July 2016 - Translation and Languages Blog

Dispelling the Myths: Translation and History

BigT news, Cultural Corner, New26 July, 201615 July, 2021

As previously mentioned in our blogs, we at BigTranslation know the realities of business and commerce inside out, so we are more than aware of the important role that translation plays in international cooperation between people from all sorts of backgrounds. With this in mind, we’d like to take this opportunity to correct one of the biggest misconceptions in the history of language.

As previously mentioned in our blogs, we at BigTranslation know the realities of business and commerce inside out, so we are more than aware of the important role that translation plays in international cooperation between people from all sorts of backgrounds. With this in mind, we’d like to take this opportunity to correct one of the biggest misconceptions in the history of language.

“Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”) is a quotation from a June 26, 1963, speech by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin. Speaking in German, John F. Kennedy said “I am a citizen of Berlin.”
Pronounced at the height of the Cold War, with the intention of underlining the support of the United States for West Germany following the erection of the Berlin Wall, the speech is remembered as being one of Kennedy’s best. However, it is also the source of one of the most widely believed myths in the history of popular culture.

There is a common misconception that Kennedy made a rather comical error in pronouncing the words Ich bin ein Berliner. As the myth goes, his use of the definite article would change “I am a citizen of Berlin” to “I am a Berliner” (a Berliner being a type of German pastry, similar to a jelly doughnut). However, scholars of German will know that the indefinite article is omitted in German when speaking of an individual’s profession or residence, but still used when speaking in a figurative sense. Since the President was not literally from Berlin but declaring his solidarity with its citizens, “Ich bin ein Berliner” was the only way to express what he wanted to say.

Unfortunately, this still hasn’t deterred everyone from Len Deighton to Eddie Izzard using the misconception surrounding the phrase for comic effect, nor did it prevent JFK’s political opponents from repeating it to have a cheap laugh at the Bostonian President’s supposed linguistic ineptitude. On one hand, the extent to which this misconception has managed to manifest itself in popular culture is quite remarkable. However, the idea that translation may be used as a political football is less uncommon than one might think.

In Catalonia last year, the Institute Nova Història made the rather surprising claim that, for centuries, Spanish leaders have used translation to downplay the role of Catalonia in the country’s history. They even went so far as to claim that Miguel de Cervantes’ famous Don Quixote – widely considered to be the first modern novel – was in fact written in Catalan by Cervantes and subsequently translated into Spanish. It is argued that several linguistic errors in the text point to the possibility that Don Quixote was translated into Castilian from Catalan.

For a translator to provide an accurate, unprejudiced view of the characters and events which shape history, he or she must have an in depth knowledge of the social and political issues surrounding the source language and the people who speak it. If the whole story of Ich bin ein Berliner tells us anything, it’s that translators of the past haven’t always lead by example in this sense. And if the initial translations of Saddam Hussein’s last book (ranging from ‘Devil’s Dance’, ‘Begone Devils’ to ‘Get Out, You Damned One’) are anything to go by, it’s clear that the translators of today have got still got their work cut out for them.

Good SEO Translation: More Than Meets The Eye

New, SEO Translation25 July, 201620 May, 2020

From the high street to the online world, globalisation is undoubtedly upon us. Every day, more and more companies are going international, with eLearning, software, consumer goods and high tech industries among the fastest growing online markets. Even for an inherently global profession such as translation, the last few years have been huge in terms of its expansion into the worldwide marketplace.

From the high street to the online world, globalisation is undoubtedly upon us. Every day, more and more companies are going international, with eLearning, software, consumer goods and high tech industries among the fastest growing online markets. Even for an inherently global profession such as translation, the last few years have been huge in terms of its expansion into the worldwide marketplace. Indeed, a recent spike in Google searches and blog posts about international SEO translation shows that people are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of good language practice to the success of their business.

However, translators themselves would be mistaken to believe that an accurate SEO translation in itself is all that’s needed for their work to reach its full potential. While SEO translation is one of the latest and most efficient methods of optimising your online business results, it is not always enough if you want to speak to your potential clients in a language they truly understand.

