About Back Translation

Translators get all kinds of request.  Most of the time it's just a straight-up translation job.  But once in a while, a client will ask a translator to provide a "back translation" for some existing translation.

What is that, you ask?  Simply put, a back translation is the translation of a translation back into the source language.  For example, someone translated an English document into Japanese.  Then, the client who ordered the Japanese translation asks someone else to translate the Japanese document back into English.  That's called a back translation.

In fact, if you've ever asked Google Translate to translate a phrase, and then switch the translation direction just to see what Google Translate says it means in the source language, you've already had Google Translate do a back translation for you.

Here are some examples from Google Translate, in the order of source/translation/back translation:

back translation/回譯/Back translation
一触即发/On the verge/濒临
epic fail/史诗般的失败/Epic fail

You may wonder why someone would go through all that trouble to have something translated back and forth.  (It certainly isn't for kicks, like the Google Translate scenario above.)  The short answer is for quality assurance.  A back translation will help the client figure out whether the first translation faithfully conveys the meaning and flavor of the source material.  This is especially important if the content has to do with advertising or customer service, where the human factor plays a key role.  A sample back translation can serve as a "spot check" of the entire document.

In the QA phase of localization, back translation helps QA leads, managers, and engineers (most of whom may not know this particular language) judge the severity of a linguistic issue.  Oftentimes the tester is asked to back translate the questionable localized text into the source language (and suggest a suitable translation), so a team leader can decide if a new translation is needed.

Of course, sometimes a client asks for a back translation because the quality of the first translation is in question.  However, this kind of practice is rare, since most translators are pretty conscientious about the quality of their work.  Moreover, many clients have their own gatekeepers to weed out bad translations way in advance to avoid this altogether.

Please translate responsibly.

There Are No Bad Translators

A dear friend of mine is a veteran in the publishing industry in Taiwan.  Something she and her colleagues said has stuck with me after all these years:

"There are no bad translators, only lazy ones."

In this day and age, I think that's pretty much 100% true.  As far as accuracy is concerned, a translator really has no excuse for getting anything wrong.  Whatever we don't know or aren't sure of, we can look it up online and find answers immediately.   If you do your research, you will be able to deliver accurate translations.

As for having the translation maintain the style and flavor of the original, that's something one has to work at.  And yes, there are some translators who do this better than others.  But it's not unattainable.  Again, it can be done by anyone willing to put in the hours.

Thomas Edison famously said all his work "boils down to one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."  The same holds true for translation.  Even the most talented translators have to "work" to translate anything; those words don't translate themselves!

For translators and anyone working in this industry, good time management is especially vital because things often come down to the wire.  Failing to plan is planning to fail.   

Speaking of which, it baffles me to see people procrastinate on jobs that they've never done before.  How would anyone know what kind of time they'd need for something they're doing for the first time?  Wouldn't it be wise to start as soon as possible so we'd have more time for unforeseeable bumps down the road?  It's a simple "the tortoise and the hare" situation, but the inertia is such that we still get too cocky to just "get up and go."


Please translate responsibly.

"English" Slang in Other Languages

As the de facto international language, English has been welcomed and incorporated into languages and cultures around the world.  Many countries start teaching kids English as early as when they enter elementary schools.  Therefore, perhaps it's inevitable that many languages have developed their own "English" phrases.

At first blush, they appear to be English.  But to a native English speaker, they are not only grammatically incorrect most of the time, but also confusing as all get-out.  Why?  Because these "English" versions grew out of completely different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and, therefore, can only be understood in the correct context.

Here are a couple of examples:
Jetso正在ing lah!
自己修車的fu好man!

Don't expect Google Translate (or any machine translation, for that matter) to come through, though.  Here's what I found from the former:
Jetso being ing lah!
Own car repair fu good man! 

What do those "English" words actually mean?
1. Jetso - the romanized pronunciation of Cantonese 著數, which refers to some special offer or discount.
2. ing - a borrowed form of the progressive tense, referring to any activity or action that is going on right now.
3. lah - a popular, albeit neutral and somewhat meaningless, sentence-ender in Chinese. 
4. man - adjective; the equivalent of "manly."
5. fu - noun; the equivalent of "feeling" or "impression."

