| Pages sur ce sujet: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | Translating from mother tongue into second language Auteur du fil: dcanossa
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Kirsten Bodart 
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 16:00
néerlandais vers anglais
+ ...
Michael Wetzel wrote:
Hello Heinrich,
Hello Kirsten,
I didn't know that there were any new changes. I pretty much only use Per Döhlers Infoblatt to keep up on things and occasionally look something up through the IHK. Where did you read about the changes?
At least before January 1, 2011, there was no VAT on the invoice, but there was a notice of the reverse-charge procedure = client reported and paid VAT as though the service were carried out in his or her own country.
The translator would not charge or receive any VAT from foreign, inner-EU clients, but those clients would still have to pay VAT (to their own state).
Accordingly, the Luxembourg client would pay Luxembourg VAT on both your husband's and the other teachers' services; the Luxembourg agencies would collect that VAT and forward it to the state, while your husband's agency would never have anything to do with that VAT money.
As a German translator subject to VAT, your agencies in other EU countries needed to report their payments to you, pay their own countries' VAT and then have it refunded.
Regarding target natives: I think the basic principle that it is easier to understand what an author meant than to effectively express it in another language is generally valid.
I agree that there are a lot of target natives out there with inadequate knowledge of their source languages, but that is an argument against bad translators and not against target natives. (Source natives with an inadequate knowledge of their target languages are no less common.)
I also agree that, if no other choice is available, there are a lot of jobs where a source-native expert is much more likely to deliver good work than a target-language non-expert (not to mention target-native non-professionals).
Sincerely,
Michael
Read it, can't remember where, a trustworthy document from the Luxembourgish parliament. After getting an e-mail from my husband's agency that there was no reason for a VAT-number in Luxembourg anymore if you were not living there.
You see, they moved responsibility for paying VAT from the agency or receiving company to the client. So if the client considers he doesn't have to pay VAT then he starts the cycle. Before he would pay VAT regardless and had to claim it back afterwards, which, as you justly state, could give considerable cashflow problems. So, now, they have moved responsibility to the beginning of the cycle thus cutting out all the admin with claiming back and waiting and what-not.
They did it to simplify the system so that international dealing would become easier within the EU and it should be EU-wide.
| | | | | Liquidity problems and their impacts on quality / Unriddleing the riddle | Aug 19, 2011 |
Angie G. wrote:
Heinrich Pesch wrote:
When my Finnish proofreader sends an invoice for 100 Euro, I have to pay him 123 Euro. If my German proofreader sends an invoice for 100 Euro, I pay her 100 Euro and not a cent more..
About Italian taxation it is exactly the same:
When I invoice an Italian client I invoice 100+20% so he needs to ADVANCE VAT, of course it is then deducted but it must be paid to me immediately, instead when I invoice a French client I invoice 100 and nothing more, I then pay 20% vat quarterly.
There are no changes about advanced domestic vat.
I understand what you mean. But I think that those liquidity problems should not have an influence on the choice of the translator, because:
What is the purpose of using agencies or middlemen after all? The purpose is, that this agency/middleman will do an unbiased, independent professional choice of the best suiting professional translator for the project. I think this is the most important task of this agency/middleman, even more important than all the longish QA procedures and so on.
If you have the best professional inside your country and he would have to invoice you VAT and the second best is situated abroad, will you choose the second best, only because you are a bit undercapitalized?
I think, that in the latter case the end client should choose another (not undercapitalized) agency or try to find the best suiting professional translator for the project himself. Me as an end client, I wouldn't hesitate a minute.
Now I would like to "unriddle" the riddle I introduced into this thread yesterday. I was quite sure, that nobody will guess what should be an "Absprungsmittel".
It is a "Laufrad" in German, a "learner bike" in English, if I looked up this term in English right (no guarantee, I don't work with English at all).
The learner bike is a really nice one, not one of the cheap ALDI solutions. It is very light, so my daughter is amazingly fast on it. And when my daughter is tired of riding it, I can easily carry it in one hand and hold her with the other hand.
