“

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.

”

—Chinese proverb

Kyle Sherbenou

Web Developer

Kyle joined McElroy in October of 2007. His work focuses on keeping the newly redesigned McElroy Translation website up to date and rebuilding McElroy’s corporate intranet. Prior to joining McElroy, Kyle served as an application developer for Royce Homes in Houston, Texas. His experience includes multiple programming languages, back-end database administration, and graphic design.

Kyle grew up in Elgin, Texas, a few miles east of Austin. He was salutatorian of his high school class and enrolled at the University of Texas to pursue a BBA in finance. During college he worked part-time as a webmaster, sparking an interest to program professionally. After graduating from UT he built on this interest and landed his first full-time job in the field. In retrospect he could have easily pursued a job in finance and at this very moment be working in…a bank (oh no!).

As a basketball fan, he finds March through April busy months as playoffs in the NCAA & NBA heat up. He’s also an avid skier, having visited all of the top locations in North America. In his free time Kyle enjoys the live music and unique atmosphere the city of Austin provides.

Professionally he is in the process of obtaining a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist credential and is always on the forefront of developments in the technology sector. He’s thrilled to be apart of McElroy, and I’m sure his work will touch you as a continued subscriber to E-Buzz!

The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) extends its partnership with Inttranews

At McElroy, we consider Inttranews a must on our daily pillage through news and information sites. Our newsletter, E-Buzz, often contains 1-2 stories pulled from Inttranews, and our employee website will soon have a direct feed from the site. If you find yourself more and more immersed in the translation and localization industry, this is a site to add to your favorites!

Seattle, Washington & Rouen, France (GALA / Inttranews): The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has expanded its services and extended its news sourcing partnership by offering its members a free annual subscription to Inttranews, the leading news site for the language industry.

GALA is a fully representative, non-profit, international industry association that promotes language services and technology. The association gives members a common forum to discuss issues, create innovative solutions, promote the industry, and present a joint and more powerful voice within the industry and to the outside community.

The wide range of services provided to its 300 corporate members has now been further enhanced with daily updates from Inttranews, covering all the issues and events of interest or concern to linguists worldwide.

”We are pleased to offer yet another GALA membership benefit by providing free annual subscriptions to Inttranews,” said Laura Brandon, GALA Association Development Manager. “Inttranews has proven to be a valuable resource in the industry, and we encourage our members to take advantage of this opportunity.”

For Inttranews, the partnership with GALA underlines the strategic value of the wire service. Malcolm Duff, Chief Editor of Inttranews, comments, "The translation industry has to react faster than ever before as communication efforts become truly global, emerging markets bring 'minority' languages to the fore, and technology develops exponentially in an increasingly wide range of fields affecting language. We provide the information for industry leaders to keep up with all of those changes and anticipate market moves."

Currently available in English, French, and Spanish, Inttranews is read by some 50,000 linguists each month in international institutions, university departments, professional associations, translation services and companies, as well as by salaried and freelance interpreters and translators in more than 120 countries.

Subscribers can parameter their profile to receive only those articles directly related to their fields of interest, and have access to some 30,000 press reports on translation and in the Inttranews archives for research purposes. Subscribers can also issue up to 6 press releases a year, free of charge.

Translation World Conference—Montreal, March 11—13

The first Translation World Conference was held March 11—13 in Montreal, Quebec, presented by the Canadian Language Industry Association (AILIA), Multilingual Computing, Inc., and the Localization Institute.

McElroy Translation was pleased to be invited to participate in a presentation at the conference, with our own Tina Wuelfing Cargile collaborating with Erin Vang of JMP R&D, SAS on a debate moderated by Beatriz Bonnet, of Syntes Language Group. The topic, Point/Counterpoint: Two Approaches to Project Management, explored the strengths and weaknesses of traditional project management techniques vs. facilitative leadership in the context of the translation/localization industry.

Both Cargile and Vang hold PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from the Project Management Institute, and their positions were informed by the additional contrast that one operates on the vendor side and the other on the client side.

Cargile’s position was that many of the tools and techniques of formal project management are appropriate to our industry, provided that they are applied in the context of the Project Management Maturity model, part of which suggests that project management education and techniques be pushed out to all areas of an organization. The resulting empowerment of smaller workgroups and departments to more effectively monitor and measure their work can result in greater efficiency and capacity for project managers to focus on managing projects rather than managing the activities of individual team members.

Approaching workflow in such a collaborative fashion contrasts sharply with the traditional, top-down approach, which evolved from the earliest applications of project management in the automotive and aerospace industries, where the project manager was, in effect, doing rather than managing the work at hand. In that scenario, the PMP negotiated for personnel and controlled every aspect of their activities. In the modern approach, the PMP negotiates for deliverables rather than for team members, which allows line managers and workgroups to focus specifically on the tasks and metrics that are meaningful to their activities.

Vang’s position was that Facilitative Leadership, which essentially sets ground rules for effective groups, is a better fit for our industry. Facilitative Leadership features the Mutual Learning Model, which emphasizes concepts such as:

• I have some information, others may have other information.
• Each of us may see things the others do not.
• Differences are opportunities for learning.
• People are trying to act with integrity given their situations.
• Test assumptions and references.
• Share all relevant information.
• Combine advocacy and inquiry.
• Jointly design the approach.

The result of such an approach includes increased understanding, reduced unproductive conflict and defensiveness, increased learning and effectiveness, and improved quality of work life.

