German
By McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
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Overview
For the next few months, McElroy will
be running a series of articles that highlight some of the
characteristics of top languages used in doing business
globally. This month, we look at German, in an interview
conducted with McElroy Translator Gerhard Preisser.
What are some pitfalls to avoid,
specific to this language, a client should be aware of when
translating into this language?
First off, a general observation: A good
German translation of an English source text is not only
a product of good linguistic skills in both languages on
the part of the translator; it also depends to a smaller
or greater extent on the content, specifically the degree
to which a given text is steeped in cultural/societal idiosyncrasies.
English texts that draw heavily on concepts or experiences
that are foreign to the intended German reader will require
more than a translation to have the same impact they possess
in English. Some examples: Advertising material with liberal
baseball analogies, biographical texts highlighting school
and university degrees commonly offered only in the US,
product literature highlighting devices mostly unknown in
Germany (such as a food disposal).
Some comments about technical documents
(such as user manuals):
- Clients should be aware that lengthy
introductions common to US publications, expressing gratitude
and appreciation for the customer for having bought a
specific product, are considered somewhat ingratiating;
a simple “we’re happy you bought our widget”
will suffice perfectly.
- Technical documents produced in the US
sometimes tend to be quite personal in tone—this
does not translate well into German and should be avoided
(no need to say “please”).
- Warranty information should reflect EU
or German conventions and legal requirements; it is pointless
to have finer legal points such as those regulating commerce
between US states translated.
- Toll-free phone customer service phone
numbers are of no special help to potential callers from
abroad.
- Advising users of any given product to
use non-metric tools (e.g. a “3/8 inch socket”)
to manipulate non-metric devices/fasteners is rather pointless.
What are characteristics of this
language that are unique or different from English and/or
other languages?
- Unlike English, German is a highly declensional
language, based on a system of a multitude of inflections
and cases. For each word in each word class—noun,
verb or adjective—there is a substantial set of
possible inflections. This makes stemming considerably
more complicated compared to English.
- It is possible in German to build compounds
by joining two or more words, e.g. “Haustür”
(front door) or “Schulbusfahrer”
(school bus driver). In theory, any number of
combinations—noun+noun, adjective+adjective, adjective+noun,
adjective+verb, verb+noun, etc.—is conceivable.
A popular example is the word “Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitän”—captain
commanding a steamboat on the [river] Danube.
How do these characteristics make
it important to use properly qualified, professional translators?
Given the complex system of endings, it
is not surprising that even native speakers of German with
an average education occasionally get it wrong. Infamous
trouble spots are the weak vs. strong declension of adjectives,
correct endings of adjectives following certain indefinite
numerals, verb forms in the subjunctive I, and strong vs.
weak past participle forms of verbs. Yet mistakes of this
sort, while relatively common, DO get noticed by discerning
readers and anyone who thinks they have an above average
grasp of the language (i.e. the vast majority of Germans
holding post high school degrees), and they do cause irritation.
Professional translators can be trusted to avoid such errors.
While declension and conjugation follow
precisely and comprehensively defined rules, the issue of
word building through compounding is by nature a bit more
intuitive. Compounds lend themselves to the formation of
perfectly acceptable neologisms; a police car is
a “Polizeiauto,” the moon vehicle a
“Mondauto,” and should there ever be a car made
to ride on the surface of Venus, there is no reason why
it shouldn’t be called a “Venusauto.”
Compounds enlarge the available vocabulary almost endlessly,
and I can think of dozens of perfectly legitimate compounds
one won’t find in most dictionaries. Forming a compound,
however, is not always as easy as taking one adjective/noun/verb
and simply adding another adjective/noun/verb. Many require
linking letters—such as s, es or er—and
depending on the letter(s) chosen, the very same compound
word may take on a different meaning: “Kinderkopf”
is a child’s head, “Kindskopf”
a childish person; “Geschichtenbuch” is a story
book, “Geschichtsbuch” a history book.
The creation of compounds that make sense
and are formed correctly is difficult to learn by a non-native
speaker of German and, since compounds cannot always be
verified by checking an available dictionary or glossary,
a “finer point” of the language best left to
experts.
Do you know examples where translation
or localization mistakes have occurred with this language,
such as problems with text expansion, date/time formats,
counting errors, character encoding, etc., or mistakes with
the translation itself?
In an average year, I edit/review anywhere
between half a million and one million words. These projects
are assigned to me by a number of translation agencies—on
average, I accept projects from about 30 agencies a year,
and about 80 percent of those projects come from about 30%
of those agencies. Not surprisingly, those 10 or so agencies
are my favorite clients; without exception, they have comprehensive
translator selection and quality assurance processes in
place, and accepting editing projects from them is relatively
risk-free.
For business reasons, however, I also accept
occasional reviewing assignments from a host of other agencies
with less exacting quality standards, and in the past, I
have encountered just about all the problems mentioned in
your question. Two recent examples come to mind:
I was asked to edit a 20,000+ word brochure
by an organization dedicated to educating consumers about
timber native to the western US. The brochure was highly
technical in nature; it offered descriptions of timber grades
and standards and provided detailed descriptions of the
criteria for each grade.
The project was completed on a tight schedule,
and I was given a total of 12 hours to complete the edit.
Any time extension was out of the question. Upon asking
about the identity of the translator, I was told she was
extremely qualified with experience in that particular field.