So those two sentences can be translated as:
Special Offer Going On Right Now!
Fixing your own car feels so manly!

I can't speak about other languages, but I'm guessing they have something similar as well.  If a word can't be found in an English dictionary, at least we'll know it's made up.  But a word like "man" in the example above can be pretty confusing.  The only way to learn what they mean and how they're used is if you live them, i.e. in context or through immersion.  

And I dare say, as the Internet furthers its reach, this type of slang will only grow exponentially.  

Welcome to the digital age!


Please translate responsibly.

Why Human Translation Will Always Have Its Place

The other day, someone who shall remain nameless was looking up a famous chess player on Google to verify his suspicion that this player wears a toupee.

Lo and behold, most of the search results were people commenting on said chess player and his "wig."

Our nameless protagonist said to me, "Don't people use the word 'toupee' any more?"  I thought about it for a second and replied, "Maybe they use the word 'wig' because most chess players in the world are not native English speakers."

That seems like a logical explanation.  Take Chinese as an example.  "Toupee" and "wig" are both translated as 假髮, which literally means "fake hair."  I'm sure a lot of languages don't distinguish between toupee and wig like English does.  Therefore when those speakers try to use English (which is pretty much the common language on most of the international forums and message boards among chess players) to talk about this chess player and his "toupee," the word "wig" was inadvertently used.

That makes me marvel at the thought that went behind Google Search.  Obviously somebody had thought of situations like this and decided that the search hits should include "wig" as well, even when it is not part of the search keywords.

However, machines can only do so much.  There are instances that require a human brain to decipher phrases that are intentionally fraught with typos and sound-alikes.  

Examples abound in Chinese.  杯具, for instance, means a set of drinkware.  Somehow, somebody decided to use it as a cute replacement for 悲劇, which actually means tragedy, since the two phrases share the same pronunciation.  So far, it's used as slang only.  But I've seen websites' 404 (error) pages using 杯具 to describe how much the webmaster regrets such a tragedy.  

Another popular phrase these days is 內牛滿面, which actually means absolutely nothing at all.  (Its literal translation would be something like "the inside cow all over one's face.")  In fact, I doubt that it has been acknowledged by any Chinese dictionaries yet.  However, it's prevalently used online as a colloquial form of 淚流滿面, which means "tears streaming down one's face."  The former was probably an accidental typo that somehow gained a lot of traction because, again, someone thought it was cute to see totally irrelevant homophones in phrases we use all the time.

This is all fine for native Chinese speakers, of course.  Most of them will be able to understand these with no trouble, because once the phrases are sounded out they're easy to decipher.  But machines and non-native speakers are completely out of luck, especially since you can't look these phrases up in a dictionary.  

That's why I think human translation will always have its place.  We have to clean up our own mess, after all.  


Please translate responsibly.

Jackie & Maggie: When NOT to "Improve" on Google Translate

The other day a friend of mine asked, "Guess what Google Translate's Chinese translation for 'Jackie' is?!"  Not missing a beat, I replied, "成龍 (Jackie Chan)."   She was astonished that I came up with the right answer.  

I didn't use Google Translate to find out, in case you were wondering.  That was an educated guess based on what I'd found out a few days earlier about how Google Translate handled another name: Maggie.

Apparently someone volunteered 張曼玉, instead of the generic 瑪姬, as the translation for Maggie.  The problem with translating Maggie as 張曼玉 is, the latter is one specific person whereas the former is a very common name.

Logically, that translation doesn't have a leg to stand on, either:

Maggie != Maggie Cheung;

Maggie Cheung == 張曼玉;

therefore, Maggie != 張曼玉

That's the pitfall of resorting to just anyone to improve translation quality on Google Translate.  When enough people decided to call Jackie "成龍" on Google Translate, it will take a lot more people's "improving" that translation to change it back to a generic translation like 賈姬 (a more common translation if it's female) or 杰基 (if it's male).

Crowdsourcing is a wonderful thing.  There are many people with a common goal willing to volunteer their time and knowledge to help make our lives easier and more efficient; it makes perfect sense to encourage and take advantage of that.  However, I'd like to remind anyone thinking of improving translation quality on Google Translate: please try to make the improvement apply to as wide a range as possible.  Anything as specific as 張曼玉 or 成龍 does not fit that criteria and should not make the cut.


