish and English.
There was a big, nice and on-going Spanish-to-Portuguese project related to preschool/kindergarten. It required a lot of transcreation.
Every time I deliv... See more We've all been there.
And we don't need proofreaders or revisors to know that. Just take a look at Kudoz and the forums. There's always someone who thinks they can own a language.
I worked with a Spanish agency that hired a Polish in-house translator a few years later. Our communication was made in Spanish and English.
There was a big, nice and on-going Spanish-to-Portuguese project related to preschool/kindergarten. It required a lot of transcreation.
Every time I delivered a translation batch, that Polish lady would make various "corrections" to my translations and ask a lot of questions about certain expressions, words and phrases in Portuguese.
For example, once she asked me to change "autocarro" (bus) to "ônibus".
I explained to her that "ônibus" was a translation of "bus" in Brazilian Portuguese, and that the end client had clearly indicated at the beginning of the project "European Portuguese".
And so for many times I wasted my precious time with this lady, sometimes even looking up in Portuguese grammar and making her realise that this language is spoken in countries other than Brazil and we have huge differences in both language variants.
I don't know if she was taking any linguistic courses in Brazilian Portuguese, or if she was being influenced by the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, but this is not an excuse for her behaviour.
At a certain point, I decided to stop justifying my own translations, I removed the rubbish she changed, and the end client accepted and approved my own translations.
She was Polish, but she definitely never managed to polish my translations...
[Edited at 2023-09-02 14:56 GMT]
[Edited at 2023-09-02 14:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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