Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 840, Translating a Document.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 840.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue between Francine and Assis about taking some document, something that has been written, and translating it into another language.
Let's get started.
Do you know the word in McQuish for partnership?
No, I don't speak McQuish.
What are you doing?
Jim gave me this letter and this document to translate into McQuish because I speak a little of it, but even with a dictionary and thesaurus it's slow going.
Didn't you tell Jim that?
I did, but he still wants me to try because it's so hard to find a McQuish English bilingual.
I'm not surprised.
Other than you, I don't know anyone who speaks McQuish.
Yeah well, I'm doing my best to translate these documents idiomatically, because the literal translation won't make any sense.
But it's a tough job.
I simply don't know enough business, McQuish, to know the equivalent words and phrases.
I'm trying, but I don't think it's turning out the way it's supposed to.
At least he didn't ask you to interpret.
You'd really be in the hot seat trying to interpret in a meeting or over the phone.
Yeah, at least I was spared that experience, at least for now.
I wish I could help you, but the only language I speak, other than English, is gibberish.
Francine begins by saying to Aziz, do you know the word in Mequish for partnership?
Mequish is a very rare language.
It's not spoken by more than, oh, maybe 100 people or so.
You probably have never heard of it.
Francine wants to know the word in McQuish for partnership.
P-A-R-T-N-E-R-S-H-I-P.
A partnership is usually when two people decide to work together in a business, for example.
Aziz says, no, I don't speak McQuish.
What are you doing?
Francine says Jim gave me this letter and this document to translate into McQuish because I speak a little of it.
But even with a dictionary and a thesaurus it's slow going.
To translate means to take the words in one language and express them in another.
What we're trying to do is express the same idea.
Some people get confused.
They think that translation is taking a word in one language and giving a similar sounding word in another.
But it's not about the words, it's about the ideas that you're expressing.
Francine is trying to translate a letter and a document, some other sort of piece of paper, into McQuish.
But she says even with a dictionary and a thesaurus, it's slow going.
A dictionary is a book that has the meanings of words.
You can have a bilingual dictionary, which gives the word in one language and the translation in another, or you can have a what we could call a regular dictionary that just has the words and the meanings all in the same language.
A thesaurus T-H-E-S-A-U-R-U-S is a book that lists groups of similar words, words that have similar meanings.
It's a book you use when you're trying to find a word that has a similar idea, but you want to use something different.
A thesaurus will help you find similar words.
It's not a definition of the word, it's a listing of words in that category.
To be slow going means to be making very slow progress.
It's something that's taking a lot of time, perhaps because it's difficult to do.
It's slow going.
Aziz says, didn't you tell Jim that?
That meaning that it's slow going even with a dictionary and a thesaurus.
Francine says I did, but he still wants me to try because it's hard to find a McQuish English bilingual.
A bilingual, b-i-l-i-n-g-u-a-l, is someone who speaks two languages.
Bi.
B-i is a prefix that often means two, so bilingual means two languages, someone who speaks two languages.
Someone who speaks three languages would be a trilingual, T-R-I.
After that, we usually use a completely different word to describe someone who speaks four or more languages.
That word is polyglot, P-O-L-Y-G-L-O-T.
But Francine is talking about a McQuish English bilingual someone who speaks McQuish and someone who speaks English.
They should talk to me.
Aziz says, I'm not surprised.
Other than you, I don't know anyone who speaks McQuish.
Francine says yeah well, I'm doing my best to translate these documents idiomatically, because the literal translation wouldn't make any sense.
An idiom.
I-D-I-O-M in a language is a set of words that mean something different together than if you were just to look up each individual word's definition.
So, for example, a start-up could mean, if you just looked up the words in the dictionary, start meaning to begin and up meaning the opposite of down.
But that isn't in fact what startup means.
A startup as a noun is a new company, often a new technology or internet company, although the word is more generally used now to refer to any new company can be a startup.
Perhaps a better example would be a phrase like, It's raining cats and dogs.
This expression means it's raining a lot.
It's raining a great deal.
It has nothing to do with cats and dogs falling down from the sky.
It's an idiomatic expression.
The meaning of it is not... something you can figure out from the individual words.
Well, to translate a document idiomatically means to do so in a way that expresses the ideas in common phrases that are used in that second or that language you are translating the document into.
So idiomatic translations would be translations that express the idea, not just the individual words.
When you're just taking each individual word and translating it.