But, but, the German manual is so bad, the main term totally made up. It is a very unfortunate literal translation of the Czech noun odrážedlo. The translator didn't have a clue that literal translations = mostly bad translations. He was entirely helpless. Native speakers of the target language are not very likely to fail so disastrously, unless they are total wannabes. They would get disgusted of their own work and could not deliver something like this.
You can find the website of the producer here: http://www.yedoo.eu/cz/odrazedla-yedoo/yedoo-too-too-c-alu.aspx . It is not possible to download the manual from the producers website (maybe they know after all why better not to publish it ...), so I scanned the whole thing and you can download it from here, if you are interested: http://www.uersn.de/Absprungsmittel-what_a_shame!.pdf . The German version starts at page # 7 of the scan, page # 11 of the manual.
So, now we have another deterrent example of incompetent non-native translations online. It is a brilliant example of what clients have to expect from the Czech cheapskate translation market. Feel free to comment on everything interesting you find in the manual also in the other language versions. I for myself can discuss only the German version.
Have a nice weekend!
René Stranz-Nikitin
www.uersn.de
Please note that English is neither my target language nor one of my source languages.
[Edited at 2011-08-19 21:00 GMT]
| | | | | It's not rare but usual practice | Sep 10, 2011 |
Hi colleagues,
I agree with most comments already posted.
In some countries, for example in Bulgaria, it is considered a normal and usual practice for translation agencies to specify in their ads they are looking for translators from mother tongue into second language (never mind which is the second language). And the rates for such translations are same as for the opposite pair (from second language into mother tongue). Although the variant we are discussing here is mo... See more Hi colleagues,
I agree with most comments already posted.
In some countries, for example in Bulgaria, it is considered a normal and usual practice for translation agencies to specify in their ads they are looking for translators from mother tongue into second language (never mind which is the second language). And the rates for such translations are same as for the opposite pair (from second language into mother tongue). Although the variant we are discussing here is more difficult.
There are many international written and non-written rules and standards for translation industry, but each country has its own local rules and traditions which sometimes are contrary to the international ones. ▲ Collapse
| | | | dcanossa
Espagne
Local time: 16:00
anglais vers espagnol
+ ...
AUTEUR DU FIL | Reality proves it's wrong | Sep 10, 2011 |
I've been translating automobiles Service Manuals and Owner's Guides from English into Spanish. The texts I receive are translations from whatever language into English, and they are SO bad that many times I find it impossible to determine what in the world they tried to say. I even ask American and British friends, to see if they can come up with any idea, and I also post questions here, and it seems like I don't always get very good feedback. Some of these translations are from Chinese into En... See more I've been translating automobiles Service Manuals and Owner's Guides from English into Spanish. The texts I receive are translations from whatever language into English, and they are SO bad that many times I find it impossible to determine what in the world they tried to say. I even ask American and British friends, to see if they can come up with any idea, and I also post questions here, and it seems like I don't always get very good feedback. Some of these translations are from Chinese into English. I can understand that there may not be that many English native speakers who understand Chinese well enough to translate a Service Manual, so I can understand why they would use Chinese people to translate these texts into English. However, it is quite clear that the texts MUST be proofread very carefully to achieve a good translation. I have already warned the agency that the English version of these manuals are far from being professional, where some parts are completely senseless and garbled, and some are even humorous. So, once again, I can understand the use of native speakers of "rare" languages to translate into more "common" languages, but I don't understand it for a language pair such as English-Spanish or German-Spanish. ▲ Collapse
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kmtext
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 15:00
anglais
+ ...
| It depends on the source text | Sep 10, 2011 |
In some cases it's best to have native comprehension of the source text, especially in literary translation. I've proofread some absolute howlers where the translation was undertaken by a non-native who wasn't familiar with some of the author's slang, but which would have been interpreted accurately by a native speaker.
| | | | dcanossa
Espagne
Local time: 16:00
anglais vers espagnol
+ ...