Please translate responsibly.

Tummy Band, Waist Band, and 書腰

Book packaging in Asia is quite different from that in the Western world.  For one thing, most of the new books come out in paperback.  And then there's something called 書腰.

Literally translated, 書腰 means "book waist."  It's a decorative "band" wrapped around the dust jacket of a book.  I know what you're thinking: "What?  A dust jacket for a paperback?"  Yes, a paperback.  In fact, most paperbacks I've seen in the Chinese market are packaged that way.  And elaborately so.

Wikipedia has a diagram showing the anatomy of a book in the Chinese definition of Book:

書腰 is #1.  Well, in the picture it looks like the "waistband" has slid down to the book's ankles, but you get the idea.  It's just an extra piece of paper wrapped around the "waist" of a book, usually to spotlight expert endorsements or critics' reviews for marketing purposes.  (To stay on topic, however, I won't go into the debate of environmental impact on the overall impression of excessive packaging that seems so prevalent in Asian products.)

It is perhaps because this piece of paper is almost nonexistent in the English-speaking world that I've found some pretty hilarious English translations for 書腰: belly band, tummy band, book waist, etc.  And the amazing thing is quite a few Chinese blogs claim that those are its English names and that there is no special term for it in Chinese.

I'm sorry, but that is utter misinformation.  It's analogous to saying Child Shredded Meat is the English name for 儿童营养肉松 but the Chinese call it differently.

This is what I think 書腰's English translation should be : dust jacket band.  At the very least one will know it goes on a book instead of a person.


Please translate responsibly.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Medical Mistranslation

I have to say, there's simply no excuse for mistranslation when working on the medical or health care subject.  It's people's health and money we're dealing with.  Nobody deserves to be baffled by mistranslated signs at hospitals or emergency rooms when so much is on the line.

Let's first look at the funny translation found on Pleated Jeans:

As much as one would like to rationalize how the translator decided on "Cunt Examination," there's actually a term for 阴道镜检查: Colposcopy.  Therefore, 阴道镜检查室 does not have a "dirty" name at all; it's just the Colposcopy Room!

As for "Fetal Heart Custody," I'm not sure who's supposed to be fighting over a fetal heart here.  胎心监护室 is the room where the doctors check an unborn baby's heart rate: Fetal Heart Monitoring Room.

Another error on this picture is Observation Room.  That applies only to the 观察室 part of the phrase.  药流, however, means medical abortion.  (Abortion is legal in China due to their government's one-child policy to control population.)  Therefore, the correct translation for 药流观察室 should be Medical Abortion Observation Room.

I was looking for the best way to translate 收费许可证 when I came across this:

  

It surprises me that almost everybody translates 收费许可证 as "license fee."  A license fee is a fee you pay to the government in order to be licensed to conduct a certain type of business, whereas a 收费许可证 is a license proving that you're allowed to charge people for services rendered.  The closest translation, I think, should be a billing license.

There is a lot of mistranslation on that hospital's website.  I'll get to it some other time.


Please translate responsibly.

Image credits: Pleated Jeans and Gongren Hospital.

Funny Translations + Hospitals = Laughter, The Best Medicine?

While doing research for a project, I came across this website of a Chinese hospital and had to share:

But that's nothing compared to this link with "25 Messages That Got Lost in Translation" that someone sent me.  One of the messages there shows this picture:

This is just wrong on so many levels.  I guess the idea is to leave you in stitches when you go there?  

We'll talk about the right way to translate these tomorrow.


Please translate responsibly.

Image credits: Gongren Hospital and Pleated Jeans.

My Fair Lady And Star Trek: About Voice Command

I was thinking about Henry Higgins from the movie My Fair Lady the other night.  There was a scene in which he asked a friend to count how many vowels he was saying in one breath.  It sounded like a stream of vowels morphing from one to the next.  Being a phoneticist, Professor Higgins took pride in his capability of distinguishing one vowel from another.  The nerdy side of this pompous man somehow made him endearing to me. 