Any of us who have spent any time in the translation field are aware of the basic practices to avoid. Relying on translators who are competent, but not native speakers of the target language comes with a considerable amount of risk. Furthermore, using automated translators such as Bing or Google Translate is even more perilous. As a Scot living in Europe, I’m always reminded of one particular translation of Robert Burns’ Address to a Haggis. The poem is customarily read before the cutting of the Haggis before a meal, and contains the line ‘Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!‘. It was once translated into German for a Burns event in Berlin, and then independently translated from the German back into English. This ended up with the rather curious description of our national dish as the ‘Mighty Führer of the Sausage People‘.

While perhaps an extreme example of why it’s a good idea to avoid using Google Translate for anything, it’s not the only way that a poor translation can lose an audience. One thing that SEO translations often fail to take into account is the importance, or even the existence of, a target culture – as well as a target language. In this case, what’s needed is a touch of Cultural Consulting.

The overall point here is that, even within the same language, there are a number of cultural factors that have to be taken into account. The same concept therefore applies to business translation. In terms of SEO translation, getting the site architecture, page titles and keywords correct is, of course, extremely important. However, if you neglect the cultural side of things, the translation will never reach its full potential.

In a world where translators have deadlines repeatedly thrust upon them at short notice, they often focus too much on just getting the SEO details right before sending their translations off again. As a result, what really makes a translation palatable for your clients can be easily overlooked. The world may be bigger and more anonymous now than it has ever been, but if you’re thinking about entering the global marketplace, it’s important to choose a language service company that understands what makes your target audience’s culture unique among the rest.

Cultural Nuances in Website Translation

New, Web Translation18 July, 201620 May, 2020

Translation agencies are now offering their translation services to translate websites in the most professional way. And professionals are what you need, as there are many things to take into account when opening up to new cultures through website translation, mainly due to the different connotations attributed to words and expressions.

With more and more of us resorting to typing into a search engine whenever we’re looking for a particular service, it has become more important than ever for websites to find ways of standing out among the rest. Translating their content and opening up to the global market is the answer. However, this process isn’t a case of simply copying and pasting from an online translator. Translation agencies are now offering their translation services to translate websites in the most professional way. And professionals are what you need, as there are many things to take into account when opening up to new cultures through website translation, mainly due to the different connotations attributed to words and expressions.

Translate your brand name or slogan correctly

So your company has a catchy name and slogan in its original language, but does it work in the target language? Take American Motors as an example. When launching its new medium-sized car The Matador in Puerto Rico in the early 1970s, it probably had more connotations of power and strength than murderous, which is how it was translated! This mustn’t have been very reassuring for drivers. Another example is that of KFC whose slogan was translated from ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ to ‘We’ll Eat Your Fingers Off’ when it opened in China in the 1980s. This is where translation companies with native professionals come in handy, such as BigTranslation.

No sarcasm please

It’s also wise to think about the tone of the content that appears in your website. As in the UK, the difference is made between formal English, which is considered professional but could intimidate some audiences, and colloquial English, which would create a more intimate relationship when trying to reach out to your potential new clients. Therefore defining your clientele is always essential. Another thing to be aware of is that content written in British English often contains a touch of sarcasm, something which doesn’t exist at all in Japanese for example, so looking for an alternative style of writing would be necessary.

Regional Localization

Thinking about the language you would like to translate your website into is crucial, but specifying it to the actual country you’d like to open up to is equally important. American and British English have some major connotational differences, as the search engine Dogpile found out the unfortunate way. Looking a bit closer and ensuring you have covered all ground in that particular culture is also useful, as in the case of Canada, it would be necessary to translate into both English and French.

Colours, symbols and pictures

Along with the written content on your website, the colours, symbols and pictures you choose to illustrate your content are equal priorities. For example red has a very positive connotation in China, whereas it can have an aggressive one in the UK. The symbol of a house for the home page needs to be treated with care as the shape of a house isn’t the same for everyone. Pictures also need to be thought through, as for example a picture of a director sitting alone in his chair would be more normal in societies with a hierarchical system, but not in those with an egalitarian system, where a picture showing the director mingling with his team would be more appropriate.

So if you are thinking of having your website translated, it would be extremely wise to have an in depth study, carried out by a professional translator, of the idiosyncrasies of the target language and culture. This will avoid any undesirable faux pas!