AUTEUR DU FIL | True, however... | Sep 10, 2011 |
kmtext wrote:
In some cases it's best to have native comprehension of the source text, especially in literary translation. I've proofread some absolute howlers where the translation was undertaken by a non-native who wasn't familiar with some of the author's slang, but which would have been interpreted accurately by a native speaker.
... the native speaker, in most cases, wouldn't know how to accurately translate it in order to faithfully express what the author wanted to express. For instance, there are many slang terms and idioms I understand in Spanish but I wouldn't know how to properly say in English, even though I do understand and use English slang and idioms quite often.
Besides, to translate literary pieces, you need to almost be a writer yourself, with an outstanding command of the target language, in order to make the translation sound completely natural for the reader, while keeping the meaning of the text as close to the original as possible. I don't think anyone, and I really do mean anyone, has such command of their second language (many don't even have such command of their native language). My American cousin is bilingual, she's learned/used English and Spanish at the same time while growing up, and has always spoken Spanish to her mother, some friends and some relatives. However, when talking to her, I can always spot some mistakes (very minor, true) that make me realize her Spanish is not really her main language, even though you could basically say she's a native speaker of Spanish. I wouldn't want to read a novel with grammatical mistakes.
| | | | Phil Hand
Chine
Local time: 23:00
chinois vers anglais
| Literary translation?! That's the last place you should have incompetent writers | Sep 10, 2011 |
I'm sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, but it's true. If your native language is not X, you are not competent to write literature in X (unless you're Beckett or Nabokov, and trust me, you're not).
Kmtext - I'm sure you have discovered errors in translated literary texts. Maybe even howlers. But would you consider how much of a howler it is to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the translation, printing and marketing of a text with zero (and I mean significantly less th... See more I'm sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, but it's true. If your native language is not X, you are not competent to write literature in X (unless you're Beckett or Nabokov, and trust me, you're not).
Kmtext - I'm sure you have discovered errors in translated literary texts. Maybe even howlers. But would you consider how much of a howler it is to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the translation, printing and marketing of a text with zero (and I mean significantly less than zero, but I'm being generous here) literary value? Does that not sound like a howler to you? Perhaps even more serious than mixing up the nature of a Bulgarian siege engine or a Chinese love letter? ▲ Collapse
| | | | kmtext
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 15:00
anglais
+ ...
| In an ideal world | Sep 12, 2011 |
I'd prefer to use a native of the source language and a native of the target language working together, but that's just not practical as it's prohibitively expensive.
In real terms, probably the best you can get is to use someone with near-native fluency who's lived in an appropriate region long enough that they're familiar with idiomatic usage, but even that's no guarantee that they'll get everything right.
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Kirsten Bodart
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 16:00
néerlandais vers anglais
+ ...
that literary translation does not need to be completely without literary value, but the howlers I have seen...
Constance Garnett, for example, the most revered Russian translator, to my knowledge has earned her reputation because there was nothing else available. She did not only skip parts she did not understand in Russian (:eek:), but she also deliberately mistranslated things that she did not deem worthy of her Victorian and Edwardian public. Although the latter probably has to... See more that literary translation does not need to be completely without literary value, but the howlers I have seen...
Constance Garnett, for example, the most revered Russian translator, to my knowledge has earned her reputation because there was nothing else available. She did not only skip parts she did not understand in Russian (:eek:), but she also deliberately mistranslated things that she did not deem worthy of her Victorian and Edwardian public. Although the latter probably has to do with culture.
Volkhonsky (of Pevear and V., that is a pair for you) metioned that she did not even recognise Dostoyevski by her when she saw Pevear read Crime and Punishment, as did Nabokov. She saw a translation by someone else once that mentioned the expression 'old boy' once in a totally inappropriate place. Seriously, how bad can you get?!
I have seen some seriously worrying things in Dutch too, for as much as I can read Dostoevsky in Russian. It's not at all like what the original says. So much for native target tanslation then...
The stuff I have seen of Kafka does not carry much of an argument either. Much too idiomatic, not boring enough, not repetitive enough, not sarcastic enough, his sentences not intricate enough... Even interpreted. Something Kafka despised. Such a shame, because the man was unique in his writing style.
