Vol. 33, September 2003

The Translation E-Buzz

Table of Contents

Overview of Single Sourcing: Why it Matters to Our Clients and to Ourselves. The Internal and External Implications

• CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. Contain formatting instructions. CSS gives more control over the appearance of a Web page to the page creator than to the browser designer or the viewer.
• DSSSL - Document Style Semantics and Specifications Language. DSSSL is a style sheet language for both print and online rendering. DSSSL describes how such a structured document might be presented visually.
• DTD - Document Type Definition. Contains syntax rules. A DTD is a specification that accompanies a document and identifies what the funny little codes (or markup) are that separate paragraphs, identify topic headings, and so forth and how each is to be processed. By mailing a DTD with a document, any location that has a DTD “reader” (or “SGML compiler”) will be able to process the document and display or print it as intended.
• SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language. First successful markup language, source of HTML and XML. SGML is not in itself a document language, but a description of how to specify one.
• XHTML - Extensible Hypertext Markup Language. A recasting of HTML as a language under XML.
• XML - Extensible Markup Language. XML is “extensible” because, unlike HTML, the markup symbols are unlimited and self-defining. For example, the word “phonenum” placed within markup tags could indicate that the data that followed was a phone number. This means that an XML file can be processed purely as data by a program or it can be stored with similar data on another computer or, like an HTML file, that it can be displayed. For example, depending on how the application in the receiving computer wanted to handle the phone number, it could be stored, displayed, or dialed.
• XSL - Extensible Style Language. XML style language XSL is a language for creating a style sheet that describes how data sent over the Web using XML is to be presented to the user.
• XSLFO - Extensible Style Language Formatting Objects. Output format instructions for things like margin settings and text enhancement.
• XSLT - Extensible Style Language Transforms. Instructions for converting material in an XML file to other formats.

Editor’s note: Lisa prepared this “single sourcing primer” as a follow up to an internal technical continuing education session. McElroy Translation Company has already completed the initial steps of single sourcing implementation. The benefits have been measurable and immediate. The scope of how we utilize this technology will continue to grow. Meanwhile, we want to help our clients leverage their efforts in this area, recognizing that with each language localized, the benefits of single sourcing and content management multiply.

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September
Promotion

WHY WATCH TV THE OLD WAY? Be prepared for the new fall network schedule with TiVo!

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Say what?

Why are good translators worth their weight in words? Because we’ve all seen the results of bad translation. Take, for example, these English translations of signs around the world:

In a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In a Czech tourist agency: Take one hour horse-driven carriage. We garantee no miscarriages.

In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of the entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in a bar.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

At the entrances of two Majorcan shops: English well speaking. Here speeching American.

In the office of an Italian doctor in Rome: Specialist in women and other diseases.

On the menu of a Polish restaurant: Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.

In a Bangkok dry cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris boutique: Dresses for street walking.

From the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 150.000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

A sign posted somewhere in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that cople of defferent sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for thet purpose.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter lift backwards, bud only when lit up.

In the lobby of a hotel facing a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists and writers are buried daily except Thursdays.

In a Tokyo based hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not to read notis.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

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10 Reasons Why English is so Difficult to Translate

There seems to be a lot of discussion recently of translation issues and Web sites in poorly-written English. We need to realize that there are certain peculiar characteristics of the English language which cause problems for non-native English speakers.

