I had a great translator moment the other day.
I'd turned in a patent—an incoherent patent which had obviously been cut and pasted together from related patents. You can't really blame the IP attorneys, because they've probably had to draft a couple hundred of the things relating to this one technology. (I'm sure if the patent isn't awarded, resulting in lost profits and litigation, that the applicant corporation will have no compunctions about blaming the attorneys, but speaking as a human …)
The multifold challenge of the translation was to figure out what they were trying to say, find vague English terminology to match the vague Japanese terminology, and make sure that the translation made sense without my having to add content. The translation is being used for litigation, so it must say no more and no less than what the original said, and say it in the same types of words, because the patent attorneys are going to sit around and argue about the wording, as opposed to the meaning.
I figured it out, got the job done, and turned it in. This particular client has native Japanese-speaking, bilingual proofreaders who go through the translation and the source text to make sure that the translation is complete and correct. Then they call me if they have questions. I was expecting that the proofreader would have questions about this one.
He sure did, although about half his questions were more comments along the lines of "Damn, but this Japanese makes no sense." He started off saying, "Oh. These claims. Ugh. I didn't even understand them till I read your translation."
Yes! The Japanese was so bad that the Japanese person had to read the English translation!
This never happens.
I guess we could call this "Found in Translation"?
299 words | April 25, 2006 08:21 PM | Lost in translation