Nearly all foreign films on German TV are dubbed, alas – but not the songs. While zapping around at the weekend I caught Audrey Hepburn singing
Can I trust how I feel?
Is this my Achilles heel?
German subtitles: Ist das meine Achillessehne? (Achilles tendon)
This recalls one of my students (main subject area Geisteswissenschaften/humanities) translating Pandoras Büchse as Pandora’s gun.
I read this post on Simon Myerson’s blog when it first appeared on July 13.
Pupil barristers need to spend some time at a set of chambers. Under the heading Here Are the Results of the BVC Jury, Myerson collects comments of prospective pupils who were treated rudely at interview, and he has a Wall of Shame of particularly criticized chambers, and a Buttress of Acclaim for the ones that got positive comments (some chambers appear on both lists!).
Charon QC points out that there’s been a bit of a flamer in the comments (‘Troubled Barrister’). Fun.
From London Shop Fronts: QED. I see they now have an online shop for postcards etc.
No, not ruminations on this interesting topic, but a Translators Association workshop on the topic, on 29th July, in London I presume.
In many languages, our private parts can be described in neutral language, for example the French ‘le sexe’, which is applicable to either gender. In English however we often find ourselves vacillating between medical, pornographic and downright crude vocabulary.
Translators from any language are invited to join Polly McLean in a facilitated discussion of the impact on register and tone of these less than perfect choices. If you would like to contribute some problems or examples in advance, please email her on pollymclean@googlemail.com
I’ve tried the serving suggestion on the lid of this yogurt – use a spoon – and it definitely works. Mind you, I haven’t tried any other method for comparison, such as knife and fork.
Some (non-native) customers’ reactions to English expressions (some stolen anonymously from a list):
Don’t like façade – ‘doesn’t sound very English’ – prefer facade.
Don’t like well (for drawing water from) – well is the adverb from good.
A German reviser forbids an English translator to use the word erection (of an installation) in English, because the word has other meanings in German.
(That one reminds me of being told not to translate Glaubhaftmachung using prima facie evidence because prima facie has a different meaning in legal German). Glaubhaftmachung is the relatively generous minimum evidence you need to get an interim injunction rather than a final decision.
Don’t translate Klausenburg as Cluj this time – the American official said it doesn’t exist.
A few more from an old entry (August 2004).
Client says, ‘The translation was first-class. But just one thing – why did you write express agreement and not expressive agreement?’
Author’s English expert (a native German, Leipzig): ‘I have the impression the translator has researched the terminology very well, but her grammar is certainly not that of a native speaker, as I can tell from my university study of English.’ Translator spends several hours refuting grammar ‘errors’ that never were errors except to a non-native speaker (can anyone suggest a better tactic?). A couple of the errors were content errors though, but only 1%. The author, a clergyman: ‘This has been a helpful exercise, as the translation is now improved’.
Author’s quote: ‘The translator’s English is unreliable. In English, there are never commas before relative sentences (sic), nor before but or that.’The painting is said to date from’ should be ‘The painting allegedly dates from’. ‘It was known as the chapter-house’ should be ‘the so-called chapter-house’.
LATER NOTE: Forgot this one:
German client objects at great length to translating Lebensziel as ‘goal in life’, because ‘as we know,
goal is used in English in the context of football and football only’.
And two entries on Peter Harvey’s blog on the same topic: here and here.