Wrong use of a technical expression/Utilisation erronée d’une expression technique

During a recent assignment, the client used the initials PTT in a quote destined for a French-speaking customer.  My preliminary research in Termium found that this meant push-to talk and gave as an equivalent “microphone button”. Unfortunately, this meaning just did not fit within the context of the piece.

Lors d’un travail récent, un client utilisa le sigle anglais PTT dans une devis destiné à un acheteur français. Dans ma première recherche, Termium a trouvé push-to-talk avec comme équivalent bouton de microphone.  Le malheur est que cette expression ne collait pas du tout dans le contexte de mon devis.

I called the client and gently asked for an explanation – to be told that it was push-to-talk. I explained then what the Canadian Govt Terminology bank had given as an equivalent – and I just could not figure out where the microphone button was. The client all of a sudden changed his tune, explained that no button existed and that this was really a modem. A device that could talk to a satellite to transmit data.

Délicatement, j’appelle le client qui m’explique qu’il s’agit d’un argot technique – push-to-talk. Je lui explique alors ce que j’avais trouvé dans Termium et que je ne savais pas où se trouvait se fameux bouton.  Il se ravise et m’explique  qu’il n’y a pas de bouton et qu’un synonyme serait le mot modem. Il s’agissait en effet d’dispositif qui peut dialoguer avec un satellite par lui communiquer des données. 

Morale : ne pas traduire ce que l’on ne comprend pas, à n’importe quel prix, dans n’importe quelles circonstances.

Moral of the story : do not translate that which you do not understand, at any price, in any circumstance.

The translator must understand/le traducteur doit comprendre

Some time ago, I was asked to translate subtitles to a sales video dealing with a somewhat technical piece of equipment. The wording was generally easy to grasp except one part where despite the words used, I just could not understand what was being said. 

Il y a quelque temps, un client m’a demandé de traduire les sous-titres d’une vidéo de ventes d’un produit d’une certaine technicité. Le vocabulaire était relativement facile sauf un passage  que je n’arrivais pas a comprendre, même si les mots en paraissaient simples.

Fortunately, I was able to speak with the author who looked at the text and explained that the English had been quickly dictated into a Speach recognition software and the essential proofreading had been missed. He quickly provided the corrected English which I immediately translated into French.

Heureusement, j’ai pu parler à l’auteur qui, ayant jeté un coup d’oeil sur le texte, s’empressa de me préciser que le texte anglais avait été dicté dans un logiciel de reconnaissance de la parole et que la révision, si essentielle, n’avait pas eu lieu. Il me fournit sur-le-champ les mots corrects ce qui me permit de vous donner une traduction immédiatement.

For a beginner translator, the temptation is great to say – the client knows what he is speaking about, who am I to question the English?  Asking for an explanation in a diplomatic way was all that it took.  How often to you speak to your translator?

Un traducteur débutant serait tenté de dire – le client sait de quoi il parle, je n’oserai pas douter de ce qu’il dit.  Une question posée de façon diplomatique apporta la réponse. Parlez-vous souvent avec votre traducteur?

Spring cleaning of telephone directory files/ Grand nettoyage des répertoires de téléphone

The directories of telephones (wired, wireless and cellular) are usually limited in space and I have found it frustrating to discover recently that one of my wireless office phone directories was full. One phone had room for some 200 entries, the other, around 50.

Having some time, I proceded to delete a whole bunch of entries - names I had not called in a couple of years, companies that no longer existed, etc. It was amazing to notice how satisfying it was to go through the exercise.

I found that writing down some of these phone numbers in a paper directory is also a good idea as your electronic file might disappear if your system crashes.

Les répertoires des deux téléphones sont différents - celui qui comprend 200 fichiers représente les numéros plus permanents, alors que le petit ne contient que les numéros que j'appelle fréquemment. Un autre avantage de ces répertoires est qu'ils permettent au téléphone d'afficher le nom de l'appellant, si ce dernier figure dans le répertoire.