1. The verb-adverb combination is peculiar to English, as illustrated by constructions such as “turn on,” “turn off,” “mark up,” or “mark down.” In other languages, single specific verbs are used in place of the English verb-adverb combinations. A construction such as “turn off” is highly problematic because in English, it has numerous meanings. You can turn off a light, or you can use the word “turn off” in the sense of something being repulsive. For example, if you want to translate “turn off” in the sense of turning off a light in other languages, in French, it would be “eteindre”; in Spanish, it would be “apagar”; in Russian, it would be “vyklyuchit’”; in Hebrew, it would be “le-kabot.” You would use a different verb in the sense of turning off a computer. This is one peculiar aspect of the English language that non-native speakers have a hard time grasping.
2. Split infinitives seem to have become accepted English usage. In other languages, the verb infinitive has a specific form that identifies it as such. The adverb would be used after the infinitive.
3. English syntax is very inflexible compared to other languages. English goes by a very strict subject-verb-object structure. Other languages are much more flexible. For instance, in Hebrew or Russian, the object can precede the verb for the purpose of emphasis (in Russian, the object is identified as such by means of the cases indicating direct or indirect object). Also, pronouns must be used with the verbs; this is not the case in other languages. For instance, in Spanish, Italian, or even Polish, you do not need to use the pronouns with the verb because the verb endings indicate the person. Then, of course, the syntax of German and Dutch is in a category of its own, with verbs coming at the end of sentences under certain circumstances.
4. Many languages do not use articles. Virtually all Western European languages use articles. The Slavic languages (with the exception of Macedonian and Bulgarian) do not use articles—this causes difficulties for people with Slavic mother tongues learning English. Hebrew and Arabic have definite articles, but not indefinite articles. Some languages do not use the present tense of the verb “to be,” such as Hebrew and Russian.
5. Another difficulty for non-native English speakers is the fact that English is not a phonetic language. It is probably one of the most unphonetic languages in the world (French probably comes close to English in its lack of phoneticity).
6. Some English vocabulary is peculiar. Most European languages have two verbs with the sense of “to know,” one meaning to know a person in the sense of friendship or acquaintance (French, connaitre; German, kennen; Spanish, conocer; Russian, poznakomit’), and the other meaning to know facts (French, savoir; German, wissen; Spanish, saber; Russian, znat’). There are two words for “law” in most European languages, one in the sense of a piece of legislation (French, loi; German, Gesetz; Spanish, ley; Italian, legge; Russian, zakon) and the other in the sense of the discipline of law (French, droit; German, Recht; Spanish, derecho; Italian, diritto; Russian, pravo). These two distinctions are even found in Hebrew, a non-Indo-European language.
7. While English does not have as many grammatical inflections as other languages (thus simplifying the grammar enormously), English verbs can pose problems. The problematic areas are the enormous use of auxiliary verbs to convey modes (subjunctive and conditional) that are indicated in other languages by simple verb endings, and the large number of irregular verbs in English. It seems that English has more irregular verbs than other languages with which I am familiar.
8. American English especially has a tendency to convert nouns to verbs. This is problematic for speakers of other languages who cannot as easily convert nouns to verbs. Noun combinations such as “light emitter diode,” as well as compound nouns, also pose problems for speakers of other languages.
9. Another peculiarity of English is the verb “to do.” In many languages, the verb “to do” and “to make” have the same meaning (French, faire; Spanish, hacer; Russian, delat’; Hebrew, la-asot). In English, they are separate. In addition, the use of the verb “to do” in such constructions as “Do you speak English?” causes problems for non-native English speakers. This even causes difficulties for speakers of Germanic languages such as German or Dutch, which have separate verbs for “to do” (German, tun; Dutch, doen) and “to make” (German, machen; Dutch, maken), but do not use the verb “to do” in this manner. Instead of the verb “to do,” all of these languages simply use the appropriate form of the verb.
10. Much humor has been made of Japanese renderings of the English language. Even though I profess ignorance about Asian languages, it must be stated that the grammatical rules of Asian languages are very different from those of English. The more distinct the grammar is from English, the more difficulty non-native English speakers will have in producing materials in good English. In one job interview, one of my exercises was to render a paragraph that was written in “Japanese English” into proper English—it wasn’t easy. I am sure that native speakers of Chinese or Korean also have a problem with English.

All of these peculiarities of English grammar often make it difficult for non-native English speakers to get a full command of the language. It is also difficult when it comes to translating English technical writing into other languages. In fact, the size of the text often increases when one translates from English to many Western European languages (this has implications for text layout and DTP), and it often decreases when one translates from English to Hebrew for instance. These are issues to bear in mind when it comes to the internationalization of technical writing. (I admit ignorance when it comes to Asian and African languages.)

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