At the conclusion of the debate, both parties conceded that the approaches were really more similar than they were different. Both emphasize empowerment and minimize micromanagement, and both call for a facilitative, collaborative approach that takes the fullest advantage of the skills, knowledge, and wisdom that all team members bring to the table.

The conference was a great success, bringing together both buyers and sellers of translation to share experience, knowledge, and needs. Cargile was also pleased to be able to participate in some less academic linguistic discussions, such as the true meaning of Texas terms like “fixing to” [likely not going to occur in the immediate future], “y’all” [can be construed as singular or plural], and “y’all all” [definitely plural].

Swedish Translation

McElroy is continuing this series of interviews that highlight some of the characteristics of languages used in doing business globally. This month, we look at Swedish.

What are some pitfalls to avoid, specific to this language, a client should be aware of when translating into this language?

A translator translating from English to Swedish should be careful to use the right prepositions in Swedish. Typically, prepositions are among the hardest things to get right for non-native speakers, which is why it is important that only translators with Swedish as their native tongue should translate into Swedish. Just to give one example: In English, we say ”In the operating theater,” but in Sweden we say ”På operationssalen,” which back-translates to “ON the operating theater.”

On top of that, only native Swedes will always know whether a particular Swedish word is an “en”- or an “ett”-word, i.e., what gender the word has. This is probably the only thing that is even harder than the prepositions to get right for non-native speakers. Take “bread” for example (“bröd”)—it HAS to be “ett bröd” (”a bread”) and “brödet” (“the bread”)—it canNOT be “en bröd.” In other words, “bröd” is an “ett”-word, but ask a Swede why, and he/she most likely cannot tell you, as there is no clear rule, you just have to “know.”

It is also important to realize that English uses words in a more elaborate fashion than Swedish, i.e., if you translate too literally, this will create an unnecessarily word-rich text, paradoxically confusing things instead of clarifying them.

Also, do not be too generous with the little word “please,” as this word in Swedish may create a sort of formal attitude or tone instead of the intended informal one. For example: “Please contact Customer Service in case of any problems or questions.” If we use the literally corresponding phrase in Swedish “Vänligen kontakta...,” this may actually sound condescending, or, if using the still more old-fashioned “Var god kontakta...,” downright unfriendly. The best solution is simply to omit it altogether: “Kontakta...”

A very important issue that has emerged over the last few years, as English has continued its conquest of the world and its penetration into Swedish, is a phenomenon called “Särskrivning”—which literally means “Split writing (of compound words).” What this term refers to is the unfortunate practice of some Swedish translators and other writers alike, to “split up” Swedish compound words, thereby “emulating” an English format, but inadvertently rendering a phrase with a whole new meaning. At best, this can look and sound ludicrous, but in the worst case scenario, the changed meaning can actually have profound effects on the text.

One example: “Smoke free (area)”—this should be “Rökfritt (utrymme)”—i.e., No smoking here, please! However, in Särskrivning, this is written as “Rök fritt” with a space inserted between the two words that correspond to “Smoke free,” and now the phrase suddenly means the exact opposite—i.e., Please go ahead and smoke all you want here!!

Another rather amusing example: “Swedish general agent for Chinese company” should be translated as “Svensk generalagent [no space!] för Kinaföretag,” but the following phrase in Särskrivning, “Svensk general agent för Kinaföretag” back-translates to “Swedish general is secret agent for Chinese company.” So Särskrivning, although often producing really funny-sounding results, is really no laughing matter when it comes to getting the message across correctly. There is a lot that can really be “lost in translation.” There are even several organizations working against the introduction of this unfortunate practice into the Swedish language.

What are characteristics of this language that are unique or different from English and/or other languages?

As already mentioned above, we have the genders “en” and “ett”—each word has to be one or the other, and this affects many grammatical issues, inflections, treatments of associated adjectives, etc. Only a few “borrowed” words, i.e., words that have recently been introduced into the Swedish language from other languages, can actually be both, such as “graft,” “test,” and “cement.”

In Swedish, sentences mostly begin with the main statement instead of the secondary one, so that when translating from English into Swedish, in many cases sentences need to be restructured.

Example: When translating the following sentence, you really would have a hard time producing correct Swedish unless you first change the order of the text before and after the comma:

“Being the humble man that he was, Mr. Smith offered to drive her to the airport.”

”Herr Smith erbjöd sig att köra henne till flygplatsen, som den anspråkslösa man han var.”

Another type of sentence construction that may cause a “Swenglish” effect is, for example:

“Waterproof speaker tower that raises and lowers by pressing on its top.” To an English—speaking person there is no doubt that a person is pressing on the waterproof speaker tower top—but, if you are not careful, in Swedish, a literal translation may imply that the tower itself is performing the action, i.e., pressing on itself from the top: i.e., wrongly translated: "Ett vattentätt högtalartorn som kommer upp och sänker sig genom att trycka ovanpå." Correct translation: "Ett vattentätt högtalartorn som kommer upp och sänker sig ner genom att man trycker ovanpå." Thus, in Swedish, you have to point out that there is another subject—contrary to English, this cannot be implied by the mere sentence structure.

Then there are of course the Swedish letters: å, ä, ö. Contrary to what many non-Swedish people seem to think, these are definite letters, which means that we have three extra letters in the Swedish alphabet that do not exist in English. Using them incorrectly or omitting them in favor of their look-alikes, a, a, o, will result in significant errors. Example: “tåla” means “to endure,” but “tala” means “to speak”; “råtta" means “rat,” but “ratta” means “to turn the steering wheel”; and “röst” means “voice,” but “rost” means “rust.”