What got me thinking about 'enry 'iggins was the fact that we live in a very interesting time.  We have voice recognition that does a pretty good job of learning a speaker's voice.  Even Eliza Doolittle, with her Cockney English, would probably have no trouble getting a smartphone to recognize what she was saying.

Sometimes I wonder if the whole idea of voice command originated from Star Trek.  I'm sure it came about much earlier than that, but the idea certainly came to the forefront of most people's consciousness when Scotty picked up a mouse and said, "Hello computer!"

What was considered science fiction in 1986 (when Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home came out) has become a reality.  Google, Microsoft, and Apple all have their own versions of voice search.  We ask our smartphone, tablet, or in-car GPS system questions and expect a somewhat reasonable answer.  But how does it all happen?

Simply put, voice command is another form of machine translation.  Instead of translating a sentence from, say, English to French, the machine translates the sentence into something computers can understand: code. 

Programming languages are similar to spoken and written languages in that they have a set of rules and sentence structures to follow.  Therefore it's not much of a stretch to want to "translate" human words into something computers can "understand" and take action from.  We can't all be software programmers, who have learned how to speak the computers' languages, and write code to tell machines what to do.  Luckily we don't have to.  Voice command is like our own interpreter that talks to the computers on our behalf.

It's a pretty exciting time we live in, wouldn't you agree?


Please translate responsibly.

High-Context Languages and Machine Translation

Raise you hand if you've ever used Google Translate.  Keep that hand up if you've ever scoffed or giggled at the results.

I imagine very few of us have lowered our hands.

That is not to say Google Translate (or any online translation tools, for that matter) is useless.  On the contrary, I find it extremely useful, as long as I don't expect it to do the translation work for me.  Compared to when it was first introduced, Google Translate definitely deserves a round of applause for having come such a long way.

As of now, machine translation cannot reliably translate any given sentence.  But for lower-context languages such as German, it does the job quite admirably already.  For higher-context languages, however, there's still a long way to go because simple substitution of words or phrases from another language usually ends up producing laughable results such as "salt and pepper cherries."

Allow me to back up a little bit and talk briefly about the concept of high-context and low-context languages.  This idea was introduced by American anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture.  Simply put, lower-context languages are more explicit and their meanings can be obtained more easily through words alone.  Higher-context languages, on the other hand, rely more on contextual understanding of cultures and relationships to "divine" the hidden meanings.

I did a quick search online and found a wonderful article offering a side-by-side comparison between low context and high context, with an excellent summary as follows:
Low context: Words say it all.
High context: The surrounding circumstances say it all.[1]

Earlier I used the word "divine" to describe how one gets the meaning in a high-context language.  I wasn't being sarcastic.  In fact, I was referring to the frustration commonly shared by pretty much all of us at one point or another, even in our native languages.

Take humor as an example.  To "get" a joke, one has to know the context first, even with one's own native language.  If you have to "explain" a joke to someone who isn't familiar with the back story of the punchline, at the end of the explanation the joke just isn't funny any more.  This is why animated movies such as "The Lego Movie" and "The Incredibles" are popular with parents as well as their children: some jokes that sound like innocent child's play contain hidden flavors appreciated by adults, thus making the films enjoyable to audiences of all age groups.  But of course if a dad tried to explain to his 5-year-old why one particular joke was funny, it could be mind-boggling, gross, or totally incomprehensible to the poor kid.

Machine translation of high-context languages right now is similar to explaining a joke to someone.  And until Google changes their algorithms on how a sentence gets parsed, translated, and then re-assembled into a sentence of a different language, linguistic professionals of high-context languages will never have to worry about losing work to Google Translate.  But don't get too cocky: machine translation is quickly catching up and it'd be foolish to think human translation can never be replaced on any front.

Oh, you can put that hand down now.  


Please translate responsibly.

Reference:
1. Robert Strauss, "Low and High Context Cultures", Global Perspectives Consulting (2012).

Cherries vs. Frog Legs

The other day an anonymous reader mentioned the dilemma of translating 椒鹽櫻桃 as "salt and pepper frog legs" at a Chinese restaurant: "....that to me is not translation."

