I am fluent in several languages, but I have some trouble doing precise translations even when translating the written word. The core issue is that there is frequently not a specific word in one language which fully captures the nuances of meaning of the comparable word in the other language. In addition, whether the writer (or speaker) fully intended the nuanced meaning is frequently dependent on context, which requires some judgement. Further, it’s common for people to use multiple synonyms when speaking, which requires judgement as to whether they’re simply doing it for effect or genuinely meant to capture some subtle difference between the two synonyms, and if the latter, then you need to come up with words in the second language which similarly capture those subtleties. In addition to all that, there are frequently idioms used in one language which don’t translate altogether, so that you need to jettison the literal translation entirely in favor of the intended meaning.
Bottom line is that on occasions when I translate speech on-the-fly, I generally end up giving over the gist of what’s being said (especially since I’m struggling to hear and speak at the same time). But I would think that in common instances where translators are used - e.g. meetings of world leaders and diplomats and the like - the precise translation is highly important. So I’m wondering how the professional translators pull it off.
IANAPT, but I think it’s really not about a precise word-for-word translation, but providing an accurate meaning of what is being said. I presume a professional translator is trained to interpret what someone is saying in order to be able to translate it in a way that the other person would easily understand. There are probably some limitations given that some words are unique to certain languages, but I doubt it makes a big difference for most conversations. Someone can prove me wrong.
It’s an enormously skilled task to translate in real time (not speaking from personal experience, but my dad performed this function in his role in HM Customs - he’s retired now).
The general problem of translating the nuts and bolts of the language itself is hard enough just due to the syntax of different languages - there’s a fairly well known case where someone translating the speech of a German speaker (a politician I think) into English, fell silent for half a minute while the speaker continued, then the interpreter was heard to exclaim “The verb, man, the verb!” (in certain circumstances in German, the verb is apparently right at the end of the spoken sentence, but in the equivalent English, it’s required earlier.
Add to that, idiom, and the task can seem nearly impossible - idiom typically doesn’t work at all when literally translated, so the interpreter has to understand the meaning of the idiom and provide a meaningful equivalent, using different terms. A good public speaker who knows that they are being translated in real time will avoid the use of idiom.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but the one demo of it I was part of absolutely amazing. The interpreter grew up in Detroit, the son of French Canadians who spoke only French at home. I was at a dinner party and he explained that he had paid for his college by doing simultaneous interpretation. There was someone else at the party who spoke fluent French. The interpreter offered to demonstrate and I had a five minute chat with the French speaker with the interpreter doing simultaneous interpretation in both directions. I was floored.
After he explained that he was on automatic, had no idea what either of us had said and that if, say, I had used a French word, he would have put it into English. Professionally, he was a mathematician (along with everyone else at the dinner).
It is hard work, and few can do it for more than half an hour continuously before they need a break {Francis Edmonds, in Another Bloody Tour. She worked translating at the European Parliament, IIRC)
A particular pitfall is jokes; sometimes you can only say “His Excellency has just made a joke, please laugh”.
For world leaders the translator translates what the other leader says. They don’t have to speak the other language but pretty sure they can if needed. For example if the US president is meeting leader of France he/she listens to the French and translates it to English. They normally sit right behind the president/leader. this is pretty standard with most major languages. I assume if the translator doesn’t understand something they can ask to have it repeated by the other leader or other translator.
I have known a professional interpreter, who worked exclusively in business and interpreted both ways between Japanese and English speakers. Her native language was Japanese. When we talked about it, she drew a careful distinction between translating (which should be as close as possible and is usually for written language) and interpreting, which is necessarily not perfect; and that she only did interpreting and not translating. She felt responsible, she said, for making sure both sides understood each other as fully as possible, and sometimes would ask a clarifying question of the speaker before interpreting into the other language.
I have seen a translator stop the speaker and clarify meaning. It was very obvious when translating for a fairly old Chinese businessman. He knew some English phrases pretty well but otherwise used a professional translator to communicate. He did seem to care that his full meaning and intent were conveyed, and other associates of his who spoke Engish would also help clarify.
I’ve had to work with people around the world on IT matters and we used ad hoc translators as available for all sorts of purposes. The most technical matters were usually not a problem at all, one exception though was a translator fairly conversant in French but who did not know the French names of punctuation characters. However, getting a clear description of a high level problem, that might involve multiple complicated steps to reproduce could be a nightmare. Thanks to the same technology that creates these problems in the first place we soon had high speed remote connections to deal with them.
Thank you so much, Bootb. Fascinating articles. I’ve been meaning to watch Nicole Kidman in “The Interpreter” for quite a while, and this may have just pushed me over the edge.
The second of those articles has a “Comments” section, in which Igor Shpiniov wrote:
… interpreters and translators are recognized as very distinct professions. … Both interpreters and translators working for the UN are supposed to possess unique skills, although the skills are quite different, of course.