Probably the best and the standard in literary translation would and should be a pair, as my husband and I do. Unfortunately, that is mostly unfeasible financially, but it wouldn't go amiss in literary translation... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michele Fauble
États-Unis
Local time: 08:00
norvégien vers anglais
+ ...
| Ideal translator | Sep 12, 2011 |
kmtext wrote:
I'd prefer to use a native of the source language and a native of the target language working together, but that's just not practical as it's prohibitively expensive.
The closest thing to that ideal is a near-native of the source language and a native of the target language. This is what I offer, and it is neither cheap nor prohibitively expensive.
[Edited at 2011-09-12 21:38 GMT]
| | | | | Exactly my approach! | Sep 12, 2011 |
Michele Fauble wrote:
The closest thing to that ideal is a near-native of the source language and a native of the target language. This is what I offer, and it is neither cheap nor prohibitively expensive.
Dear Michele,
This is exactly what I am offering as well, but few of the agency representatives seem to recognise the difference. I am living as close as possible to my source languages, absorbing them every day, but am translating into my native language.
René Stranz-Nikitin
www.uersn.de
Please note that English is neither my target language nor one of my source languages.
| | | | Francesco Sani
Royaume-Uni
Local time: 15:00
italien vers anglais
+ ...
| Native or non-native target? | Feb 24, 2013 |
I agree with people above who say
that it is a mixture of target language
field expertise and being a native...
However, my experience is that I left
Italy at eighteen and for the following
eighteen years I have lived, socialised,
studied, loved, taught, worked, and
mingled almost exclusively with natives
(English-speakers) here in the UK. I proof
read student theses and teach full-time
using English. When I went for interviews... See more I agree with people above who say
that it is a mixture of target language
field expertise and being a native...
However, my experience is that I left
Italy at eighteen and for the following
eighteen years I have lived, socialised,
studied, loved, taught, worked, and
mingled almost exclusively with natives
(English-speakers) here in the UK. I proof
read student theses and teach full-time
using English. When I went for interviews
I was never asked to do an English test,
because the way that I speak, write, and
express my every shade of thought is,
essentially, not what you would expect
from someone who was not born here.
My journey in the past five years, in fact,
has been about trying to regain a "native"
grasp on Italian, because I could not
even hold a conversation or write a
letter in my mothertongue without
having to translate, at various points,
from English to Italian...and still
coming up with funny-sounding expressions.
I would conclude that my journey is
entirely unique, but also that it is
living proof that the "native" label
must be used carefully - let us not
assume that all "natives" can do is
stick to their mothertongue as the
target language for the rest of their lives...
I
I
English ▲ Collapse
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Michele Fauble
États-Unis
Local time: 08:00
norvégien vers anglais
+ ...
| Language learning journey | Feb 24, 2013 |
Francesco Sani wrote:
I would conclude that my journey is
entirely unique, ...
Not unique, but far from the norm.
| | | | | a non productive use of (my) time... | Feb 25, 2013 |
Given that it's easier and goes faster to translate from my second language (English) to my mothertongue (French) I don't see the point of looking for jobs the other way around. Moreover, my peer reviewed publication experience, in English, has been rather humbling. Agencies using non native speakers are just cheating their clients.
| | | | | Why do they cheat in a global economy? Is it really necessary? | Feb 25, 2013 |
Thomas Rebotier wrote:
Agencies using non native speakers are just cheating their clients.
This is exactly what I think, but it also means, that most Czech agencies (90%) are cheating. And also it is just stupid, that the rules and exams for certified translations for courts in the heart of Europe assume that one has to translate both ways. The DipTrans held by the IOL is the only exam taken only into ones native language. And it exists only in combination with English, which is none of my languages (source or target). So no way for me.
But it is not at all a fact that all Eastern European agencies are cheating this way. At the moment I am working with an agency from another East European country and they really appreciate systematic work. It really depends on the scale of values of people.
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