Winter Solstice Party \Party du solstice d'hiver

Around Christmas time, many people find various subtle and not so subtle reasons to have a party. I have just come back from a very special one called Winter Solstice Party which was organized by Helen and Keith of Capstone communications. As this is a third year that I have been invited, I thought I would share this rather original type of party with my readers.

Les deux hôtes travaillent dans le domaine du marketing et du créatif et ont établi un vaste réseau de contacts non seulement dans la ville de Markham mais également à Toronto et dans la province. Il s'agit d'un souper-partage (potluck dinner) auquel chaque invité apporte un plat de son choix. Ce soir, parmi les mets apportés par les quelques 60-70 invités, j'ai remarqué une très grande présence de suchi. Il y avait également de charcuteries, des plats aux légumes (couscous, aux fèves). Il y avait également beaucoup de trempettes, mais également des pâtisseries. du gâteau aux fruits (Christmas cake), des sablés (shortbread) de toutes formes, etc. Les tables croulaient sous la nourriture. À mesure que premiers plats se vidaient, Helen, les remplaçait par d'autres, l'un plus appétissant que le suivant. En plus des deux punchs (au vin rouge et au vin blanc), les vins de toutes origines se côtoyaient sur une table adjacente.

I remember the first time I attended a Solstice Party a few years back: I did not know what to do, what to say, how to behave. Experience has taught me to just be myself, be friendly, be curious and see to find out who the person opposite you is. It is amazing what variety of replies one gets to "And what do you do?"

Il y avait des gens d'affaires, des politiciens locaux, des amis de Helen par l'entremise du Club de femmes de l'université de Toronto, des membres de l'AIC , une foule de gens intéressants. Au cours de la soirée, j'ai renoué connaissance avec des gens que j'avais rencontré l'an dernier et qui se souvenaient de moi mais j'ai également fait connaissance de gens nouveaux.

There was the proverbial Christmas tree in the living room and the house was certainly decorated for the seaons but without any religious overkill. It was an occasion for people to renew their friendships and to make new friends. What a nice custom!

MICROSOFT PEOPLE READY/Publicité boiteuse

When Microsoft started running its People Ready advertising, I wondered immediately how they would get around the French equivalent. In my experience with an international company, we often had problems rendering a vague idea into French. Consider the tag line “It’s time”. At the beginning, it referred to the fact that it was the right time to purchase a new automobile. Then, in the subsequent years, different meanings were attributed to the words and the French creative people ran into problems of finding the equivalents (there were none to be found).

Another time, emphasis was placed on a device in the trunk of a car that would allow a small child trapped in it, to open it from the inside. I remember a whole booklet being put together where in addition to the copy, a drawing of an elephant trunk, was used. That is what killed the French. Indeed, “tronc” is the appendage of the elephant but “coffre” is the box into which one can place luggage, etc. The play on words just was not possible. You can image how lame the booklet was.

Today, I opened a French magazine (L’Actualité) and found a full-page Microsoft ad, in perfect French, which read as follows:

« Dans une entreprise people XX ready, le marketing et l’ingénierie sont sur la même longueur d’onde. »

In English, people ready appears to be a play on words. My understanding of it is that people are or become ready (and therefore productive) if they are provided the right tools (Microsoft). It took me several repeated readings of the English text to understand the message.

Why does Microsoft think French speakers (and readers) in Canada would understand the idea of “People ready” when it was left in English. If I had taken a complete French sentence and inserted an English colloquialism in the centre of it, how many French speakers would understand it?

Here is what the ad says:

« Des employés unis par des données sont des employés unis. Microsoft. Des logiciels conçus pour les entreprises où les employés sont toujours prêts. Microsoft.ca/peopleready. »

Is there a difference between people ready and ready people? There certainly is in my mind.

Bilingual creative advertising is always the result of cultural and linguistic consultation. That is why most of the ads in Quebec are rewritten in the French context, using French themes, and personalities. Microsoft fell asleep at the wheel.

Le tour du monde en moins de 80 jours/Around the world in less than 80 days

J'ai installé il y a moins d'une semaine un compteur de visites sur mon blogue et je n'arrête pas de m'émerveiller sur la variété de mes visiteurs. Le logiciel permet d'afficher les pays d'origine des lecteurs - voici ma liste :

Canada, Belgique, France, États-Unis, Malaisie, Indonésie, Australie, Argentine, Algérie et Irlande.