I’d like to know the difference between the two. My guess is that translators work with written words, and interpreters with spoken words. Am I close?
Our Supreme Court has simultaneous translation, English to French, or French to English, depending on the language used by counsel. I’ve often thought that must be an exhausting job, mentally. They can prepare in advance, based on the briefs filed by counsel, but still, to keep it going without a break…
And sometimes the gender of the interpreter doesn’t match the gender of the counsel, so we’re watching a big burly guy on the web-cast, and hear a delicate female voice speaking…
Are interpreters also expected to do conversions? If I’m meeting with someone from France and I say “the object is approximately 2 feet long” is the interpreter expected to convert to centimeters/meters on the fly?
Yes. They’re different skills. Interpreters are spoken and on the fly, and often have a bit more leeway given. Translaters get to sit and go through their dictionaries and search “le mot juste”.
One exception to that terminology: I understand that non-Arabic versions of the Koran are considered interpretations, not translations, because the Koran was dictated by Allah and therefore cannot be truly translated, only interpreted into other languages.
I wouldn’t think so, at least in Canada. There are French equivalents to the Imperial measurements, and I would think an interpreter would use those: “pouce” for an inch, “poid” for a pound, and so on.
When I was on jury duty one of the witnesses needed an interpreter and my Spanish is very fragmentary but I could tell sometimes they could just translate and sometimes they stopped and had to think about how to translate.
This has been my experience as well. I once did both at a conference and shutting down my brain and letting it translate the words from one language to another was to a certain extent simple and fast, because I did not have to worry too much regarding word choice. When doing actual translating, also at the same conference, it was slightly slower and took a little more thought. I was not professionally trained but was adequate for the task because I knew the languages being spoken as well as the subject matter, which helps.
It’s a tough skill and being fluent in both languages is just the first step; it takes significant training and practice after that.
But the answer to the op is, at least in my experience, they don’t do a AAA translation.
They will omit some things and translate others somewhat roughly.
Yes precision is important, but if it’s critical then you don’t do real time translation.
Or at least: if you’re insisting on real time translation and there are some critical points, the translator may well ask the speaker to wait in some critical times, or ask for extra clarification.
I will say I suspect it’s somewhat easier doing real time translation of formal speech, as it tends to be both more verbose and precise than informal speech.
I used to work as an English-Mandarin interpreter for American teachers in Taiwan. A number of things cropped up as problems:
As dolphinboy pointed out, if the speaker is rambling fast enough, you cannot possibly translate word for word, but rather, you figure out where he’s going and say words to the same effect. This came into play when I was interpreting for a speaker who was acting in a comedy skit and he was uttering a complete stream of tragic-hilarious English for his role. It would have been impossible to translate word for word in real time, so I just grasped where he was going, and uttered tragic-comedic words to the same effect in Chinese.
Humor was extremely difficult to translate. In particular, one American teacher failed to realize that a pun in English is not a pun in Chinese, yet still expected me to interpret his pun for him. I just froze and had nothing to say. Fortunately, the audience knew English well enough that some of them got his pun-joke and laughed anyway.
Translation is difficult because Chinese uses more passive tense. English is often “First A, then B.” But Chinese often takes the form of “First B, then A.” So when an English speaker would only give half of a sentence or paragraph at a time (the “A” part,) and pause, expecting me to interpret, I couldn’t do so until/unless he also went on to finish the “B” part as well. Because if he only gave the “A” part, I would have no way of knowing what was coming next (and actually had to be said first, since B might come before A in Mandarin).
Some language difficulties are simply impossible to overcome. For instance, there are eight different words for “cousin” in Chinese (all depending on the cousin’s age, gender, and side of the family), but only one word for cousin in English - “cousin.” So if an English speaker says, “I had dinner with my cousin last week,” you can’t possibly translate it for a Chinese audience without knowing a whole lot of background info about the cousin in question - and there’s no time for a lengthy Q&A with the speaker while you’re on stage translating in real time. So you can only provide a poor substitute, such as “I was eating dinner with a family relative last week,” not the actual word ‘cousin.’
My only direct experiences with interpretation (spoken language) and translation (written language) relates to ASL-English and Indonesian-English language pairs.
In both cases, people went through extensive training and testing to ensure the accuracy and speed of their results. I don’t know if similar institutions exist elsewhere, but in Indonesia it was possible for professionals to sit for rigorous exams (usually taken after completing academic coursework) to verify their skills. Successful certification was a prized achievement that allowed translators/interpreters to charge more for their services.
It was also the case that there were a number of specialty areas - specific certifications were available for law and medicine, and probably other fields as well.
As someone who (barely) speaks and writes two languages (only one fluently), I am in awe of people who are truly bilingual.
