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| | | Not so sure... | Jul 20, 2013 |
Tatty wrote:
London is bursting at the seams with Poles and Madrid, where I live, certainly is home to a fair number. Just from where I live I can tell you that the children have a bilingual upbringing. So at some point in the future, there will potentially be numerous Polish to English or Spanish translators/interpreters. The same probably applies for Czech and some other languages too.
... unless they continue formally studying their parents' language beyond speaking it at home. I happen to know several people who spoke a foreign language at home, but never studied it formally. Okay, they can be great escort interpreters for sightseeing and shopping, however they won't be sufficiently familiar with it, say, to read and understand the business section of their parents' country newspaper. Quite often they can barely read anything in their parents' language, not to mention writing.
So it takes some deliberate effort to extend that 'home' language to something professionally useful.
| | | | | As a person living in the UK for the last 8 years | Jul 20, 2013 |
I can confirm there is an army of developing new bilingual talent out there (be it Polish, Slovak, Spanish, Portuguese... and other, here in the United Kingdom) represented by children of people from the new EU countries, being educated in the UK. I might conclude that it is perfectly feasible that the bilingual youth of generations to come will one day end up working in the translation business, albeit not necessarily with professional university education as is the standard nowadays.
... See more I can confirm there is an army of developing new bilingual talent out there (be it Polish, Slovak, Spanish, Portuguese... and other, here in the United Kingdom) represented by children of people from the new EU countries, being educated in the UK. I might conclude that it is perfectly feasible that the bilingual youth of generations to come will one day end up working in the translation business, albeit not necessarily with professional university education as is the standard nowadays.
I am not saying that this will increase the standards of the profession or the opposite, but the number of translators will rise exponentially, considering the current economic climate and the fact that translation is a viable business after all.
The thing is (and this I believe this to be really true) that without proper specialisation, education and commitment to a certain (or several) field of specialisation, now matter how bilingual or fluent the speaker is, it will not automatically bring better results (and quality) for sure.
On a different note: Just by way of curiosity, today I searched a certain web ''directory'' that is free of charge for so called ''translators'' to register and promote the services (none of the names of who appears on proz, so far as I know).
I randomly opened the profile pages of 10 translators, half of which contained serious grammar and style errors (and other blunders), with a price range from 0.02 EUR - 0.018 EUR/Word. Some of the people even advertised services out of their native language into English; the advertisement itself written in terrible English (facepalm), when I started wondering how ridiculous it must be to serious client to open a list of people, having rates ranging from rock bottom to above average - half of them with grammar mistakes - so sad, but true, pretending to be qualified translators with poor grammar (By the way, the words translation and directory are a give-away)!
For that matter I am not afraid, knowing that as long as I stay specialized and further develop my skills in the fields I work in, I will still be a good distance ahead before the random, wannabe bilingual translator, battling with his/her new-acquired job, ''dictionary-in-hand'' (no offence, we all had to start one way or another), guessing meaning and taking chances. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 14:07
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | A common myth | Jul 21, 2013 |
Translation involves converting text in one language into text in another language. To do this elegantly, excellent knowledge of both source and target language is absolutely essential. Yet many translators blithely ignore one part of the equation. Those who swear by natives in target only doing the translation, forget that to do a perfect translation, perfect knowledge of the source is a necessity. How many of the native in target translators have this level of proficiency in the source languag... See more Translation involves converting text in one language into text in another language. To do this elegantly, excellent knowledge of both source and target language is absolutely essential. Yet many translators blithely ignore one part of the equation. Those who swear by natives in target only doing the translation, forget that to do a perfect translation, perfect knowledge of the source is a necessity. How many of the native in target translators have this level of proficiency in the source language? I would guess, not many. Yet, by just being native in their target language, they put on a halo over their head. How pathetic!
The truth is those who advocate native in target only doing translation are trying to protect their turf. There are many people out there who despite being non-natives to their target language do excellent writing and translation in that language. This is especially true of an international language like English.
