The Sunday Review, 01/05/2011

What a wet day it is here in Kraków! Still, rainy days are a great excuse to stay at home and relax, and if you're in-between jobs at the time, so much the better. Today, being both wet and work-free, means that I can sit down and write the weekly review at leisure.

There are a couple of things I wanted to discuss with you about our Bad Article. The first is to review the kind of stuff we're doing here. As we enter our fourth month together, regular readers will know that most of the entries so far have been our little translating 'issues' - mis-use of words, correct use of punctuation, formatting stuff, all that kind of thing. These are the meat and potatoes of the blog, and the articles and other more abstract posts are the vegetables and gravy. I'm not sure where the wine is, I ordered it ages ago but it still hasn't appeared. Anyway.

The thing about our 'issue' posts is that, from my point of view, they're equally applicable to all translators, regardless of age, rank or experience. But I'm also aware that we need to do some more 'hardcore' stuff too, because some of you will not be affected by the simpler stuff. So, in future, I'm going to try and be a bit more proactive and take the time to prepare some heavier stuff. From what I've heard from you all so far, good article usage is of key interest, so as of next week we're going to start a regular series on this topic. Don't expect fireworks all at once; I'm thinking this will be more of  a slow romance, albeit with lots of flowers and nights out at the opera.

On the same note, I had always envisaged doing more of the abstract vegetables too, and although I geed you all up for some interviews and guest columnists, so far we've only heard from our media translator, Dotty. Well, I'm also planning on introducing some opinion pieces, where we take a more 'behind the scenes' look at the translating world. These will be based on my own experience, and I'd encourage you to agree or disagree on those pieces. With a very gruby work commitment now clearing up, I'll have more time to sort all this lovely stuff for you too.

Finally, I'd just like to reiterate that if you have a gmail address, or a Google account of any sort, you can use that to 'sign in' here and leave comments, which are always welcome. Remember, this is your blog too, so don't be shy about telling me what you want doing with it! :) 

So, let's proceed through wiosna to letnia with a spring in our step, and look forward to some variation in our diet at Chez Article. For now though, it's time to relax a little before Monday arrives to clobber us all once again...

TTFN,

Jim :) 

appreciate - cooperate

appreciate

1a) The movie has already been appreciated by both critics and cinema-goers.

1b) The movie has already been acclaimed by both critics and cinema-goers.

1c) The movie has already been lauded by both critics and cinema-goers.

1d) The movie has already been applauded by both critics and cinema-goers.

Much like offer, appreciated is one of those all-purpose, one-word-does-all jobs that is over-used in our En translations. Possibly it is a much more flexible and versatile word in Polish, but in English it is rather more specific and has a much more limited use, particularly as here, in its past-tense form. (1b, c, d) are all great synonyms, but note that (1c) can (but not strictly) have a slightly more official meaning, in that our film may have won some prizes or something.

cooperate

An old favourite, and as with all these funky things, it can never be repeated too often or stressed too much: cooperate is over-used, and also has certain undesirable connotations. ‘You will cooperate with us Mr. Proofreader. We know where your family lives...’ Fortunately, it’s really easy to fix:

2a) As the leading Polish manufacturer of aerospace components, we cooperate with the biggest spaceship factories in the USA.

2b) As the leading Polish manufacturer of aerospace components, we work with the biggest spaceship factories in the USA.

3a) We guarantee the high quality of our cat flaps by cooperating with only ISO-approved flap component manufacturers.

3b) We guarantee the high quality of our cat flaps because we work with only ISO-approved flap component manufacturers.

4a) We welcome you to/for cooperation!

4b) We're waiting for your call! / We welcome all enquiries / etc etc, itd, itp, blah blah...

OED Definition

1- (mass noun) the action or process of cooperating.¹

2- Cooperate: (v) work jointly towards the same end (also ¹); assist someone or comply with their requests.

Note: If you ever find yourself writing (4a), you should strongly consider sitting down with an English dictionary and a bottle of wine, and not getting up again until one or both are finished... ;)

(although I have a book of Polish verb tables that, if I spent more time with it and less time with bottles of wine, I might actually be able to make more sense in Polish... :D)

Format C:\ Dates

Dates are unavoidable, unless you’re not showering and changing your pants regularly, or you already have a Mister or Mrs. Translator in your life. Wait a second, wrong blog.

Dates are unavoidable, mostly because knowing the date is very handy and lots of people insist on putting them in their documents. As with most languagey things, different countries write dates in different ways, so in this, the first of our formatting and punctuation items, we’re going to look and see how they’re done in the English-speaking world.

Commonly, many translators overlook small details like formatting of numbers and dates, and so I see a lot of this kind of thing in PL>EN translations:

1a     Warsaw, 26.09.2005r.         
2a     London, 26 September 2005
3a     The next meeting will be held on 26 September, at 5pm.
4a      2011/02/28

5a     (Journal of Laws of 2007r. No. 223, item 1655)

Ideally, I should be seeing this:

1b     Warsaw, 26/09/2005
2b     London, 26th September 2005
3b     The next meeting will be held on the 26th of September, at 5pm.
4b     28/02/2011

5b     (Journal of Laws of 2007 No. 223, item 1655)

As with many such formatting issues, it’s fairly simple to fix them, or not do them in the first place, and perhaps this is the problem. When one’s brain is full of complex linguistic issues and solutions, something small and biedny like the difference between a full stop and a solidus      is easy to overlook. Try to remember anyway, because as I will often say here, there will be many times (if not most of the time) when you’ll only have your own checks standing between you and FAIL if a particularly edgy client or uptight agency coordinator spots an error and doesn’t like it. Here are the fixes then:

Remember to change the full stops in dates to solidii (1). Add a 'th' or 'st' as appropriate when the date is given at top of a letter or document (2). This improves the reading flow, is stylistically correct, and just sounds right. I say that because those tiny contractions are actually spoken sounds too, and if we’re writing in full, we must reproduce all the sounds of the spoken version (unless the speaker was choking on a biscuit at the time).

In full sentences, where a date is specified, we must write the date out as fully as possible, using ‘the’, ‘of’ and the speaker’s th or st after the number. (3) If you’re writing for American readers, you can leave it all out though as our trans-Atlantic friends are not as fussy as the Brits about such niceties.

Again, this is okay for American English, but British English puts the date in ascending order – day, month, year (4). This is a small point which is actually part of a much larger and more interesting topic, that of when and where to use US or UK English. We’ll come to that in a later article, but for now my basic advice is to use the UK date order if you’re writing for Australians, Brits or Europeans. Not sure about Canadians, they may or may not like it UK-style too. If anyone knows for sure, feel free to comment below or drop me an email.

Finally, a very specific thing – it’s all too easy to overlook the occasional r. on your years, esp. In large bodies of text or in a (Dz.U. blah blah blah) (5). Keep your head windows peeled for lurking roks!

If you can accommodate any of this advice in your translating routine, it will soon become second nature and will be one less thing for moaning, un-datable people to cry about, and one more thing guaranteeing you a few more pennies for your work. And that’s no bad thing is it?