Je n'aurais jamais imaginé un public si vaste, dans le monde entier. Une grande partie des visites provient du programme blogger, donc une personne faisant de la cyber-recherche. Mais il y a également des recherches ponctuelles sur certaines expressions utilisées dans mes blogues. Les commentaires sont moins nombreux - je pense que les gens hésitent de s'exprimer, même s'ils peuvent le faire de façon anonyme.

Je tacherais de chroniquer ces développements dans les semaines suivantes.

Cap guns and translation/Le pistolet à amorces et la traduction

"A cap gun or cap pistol is a toy gun...

As I was reflecting upon the mechanism of translation, I remembered how fascinated I had been, when around the age 8 or 10, I received a cap pistol for Christmas. In addition to the novelty of the item and the noise it could make, I was immediately intrigued by how it worked. I had noticed several screws in the metal and proceeded to take the gun apart, revealing the springs, ratchets, and magazine for the cap tape. Over the next while, I attempted many times to put the gun back together, without success. Finally, one day, things fell literally into place and I was able to put the gun back together.

I am realizing that translation is a bit like that too, and that may be the reason that I like it so much. Indeed, one has to completely understand the message, be able to recognize its component parts, be able to see how they work with each other, and then put (back) a translated original, making sure that the parts are similar, that they work together properly, and that the whole piece holds together.

In commercial translation, one does not always have the leisure of unlimited time but a conscientious translator will demand and allow enough time to disassemble, analyze and assemble the piece again. Machine translation can remember the parts, can line them together but so far has been unable to reason and therefore to think things through.

I have read about machine translations from English to German or Danish, which stick to the English syntax (word order), therefore completely taking the German or the Danish "spirit” out of the text. It is this feeling that one has reading some of the recent translations from Chinese into English. The words are there but the meaning has been missed. Do you wish to send out messages without "feeling"? Hire a machine, it will be fast and cheap and the reader will probably be insulted. Great for repeat business!

A little zoom may be what the doctor asked for

Un collègue qui n'avait pas encore lu mon blogue m'appelé immédiatement pour me féliciter de mes efforts et me suggérer une petite modification. Celle d'agrandir la photo et de tourner le visage vers la droite, c'est-à-dire vers le texte. Voici ce qui est fait....

It appears as though my previous picture was turned away from the text and therefore the reader. A well-meaning colleague and friend suggested that I zoom it a bit and turn the face inward. You be the judge.

English Advertising/Italian song/French translation

Some time ago, a new client asked me to translate the packaging copy for one of his famous chocolate cakes. The approach was to liken chocolate to love and the vehicle used were the famous lyrics from the song “Amore” , by Dean Martin (and Perry Como fame):

"When the moon hits your eye/Like a big-a pizza pie/That's amore", "When the stars seem to shine/Like you've had too much wine/That's amore", and "When the stars make you drool/Just like pasta fazool'/That's amore."

Another panel extolled the virtues of the chocolate, using Jewish humour.

The song was well-known in Canada and in Quebec in the 50’s but appeared to exist only with the English lyrics. Translating the lyrics into French might have been a solution but the translator did not feel sufficiently qualified to write poetry in French. Using English lyrics on the French panel also felt like a no-no.

What absolutely stymied me is how to render English-Jewish humour in French (for the Montreal market).

I called the client, explained my predicament and suggested that the copy be reworked. He was disappointed and thanked me for my opinion. Several days later, he called me, thanked me for my comments and told that he had spoken with a very good, bilingual friend in Ottawa who had totally agreed with my opinion.

The translation was not done but I still had a grateful client who thanked me for helping him avoid a cultural and linguistic faux pas.

Toenail Health / La santé des orteils

Biology 101: Toenails are living tissue so they grow and need trimming. Just because the spike was removed, that did not mean it won’t regrow – it did. Fortunately, the chiropodist was monitoring the situation and was able to trim the nail again.

La solution à long terme est une chirurgie locale qui consiste à supprimer au phénol une partie de la racine fabricant la portion d’ongle qui s’incarne. Cette procédure est effectuée sous anesthésie locale, avec quasi-absence de douleur et aucune cicatrice visible.

It is amazing how much one can learn on the Internet. The procedure was explained to me in English and I was able to find the corresponding French text. A text written in the original language uses the proper syntax and wording whereas a mere translation might be stilted or take the wrong point of view.

That is the reason for having technical translations validated by an expert in the target language who can vouch for the proper tone, proper terminology and syntax. Using machine translation for this sort of copy is obviously very dangerous.