Plus, she was an ATA accredited translator, and I should
expect to make small, stylistic changes only. I did not
know the translator by name, but accepted the assignment
based on the assurances I received from the agency.
Unfortunately, the translation was of a
very poor quality and required substantial revisions. The
chosen style was inappropriate for its intended purpose
and readership, and—more importantly—the terminology
was frequently wrong, which I determined by spot-checking
a few terms early on in the revision process. I contacted
the agency to inform them of my concerns and to point out
to them that I would need more time to do a proper job as
the editor. I was told to do the best I could; no additional
time could be granted.
Needless to say, despite my efforts at improving
the translation, this project was delivered in a somewhat
unfinished state. I was unable to verify all the chosen
terminology, and I am convinced that the translation was
seriously flawed—a fact that the end customer was
most likely not informed of.
While this translation may have been created
by a “professional translator,” it was not created
by a translator competent in the field she was working in,
and it was produced under unacceptable time pressure.
Another example: I was asked to edit a relatively
short translation of descriptions of print advertisements
for a large IT manufacturer. The German text read as though
it was produced by either a non-native speaker with an above-average
command of German or a native German speaker who was somewhat
out of touch with his/her native language. The translation
was both too colloquial and terminologically flawed. (A
particularly annoying mistake was the consistent translation
of the term advertisement with “Werbung,”
which refers to a TV/radio commercial, but not to a print
ad.) Had the translation not been edited, it would have
been completely unacceptable to the end client.
One comment regarding text expansion: that’s
an issue I run into all the time, especially with one particular
client who produces software for printing equipment. I am
usually allowed as many characters for German as there are
for the English source word, which leads to almost comical
efforts on my part to find shorter substitutes or to abbreviate
the only available terms. Ex.: press (as in an
offset press) is “Druckmaschine” in
German, and there really are no substitutes. Thus a 5 letter
word in English becomes a 13 letter word in German, and
I usually have no choice but to create a strange acronym
such as “Drckm.” Professional translators complain
about this problem all the time, and many of them are engaged
in intense client education efforts to convince the authors
of such software to allow for a certain expansion factor
in other languages.
Relate an example or two where you
found a website page or form difficult to use because it
was poorly localized into your language/locale. How might
a business lose money, prestige or incur legal risk due
to this bad translation?
All modern translators engage in web research
in order to properly prepare for technical/scientific translations.
To me, the Internet has become an invaluable resource, specifically
in new and rapidly developing fields where printed dictionaries
cannot possibly keep up with frequent changes and discoveries.
While conducting research in such areas,
I have in the past frequently come across web sites originating
in the US or other countries, describing complex technologies
and/or processes in German (usually with the intent of generating
interest in that company’s products or services in
German speaking countries). I have quite often found that
these companies decided not to invest in professional translators
for these types of projects, but instead went with cheaper
alternatives, to include machine-generated translations
without any post-editing. The results are always predictable
and range from unreliable terminology to incomprehensible
gibberish.
Some time ago, I was working on a translation
of a “float zone system” used in growing crystals
for the semiconductor industry. During my initial web research,
I came across the site of a small manufacturer of crystal
growing equipment trying to promote his products to potential
German buyers. The site was translated by a person other
than a professional translator, as evidenced by the fact
that ALL technical terms were left in English and put between
quotation marks, rendering the translation basically useless
(even when accounting for the fact that there is a fair
number of technical terms in this industry that should indeed
be left in English). It is hard to imagine that this particular
buyer found even a single German buyer through their web
site.
And about 4 years ago, I was translating
information for German visitors to the Washington DC area,
specifically information on how to use the local subway
system. Imagine my surprise when I found an existing site,
published by the same transit company, that was obviously
created by translation software—with all the street
names of subway/bus stops “translated” and directions
for buying fare cards and using the systems that would have
ensured that not one German tourist would be able to buy
a ticket and get to where they really wanted to go. Obviously,
a major blow to an image-conscious city like Washington,
DC!
If possible, provide one example
of a particular phrase or concept that only a properly qualified,
professional translator would be able to correctly communicate.
I do a fair amount of translation work in
the fields of printing and publishing, especially with the
translation of manuals describing offset presses, register
guidance systems, color control systems etc. The language
used to describe this type of equipment is quite idiosyncratic
and specific to this industry; terms that have a rather
general meaning in common language take on a very specific
meaning in connection with printing.
So, having worked in this field for over
12 years (and investing thousands of dollars in dictionaries
and applicable reference books), I know that an “alley”
is the space between columns of texts, except for a certain
manufacturer, who uses “alley” as a synonym
of “page.” I also know that a “circumferential
position” is nothing more complex than a position
in the up or down direction of a web (as opposed to a “lateral”
position), and that “trapping” is the printing
of one ink (color) over another. While the notion that common
terms have a special significance when used in a particular
technical field, applies to a host of specialties (IT is
another prominent example), this is particularly true of
the printing industry, and perplexing to anyone not familiar
with it.
When I first started out as a professional
translator and ventured out into this field, I was quickly
humbled by falling into quite a few of these linguistic
“traps” (pun intended!), and I didn’t
waste any time in deciding that I had to invest a lot of
time and effort in educating myself in this subject matter.
As a professional, I simply had no other choice.
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