The following statements are all TRUE:
椒鹽 = salt & pepper
櫻桃 = the cherry
椒鹽櫻桃 = salt & pepper frog legs

One doesn't need to know how to read Chinese to realize that something's not right in the equations above.  Basic pattern recognition tells us that they don't add up.
 
I know where you're coming from, dear reader.  椒鹽櫻桃 literally says "salt and pepper cherries."  (Why, even Google Translate says it's "salt and pepper cherry" as of now!)  So even though you correctly inform that this dish is salt and pepper frog legs, you probably feel guilty about shortchanging your friends and depriving them of the opportunity to learn how this name came about.

I used to have a similar issue in doing English to Chinese translation.  (I hope I've gotten much better since then!)  The main theme of the feedback from editors was: I had no trouble understanding the source material, but had more difficulty than others in getting the meaning across in an economic way.  I'd spend time dissecting each sentence, simply to make sure nothing got lost.  But we all know that the whole is never the sum of its parts.  This is especially true in translation.

Let's look at the restaurant scenario:  As the only Chinese speaker in a group going to a Chinese restaurant, you are asked to "translate" the daily specials written on the whiteboard in Chinese characters.

Unless this is a field trip for a Chinese class at a less-than-busy restaurant, the best way to "translate" the menu is always the quick-and-dirty version: "salt and pepper frog legs" for 椒鹽櫻桃, "pork blood and tofu" for 紅白豆腐, etc.  The group needs your translation to make an informed decision on what to order.  We don't want our friends to be surprised when the food shows up: "I thought you said there were cherries in this dish!"

Once the business of food-ordering is out of the way, though, do feel free to share the naming trivia behind those dishes.  If nothing else, it at least makes for interesting conversation, especially if some of the people in the group have shown interest in such topics.  So, while you're waiting for the food to arrive, casually mention that the characters 椒鹽櫻桃 literally mean "salt and pepper cherries" and the name came about because cooked frog legs bulge and look like cherries.  Or that the characters 紅白豆腐 literally mean "red and white tofu" because the pork blood is sliced into the same size as tofu, making the dish look like bicolor tofu.  

The way I look at translation is: it informs.  A translator's job is to find out what kind of information the audience seeks, then provide that piece of information.  While ordering food at a Chinese restaurant, the piece of information needed is "what kind of food will I be getting if I order this?"  The naming of these dishes is interesting knowledge, but would most likely make ordering a longer process than desired.  Reserving it for later (say, while waiting for the food) not only saves time, but will probably be better appreciated by the audience as well as the people waiting behind you.


Please translate responsibly.

An Industry Full of Goodwill

I've been wanting to say this for some time: most (at least 90%) of the linguistic professionals in this industry that I've come across are really nice people.

I secretly think that they're very much like myself: nerdy about language and translation, to the point that they actually care more about the work than the pay.

It's not that we don't care about money.  No, that'd be detrimental to our well-being.  It's just that some things matter more.  Like helping one another.  Like coming through for a long-term customer.   So we say yes to a last-minute request even though that means a much dreaded commute for days on end.  Sometimes we drop everything to stare down a looming deadline.  Once in a while we pull an all-nighter simply because the client is counting on us to deliver on time.

Seeing this happen on a daily basis is heartening.  I am reminded of all the goodwill in this industry every day, and that is a very warm and fuzzy feeling.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that I've had the privilege of working with.   Thank you all for bringing a bit of sunshine to each one of us every day.


Please treat your translators responsibly.

Something Borrowed, Something New

Translation isn't easy.  No, I'm not trying to elevate us linguistic professionals' status or anything like that.  Heaven knows the majority of us are just lowly peons.  It's not hard labor, either: most of us work sitting in front of a computer (or, in the old days, a desk).  What I am talking about is, sometimes translating a foreign word is like pulling something out of thin air.

I learned of the following example at a conference earlier this month.  Apparently when the Languages Commissioner for Nunavut was asked to choose an Inuktitut word for the Internet, she chose the word ikiaqqivik, which literally means "traveling through layers" and refers to the traditional Inuit concept of a shaman traveling through time and space to find answers to spiritual and material questions.[1]

Historically people "borrow" words instead of inventing new ones.  Peking （北京） and Mochi （麻糬） are prime examples.  Their pronunciation closely resembles the native tongue.  But once in a while a new term is invented: Potsticker （鍋貼） and Chopsticks（筷子） belong in that category.  They usually do a pretty decent job of conveying the meaning of the source: 鍋 (pot) + 貼 (to stick) = potsticker!