That would be what we would call a literal translation.
Literal L-I-T-E-R-A-L means the exact meaning for that one word, but that one word by itself, not connected to any other words.
A literal translation isn't, in my opinion, really a translation at all.
A translation is taking the ideas from one language and expressing them in another.
A literal translation is taking the idea of a word individually, without considering the other words in the sentence, and translating that word, which is really not a very useful thing to do.
But Francine is trying to translate the documents idiomatically.
She says a literal translation won't make any sense.
To make sense means to be understandable, to be logical, to be rational.
If you say it won't make any sense, you mean you won't be able to understand it.
She says this translation that she's doing is a tough job.
I simply don't know enough business, McQuish, to know the equivalent words and phrases.
Equivalent, E-Q-U-I-V-A-L-E-N-T, means equal to, the same as.
Francine doesn't know the right words in McQuish.
She says business McQuish for the words she knows and is trying to translate in English.
Aziz says can't you just paraphrase and convey the general meaning by using a lot of loan words and cognates?
To paraphrase P-A-R-A-P-H-R-A-S-E means to express the same idea, the same general idea, but using different words.
So it's not an exact translation, it's sort of a summary of the ideas.
The verb to convey C-O-N-V-E-Y means to express or to share some information.
To convey the meaning means to communicate the meaning.
To convey the general meaning would be to be able to have the other person understand the meaning that you are trying to give them.
A loan, L-O-A-N word, is a word that is borrowed from another language.
Sometimes it has a similar meaning as it does in the language that you borrow it from.
Sometimes it has a slightly different meaning.
In English, we use the French expression bon appétit. to mean have a good meal, enjoy your meal.
A cognate, C-O-G-N-A-T-E, is a word that is similar to a word in another language.
It has the same or similar sound or spelling.
So there are some words, for example, in English and Spanish that are cognates.
They mean basically the same thing.
But there are a lot of words that are what we would call false cognates.
They sound the same, but they mean something very different.
Francine says, I'm trying.
But I don't think it's turning out the way it's supposed to.
I don't think the result of doing this paraphrasing and using loan words and cognates is giving me the result we want.
Aziz says at least he, Jim, didn't ask you to interpret it.
To interpret, I-N-T-E-R, P-R-E-T, means to translate while you are speaking.
So translation refers to taking the writing and putting it in another language.
Interpretation means that the other person is speaking and then you speak, translate the meaning in your head and speak the second language.
So if you go to the United Nations, for example, they have what are called interpreters.
The interpreters interpret.
They translate orally.
Aziz said that if Francine had to interpret, she'd really be in the hot seat of.
To be in the hot seat S-E-A-T means to be in a difficult situation, a situation that would give you a lot of problems.
Francine says, yeah, at least I was spared that experience, at least for now.
To be spared.
S-P-A-R-E-D means that you don't have to experience something, usually something bad, something unpleasant.
Someone might say I'll spare you the details, meaning I won't give you all of the details because they are very painful to listen to or unpleasant to hear.
Aziz says, I wish I could help you, but the only language I speak, other than English, is gibberish.
Gibberish, G-I-B-B-E-R-I-S-H, are words that don't make any sense.
They don't have any meaning.
There are just sounds that you say and as though they were language, but in fact the words are just nonsense.
That's gibberish.
It doesn't mean anything.
Most of what I say is gibberish, I think.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Do you know the word in McQuish for partnership?
No, I don't speak McQuish.
What are you doing?
Jim gave me this letter and this document to translate into McQuish because I speak a little of it.
But even with a dictionary and thesaurus, it's slow going.
Didn't you tell Jim that?
I did, but he still wants me to try because it's so hard to find a McQuish English bilingual.
I'm not surprised.
Other than you, I don't know anyone who speaks McQuish.
Yeah well, I'm doing my best to translate these documents idiomatically, because the literal translation won't make any sense.
But it's a tough job.
I simply don't know enough business McQuish to know the equivalent words and phrases.
Can't you just paraphrase and convey the general meaning by using a lot of loan words and cognates?
I'm trying, but I don't think it's turning out the way it's supposed to.
At least he didn't ask you to interpret.
You'd really be in the hot seat trying to interpret in a meeting or over the phone.
Yeah, at least I was spared that experience.
At least for now.
I wish I could help you, but the only language I speak other than English is gibberish.
There's no gibberish in our dialogues.
That's because they're written by the one, the only, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