“Black hat & White hat” SEO translation

New, SEO Translation11 July, 201620 May, 2020

Go Global with SEO

Is your website doing well in your company’s business sector? Would you like to open up to the market on a global scale? If you haven’t done so already, you need to learn about SEO translation. By definition, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the technique used to ensure that one’s website is among the first on a search engine results page, which is obviously very desirable for companies wanting to obtain maximum visibility when it comes to promoting their services. As the name suggests, SEO translation is the translation of content, keywords and meta tags, while taking into account the way certain words or ideas would be conveyed in each language. A valuable way of considerably improving your website’s global visibility! However, as with anything in this world, there are certain rules of conduct; the do’s and dont’s of SEO if you will.

There are considered to be three main types of SEO translation. The first one, which is very much a ‘don’t’, is black hat SEO. This method goes against search engine regulations and is therefore illegal. They are generally high-risk, on a short-term strategy and used for a quick financial turnaround. Such techniques include keyword stuffing, which attemps to forsee the keywords a regular Internet user would type into a search engine when looking for a particular service or article, and join as many of these keywords as possible throughout the different pages of the website. Another method is parasite hosting, which involves posting a link to a blog, wikipedia page or forum on a high-ranked website, which will then create a backlink to the black hat’s website. Also, cloaking is considered a black hat SEO method. This involves delivering completely different web page content to that of the one found in the search engine, due to misleading meta tags. If caught when performing black hat SEO, the penalties are extremely high and could result in the website being removed entirely from the search engine’s index.

Then there is grey hat SEO, considered technically legal but not completely ethical. This includes methods such as article spinning, in which, as an attempt to escape copyright penalties, a webmaster will take portions of an already existing and successful article in order to create his own content. Another technique is that of buying old domains, where a grey hat will look for domains that are soon to expire and then use it to link back to its own site. One method has more of a comical or satirical purpose, called Google bombing which ranks in the first position for searches on unrelated or off topic keyword phrases by creating a large number of links. An example of this was a Google bomb in January 2007, which resulted in typing ‘miserable failure’ into Google and the first result being George W. Bush’s biography on the White House website.

Lastly, there is white hat SEO. This is based on a long-term strategy and is associated with ethical SEO, complying with search engine regulations. One of the most recommended methods, it consists of is creating solid titles and meta tags and making insightful alterations to the content of your website. Having content of the highest quality will appear much more valuable to the search engines and to visitors. Quality is therefore essential in obtaining the best results in Search Engine Optimization.

Fantasy Literature: Lost in Translation?

Cultural Corner, New8 July, 201620 May, 2020

If one thing is for sure, it’s that translation is all about making choices and striking a balance. Translators are constantly deciding which elements of a text to preserve and which ones to sacrifice. They read the source text, only about a million times, to gauge the overall meaning as accurately as possible in order to convey this in their target text. Constantly faced with the knowledge that they must aim to stay as faithful as possible to the original, they are also fully aware that a literal translation seldom makes a good translation.

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation” – Robert Frost

If one thing is for sure, it’s that translation is all about making choices. Translators are constantly deciding which elements of a text to preserve and which ones to sacrifice. They read the source text so many times that they could recite it off by heart, just to gauge the overall meaning as accurately as possible in order to convey this in their target text. Constantly faced with the knowledge that they must aim to stay as faithful as possible to the original, they are also fully aware that a literal translation seldom makes a good translation. Making these decisions can be particularly challenging for literary translators, and not just any old ones; translators of fantasy literature and children’s literature are at the top of the list where creativity is concerned. You may ask yourself why this is. One of the main characteristics which defines fantasy literature is using one culture as the foundation on which to build an entirely new imaginary world, therefore culture-specific references are abundant in this genre. When translating these to another language and creating ways to induce the same feeling in the target culture as the source culture, there is always bound to be some loss of meaning. Despite this inevitable loss, creativity is still key when translating in order to retain as much of the ambience of the original text as possible.

Invented proper names, poetic language, culture-specific concepts and character idiolect are examples which show us that loss of meaning is sometimes unavoidable when translating fantasy texts. Let us take as an example the English name ‘Shire’ in Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings, translated into Spanish as ‘Comarca’, meaning a division of land or traditional region. Although the denotation of the word Shire is a county, the English connotations of the word are of a rural division of land in a pre-industrial, agricultural age. To an English reader this would be typified by the ‘Shire horse’ and the green areas away from the industrialised towns, echoing Tolkien’s dismay at the destruction of rural England. Therefore, although the translator has been able to translate ‘Shire’ in a literal sense, the effect of associating these invented places with rural parts of England is inevitably lost.