Now let's turn our attention back to 肉松（whose Traditional Chinese counterpart is 肉鬆）.  I know that I didn't officially provide a translation for that term when I wrote about "Child Shredded Meat."   It wasn't because I wanted to avoid the task.  I just thought going into great lengths to explain that should be reserved for another post.

Here's the first paragraph of "Rousong" (that's 肉松's Romanized pronunciation) in Wikipedia:

"Bah-sang, also called meat wool, meat floss, pork floss, flossy pork, pork sung, or yuk sung, is a dried meat product with a light and fluffy texture similar to coarse cotton, originating from China."[2]

Meat wool conveys the texture and meat floss tells of the thinness of the meat fibers, but normal meat doesn't naturally become wool or floss.  Those words simply don't go together.  Bah-sang/pork sung/yuk sung are phonetic translations, but the words may as well be Greek to everybody.  As a native Chinese speaker, I can honestly say that I am just as baffled by them as an English speaker would be.  

I guess if 肉鬆 were as popular as sushi, one of these translations would eventually win out and become the accepted form.  But somehow, this food that's almost like a staple in every Chinese household is still unknown to a lot of English speakers.  Therefore, it has yet to find a proper English translation.  Now who can say translation is easy?!

I've thought about this long and hard, and decided that we should call it Dried Shredded Meat and be done with it.  It's nothing profound like ikiaqqivik, but it gets the job done.



Please translate responsibly.

References:
1. Eva Aariak, Wikipedia.
2. Katharina Soukup, "Travelling Through Layers: Inuit Artists Appropriate New Technologies", Canadian Journal of Communication, 31: 1 (2006).

Gather 'Round, Weird Translations (Chinese to English)!

You've seen them at least once in your life, and it probably bugged the heck out of you:

Why did they translate it this way?
What is its original meaning?
How should it be translated?

At least that's how I always feel whenever I see some weird translations from languages that I don't know.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I'm asking you, the readers, to send me weird translations (Chinese to English) that you've come across.  Just shoot me an e-mail (responsibletranslation at gmail dot com); I'd love to get a crack at 'em!

Thank you!


Please translate responsibly.

Funny Pictures, Not-So-Funny Translations

The other day when I was working alongside a group of linguists of various language backgrounds, one gentleman came to me with his smartphone in hand.  "Could you tell me what this is?" he pointed at one picture displayed on the phone's screen, "A friend of mine posted this for me to see."

Half embarrassed and half amused, I explained that it's supposed to be some kind of juice with the extract of the black "tree ears," a type of edible fungus. 

"Well, how did they come up with this, then?" he pointed at the translation: "The jew's ear Juice."  I shook my head with no answer for him, because, really, they could've called this drink Elixir of Black Tree Ears.

"Oh and there's this," he excitedly scrolled the screen down to reveal another delicacy:

This time, I burst out laughing.  I'm sure most people know that there's no possible way this product contains any human flesh.  But the sight of those words "CHILD SHREDDED MEAT" still makes one wonder: did they just use Google Translate?

As a Chinese linguist, I can assure you that this "CHILD SHREDDED MEAT" was no work of Google Translate or any other online translator.  儿童营养肉松 is composed of three Chinese phrases: 儿童 (children), 营养 (nutrition/nutritional), and 肉松.

Now, it's a bit difficult to explain 肉松 to someone who's never had it.  It's similar to shredded meat, except it's dry.  The meat (usually from the pork hind leg, i.e. the ham portion, where the muscle fibers are long) is braised and then fried in a dry skillet until all liquid's evaporated.  So far, nobody has come up with a good English name for this delicacy.  Which is a shame, because good food such as this deserves to reach more taste buds.

The naming difficulty of 肉松 aside, why can't they just call this product Nutritional Shredded Meat for Children?

Send me weird translations (Chinese to English) that you've come across!   I'll take a crack at 'em!  :)


Please translate responsibly.

Photo Credits: Imgur