It is quite surprising that translators who deal so much with languages should be harbouring this myth, but that seems to be so. But it is high time we collectively got over this myth of only native in target language translators being able to do a proper translation in that language. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:07
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | The Poles in the UK will become experts in English given time | Jul 21, 2013 |
Just as the Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, and thousands of others who emigrate to the US and other English speaking countries over time develop excellent command over English, and in a few generations become as good at English as the natives, the same will happen to the Poles etc., who are now emigrating to the UK.
With the result we will have even more numbers of non-natives excelling in English, and hopefully they will lay to rest the common myth of non-natives not being abl... See more Just as the Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, and thousands of others who emigrate to the US and other English speaking countries over time develop excellent command over English, and in a few generations become as good at English as the natives, the same will happen to the Poles etc., who are now emigrating to the UK.
With the result we will have even more numbers of non-natives excelling in English, and hopefully they will lay to rest the common myth of non-natives not being able to translate into English. ▲ Collapse
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:37
Hebrew to English
| But they won't be "non-native" Bala | Jul 21, 2013 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
Just as the Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, and thousands of others who emigrate to the US and other English speaking countries over time develop excellent command over English, and in a few generations become as good at English as the natives, the same will happen to the Poles etc., who are now emigrating to the UK.
With the result we will have even more numbers of non-natives excelling in English, and hopefully they will lay to rest the common myth of non-natives not being able to translate into English.
Now? The waves of Polish immigration happened a few years ago Bala. In those few years, the relatively young children of those who came tend to speak English perfectly well by now and those being born here now (presuming they stay) will speak English as well as any other English child.
The result is that there'll be a lot of Polish-English bilinguals in a few years, but they won't be "non-natives" as you call them they'll be "true" bilinguals - you can't conflate acquiring a language in an immersion situation from birth/early childhood with learning a language in a foreign environment from adolescence/early adulthood.
Whether they end up translating/interpreting is another question - I have noticed that many "true" bilinguals actually don't end up in careers using their languages, strangely enough.
[Edited at 2013-07-21 07:23 GMT]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:07
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Some may, some may not | Jul 21, 2013 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
Just as the Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, and thousands of others who emigrate to the US and other English speaking countries over time develop excellent command over English, and in a few generations become as good at English as the natives, the same will happen to the Poles etc., who are now emigrating to the UK.
With the result we will have even more numbers of non-natives excelling in English, and hopefully they will lay to rest the common myth of non-natives not being able to translate into English.
Now? The waves of Polish immigration happened a few years ago Bala. In those few years, the relatively young children of those who came tend to speak English perfectly well by now and those being born here now (presuming they stay) will speak English as well as any other English child.
The result is that there'll be a lot of Polish-English bilinguals in a few years, but they won't be "non-natives" as you call them they'll be "true" bilinguals - you can't conflate acquiring a language in an immersion situation from birth/early childhood with learning a language in a foreign environment from adolescence/early adulthood.
Whether they end up translating/interpreting is another question - I have noticed that many "true" bilinguals actually don't end up in careers using their languages, strangely enough. [Edited at 2013-07-21 07:23 GMT]
Yes this would be true of those who stay on in the UK. But many would also move around in Europe as borders are now open and some may even move out of Europe. The exposure in the UK would have had a salubrious effect on their English, and they would write better English, than those Poles who have only learned English in Poland schools. Some of them might even start translating and they would translate into English much better than those who can barely string a correct sentence into English.
The point is, these new arrivals to the UK would contribute to further internationalizing English, and many of them wouldn't retain English as a native language, but would acquire advanced level proficiency in English.
| | | | | I basically agree with Jose and Balasubramaniam on most issues | Jul 21, 2013 |
I really doubt that the new generation of EU residents living in England has even enough time to learn English or teach their children more advanced language of their original country -- they probably work all the time for the first few years after they have moved to England, and don't have time for anything (the majority).
It is not enough to just learn the language at home from your busy parents in a country when a totally different language is spoken to become a successful transl... See more I really doubt that the new generation of EU residents living in England has even enough time to learn English or teach their children more advanced language of their original country -- they probably work all the time for the first few years after they have moved to England, and don't have time for anything (the majority).
It is not enough to just learn the language at home from your busy parents in a country when a totally different language is spoken to become a successful translator or interpreter. This may be a starting point, but then the child has to constantly work on the languages, which is quite hard to do living in another country, and study linguistics, literature in this language, or translation at a university level.