Although the original The Lord of the Rings was written mostly in the Standard English of that time period (1954), Tolkien intentionally used grammatically incorrect words such as ‘drownded’ in order to emphasise the quirkiness of each hobbit’s character and to show that they are simple, uneducated folk. This is a problem for the translator when working into Spanish, as they cannot simply change the standard word for ‘drown’ (ahogarse in Spanish), because this would result in the target audience’s misinterpretation that the translator had merely made a grammatical mistake. The translator’s only option is to maintain the standard form of language in the target text in order to make sense to readers. This leads to an inability to render the idiolect of certain characters from the original text and consequently a failure to portray them as the author created them.

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the mad tea party scene with its puns, parodied verses, nonsense and linguistic jokes, is a particularly good test of a translator’s skills. “You have to be really creative in order to translate Alice in Wonderland well.” says Emer O’Sullivan, an expert on children’s literature in translation at Leuphana University in Germany. The cultural references in the Victorian novel pose a variety of problems for translators. For example, British contemporaries would have guessed that the Hatter was mad from mercury exposure, but hat makers in other parts of the world didn’t use mercury. Similarly, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, the variety of the characters is reflected in a wide range of registers and idiolects which are based on British culture. The text is rich in word play, irony and British humour which acts as a backdrop to the magical theme of the story. It is no surprise then that when translated to other languages it does not have exactly the same effect on the target culture as on the British audience. Loss of meaning occurs not because of any fault on behalf of the translator, but simply due to the idiosyncratic nature of each language and culture at hand, which perhaps is what makes original works of fantasy literature so unique.

Literary translation is becoming more and more popular as a service offered by translation companies across the world. Global events and cultural changes in Britain are drawing readers towards foreign literature, while social media sites are playing a part in spreading the word about successful international books. At BigTranslation we are always open to new ideas in terms of the services we offer, as we host a diverse team of native in-house translators specialising in different translation fields.

Learning Languages Post-Brexit

Cultural Corner, New4 July, 201620 May, 2020

On Thursday 23rd June, a nationwide referendum was held in Britain in which 51.9 percent of the voters said that they were in favor of Brexit. The United Kingdom still needs to formally notify the European Union of its intention to leave. After that, it has two years to negotiate the terms of its divorce. However, the after-effects of this political change are already beginning to take their toll on various businesses and educational sectors within the UK.

Many translators in Britain are now wondering how Brexit will affect their businesses, while many EU citizens living in the UK (and UK citizens living in the EU) are wondering how it will affect their terms of residence. One thing we can be certain of is that post-Brexit, the UK will become more isolated; not just as a sovereign state, but also in the sense that the English language will no longer hold such an important status as Europe’s lingua franca. No other EU country except Malta and Ireland has English as their official language, therefore it is likely that English will gradually lose its status now that the UK is no longer a member of the European Union.

From the point of view of translators and those currently learning languages in education, the Brexit vote means they face the possibility of their language careers being put into jeopardy. This is down to the fact that English will no longer be so much of an in-demand language for European businesses and organisations. At the same time, this also means that there is more of an urgency for people in Britain to learn European languages to help maintain intercultural relations between the UK and the rest of Europe. Although English is considered the universal language of business, there have been calls in France to put an end to the dominance of English as the EU’s working language. Now more than ever, it is the study of language and culture that can combat stereotypes and foster the communicative skill and cross-cultural understanding needed to ensure peaceful and prosperous relations between European states.

Studying or speaking a foreign language is a humbling experience, forcing the speaker to listen and adapt their perspective, chipping away at those philosophical or political certainties that can be limiting, removing barriers and nurturing curiosity. Moreover, in our globalized world, it is a more essential skill than ever, not just for economic success but for all trade and negotiation. Translation companies across Europe such as BigTranslation fully understand the benefits of having many translators with English as their working language. Depending on the impact that Brexit has on the status of English within the EU, their priorities may have to change, whether this means taking on a greater or lesser amount of English translators in order to adapt to the changing world of business.