Pourquoi deux téléphones? Explication très simple, je me suis aperçu que le premier, qui fonctionne sur 2,4 Ghz, créait des provoquait des parasites sur mon ordinateur sans fil, qui fonctionne sur la même fréquence. Par contre, le nouvel appareil, dont le répertoire est de 50 numéros, fonctionne sur 5,8 Ghz.

Maintenant, au tour du jardin! Now to tackle the garden!

Challenge/Powerpoint/De nouveaux sommets

A recent translation of a presentation prompted me to describe some aspects of this type of work, of which a unilingual person may not be aware. A conversation with the client revealed that the presentation might be presented in English but with the French version projected at the same time so that the participants (mostly French-speakers) would be able to follow.

Les diapositives anglaises étaient bien remplies, donc pas question de traduire textu sans rallonger la présentation. Il a donc fallu condenser pour laisser l’essentiel et retirer le bla-bla-bla.

The most effective way to translate such a document is to overwrite the English with French, not disturbing the layout and the fonts. Because French is 15 to 30% longer, some wording became hidden by the clip art illustrations. To make the French visible, I had to either shrink or move the illustrations so that they would not interfere.

Certaines traductions de titres étaient trop longues – j’ai dû les modifier et dans certains diminuer la police pour les faire entrer dans l’espace prévu.

A lengthy listing of participants included Canadian national organizations which have an official French title. I had to research their official names on the Internet and insert the new names in alphabetical order in the listing.

A chart showing a process used the words Good and Bad as legends – which of course did not allow enough space for the French – Looking outside the box, I decided to use emoticons: :-) and :-(

The spell-checking was carried out twice: first, I displayed the presentation in Outline view and copied the text unto a Word document. I then used my faithful ProLexis to carry out an extensive grammatical and spelling checks. Then I selected the whole PPT text (in Outline view), went into the Tool menu , checked language and chose French and carried out the second spell check.

L’impression finale de la présentation, en format “Handout”, m’a permis de voir la façon dont les diapos se suivent. La projection, en version Slide show, donna une vue d’ensemble.

Dave Paradi, a fellow Canadian has been sending me in the last few years his informative newsletter on ¨PowerPoint”. I have also used his book “Guide to PowerPoint” extensively. I would recommend it to any English PPT writer and to any translator.

Translation of this nature is akin to a pyramid which has to be deconstructed into its component pieces and then reassembled into its French equivalents. That is the reason I often remind my clients of a statement I borrowed from a friend and colleague of mine, Pete Peters, who worked in Quality Control at General Motors:

"Quality is never an accident: it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives."

A basic rule of punctuation

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060806.wr-rogers07/BNStory/Business/home

It looks as though Rogers lost out when the CRTC ruled that:

The agreement "shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party."

really meant that the contract:

"allows for the termination of the [contract] at any time, without cause, upon one-year's written notice,"

Another possible solution would have been to rewrite the sentence in Plain English, possibly in shorter, well-connected sentences. Asking the opinon of another person, preferably not connected with the item, might have revealed the flaw.

A technique used in translation may have helped: that of writing the original message in a two-column box and the "interpretation" in the other. Each translation unit (cluster of words connected by meaning) would appear on each side of the box and should be the same.

News for slave-drivers (Globe & Mail 28 Apr 06)

The article on page A24, says:
"Recent Windows and Mac computers ...can operate with multiple monitors, writes Ivan Berger in the New York Times. Once I saw how it improved my productivity, I was an instant convert....Survey after survey shows that ... adding an extra monitor will give your output a considerable booster - 20 to 30 per cent, according to a survey by Jon Peddie Research."

I have used two monitors for about 6 months now and can attest to this. In my case, I can display a dictionary on one monitor while my translation is shown on the other, or I can do Internet research on it. Also, because my new monitor is larger (17 in vs 14), I do not have to strain so much to see the text.

Another benefit is that while I use the main monitor for work, like when I write this blog, the second monitor shows my screen saver, in this particular case a view of the Marina Yatch Club in San Francisco, taken during my trip there in 2004.