I agree that a thorough knowledge of the source language is as important as the style in the target language. If you don't understand the target language really well -- with all the nuances, what difference would it make if your style in the target language were on the best writers' level, or even the Pullitzer Price winners?
And, as I said before, the language of the original country spoken by the children who moved to the US, not to even mention who were born here, is usually not very good-- not even at a high school level. Of course they have a chance to become translators in the future, but they have to work on their language (the language of their parents), and please do not ignore the fact that language is a changing phenomenon, so they have to be in constant contact with the language to be able to use it properly. It might have been different with the 19th century immigrants, because they were not as easily absorbed into the culture of the countries where they moved.
[Edited at 2013-07-21 08:22 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:37
Hebrew to English
| Things are different | Jul 21, 2013 |
LilianBNekipelo wrote:
I really doubt that the new generation of EU residents living in England has even enough time to learn English or teach their children more advanced language [sic?] of their original country ...
And, as I said before, the language of the original country spoken by the children who moved to the US, not to even mention who were born here, is usually not very good--
Two things:
1) There is actually a lot of Polish language support, classes etc., it's a booming business for Polish parents wanting to keep their kids' Polish up to scratch - and Polish kids are encouraged to take Polish GCSE/A-Level
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/384852/Foreign-pupils-top-the-table-in-GCSE-Polish
2) Flights to Poland from England are less than £50.00 one way and coaches are even cheaper. It can be cheaper to go to Poland than it is to drive to Scotland and a lot of Polish people I know are back and forth all the time, so there's little to no chance of being cut off from their own culture/language for very long.
These things are game-changers, the normal rules of children moving to x country and becoming more than a little rusty in x language won't necessarily apply.
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| I don't know -- it might be different than in the US | Jul 21, 2013 |
I would not count on the classes too much -- the first thing is will -- many children don't want to speak the language of their parents -- at least in the US -- many teenagers ( in New York you really have to speak a little bit of rap English, if you want to be cool in high school). They teach some language classes in churches, I think here as well -- I do not know any more details about it. I am not even sure who teaches them -- it might be just a social type of thing -- not any serious languag... See more I would not count on the classes too much -- the first thing is will -- many children don't want to speak the language of their parents -- at least in the US -- many teenagers ( in New York you really have to speak a little bit of rap English, if you want to be cool in high school). They teach some language classes in churches, I think here as well -- I do not know any more details about it. I am not even sure who teaches them -- it might be just a social type of thing -- not any serious language teaching.
I spent quite some time in England when I was a teenager, and then only some occasional visits. I cannot really comment on the current language situation in London.
[Edited at 2013-07-21 08:59 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tatty
Local time: 09:37
Spanish to English
+ ...
| They certainly sound like they speak it to me | Jul 21, 2013 |
If the unis can make any money out of it, it won't be long before they introduce a BA in Polish Studies.
When I was doing my A-levels, students from Spanish or Latin American backgrounds typically did A-level Spanish. And most of them went on to do a either a whole degree or half a degree in Spanish. I went to uni with a Gibraltarian studying a degree in Spanish and English!
| | | | | Perhaps to a person who does not speak Polish | Jul 21, 2013 |
everything even vaguely resembling Polish may sound like good Polish -- the same may apply to other languages. Also the American reality is slightly different, perhaps more acceptive, and most of the people who moved here are not planning to move anywhere else.
Also, I was wondering about something. I have seen programs in translation, in such language pairs as Russian-English, or Portuguese-English, offered by some British Universities (two year graduate programs). Do the candi... See more everything even vaguely resembling Polish may sound like good Polish -- the same may apply to other languages. Also the American reality is slightly different, perhaps more acceptive, and most of the people who moved here are not planning to move anywhere else.
Also, I was wondering about something. I have seen programs in translation, in such language pairs as Russian-English, or Portuguese-English, offered by some British Universities (two year graduate programs). Do the candidates have to speak the source language really well when they apply, or do the schools believe that the student will learn Russian in two years to be able to translate from it? Do you have any Polish language studies in the UK right now?
I found this -- it looks like a really nice place to study, and enjoy the student's life. http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/russian/undergraduates/courses/polish
If they are planning to teach someone fluent Polish in four years -- good luck.
[Edited at 2013-07-21 12:39 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:37
Hebrew to English
LilianBNekipelo wrote:
Also, I was wondering about something. I have seen programs in translation, in such language pairs as Russian-English, or Portuguese-English, offered by some British Universities (two year graduate programs). Do the candidates have to speak the source language really well when they apply, or do the schools believe that the student will learn Russian in two years to be able to translate from it?
No, for these the prerequisite is an appropriate level of knowledge in the languages involved. You won't get onto a translation course in French-English with little or no knowledge of French. Most translation courses are masters courses, requiring an undergraduate degree in the language in question.
Well it depends what you mean by "fluent". University ab initio courses tend to be rather gruelling, and they do include a year of immersion. So I imagine you can indeed get quite "fluent" in those four years if you apply yourself. Not that they would expect you to totally master the language like a native in those 4 years, it is merely undergraduate level after all - there's still more to learn.
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| Natives are best | Jul 21, 2013 |
I do not agree with this view; Maltese is very difficult to write- I speak and write much better in English, also my native language luckily. I hate being asked to translate into Maltese as all the Maltese I learnt is being eroded by new developments. Besides, I follow the Italian scene much more than the local one: I am into Italian for various reasons- contacts, proximity, legal issues, etc, so know the source language inside out. You realise you know the source language when you follow a prog... See more I do not agree with this view; Maltese is very difficult to write- I speak and write much better in English, also my native language luckily. I hate being asked to translate into Maltese as all the Maltese I learnt is being eroded by new developments. Besides, I follow the Italian scene much more than the local one: I am into Italian for various reasons- contacts, proximity, legal issues, etc, so know the source language inside out. You realise you know the source language when you follow a programme and are able to laugh the natives laugh about as you are in the "know", knowing what they are alluding to, what puns mean, what the joke is addressed to and why. So, I am very much against the native idea of translation, and in this age, where people move about so much-for work, settling down, retiring-we get all nations in Malta to retire, which has its good and bad points.
So, what's a native any more, these days of globalisation? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | The school looks interesting | Jul 21, 2013 |
The students would have to spend a year or two in Poland, or Russia, if they wanted to get really fluent in those languages. It looks like a nice program.
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:07
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Full proficiency in the source is much more important | Jul 21, 2013 |
In my view, full proficiency in the source language is much more critical than full proficiency in the target language, though a sufficiently advanced level of proficiency in the target language is also definitely required to achieve any meaningful translation.
The reason is, it is relatively easy to fix minor issues of grammar, culture and idiom in the translation, but it is almost impossible to fix errors and mis-translations arising from inadequate comprehension of the source lan... See more In my view, full proficiency in the source language is much more critical than full proficiency in the target language, though a sufficiently advanced level of proficiency in the target language is also definitely required to achieve any meaningful translation.
The reason is, it is relatively easy to fix minor issues of grammar, culture and idiom in the translation, but it is almost impossible to fix errors and mis-translations arising from inadequate comprehension of the source language. Moreover, these critical errors and mis-translations can be easily masked by an elegantly produced target translation by a translator who has very good command over the target language, but only a sketchy knowledge of the source language. To the untrained eye, his translation would appear to be flawless, but the worms in the translation will start to crawl out when the translation is compared with the source. Often this comparison would happen when the end user sees the translation, by which time it would be too late.
It is easier to sniff out grammar and syntax errors and culture discrepancies - any trained proof-reader or editor will be able to do it. But to sniff out the mis-match between source and target texts, you will need a bilingual editor who does a line by line comparison.
Most translation processes followed by agencies, don't do this type of comparison. All they do, if they do it at all, is to get the translation proof-read by a person proficient in the target language. And if the original translator was deficient in the source language, this proofing won't spot the glaring errors in the translated document.
Which is why I say that full proficiency in the source language is much more critical than full proficiency in the target language. When we over-emphasis natives only doing translation, we inadvertently contribute to shoddy translation which linguistically may look elegant, but which is not worth the paper on which it is written semantically. ▲ Collapse
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