Salome, this is Piyali Ganguly, and my question is, to whom may I direct some of the errors I find in translations? Thank you very much.
Errors in Translations
7 days later
Hi Piyali, Are you talking about errors in the Contact Reports on the FOM Website, or some other articles?-Scott
20 days later
- Edited
Salome Scott. I apologise for the late response.
I have been entrusted with reading the English translation from CR1 - CR10 from the FOM website, for a FIGU project headed by FIGU Core group member, Michael Voigtländer. Bob Foster is doing the Voice Over for Billy and I am the Voice Over for Semjase. I have been told by Michael, when I brought up issue, that since these CRs are "Authorised and Official", I am to read exactly as it is translated and that the errors can be fixed later.
The problem is, as a native English speaker myself (English is the one of the two national languages of India apart from Hindi and the fact that it was once a British colony), it has been a real challenge to read badly constructed English sentences with mistakes in the translations. As it is, translating the German into English is a very difficult endeavour, and hence sometimes the English may sound strange. I get this. However, to read sentences with glaring mistakes and sentences that read choppily is difficult, and I am a worried that this being an audio, mistakes cannot be changed easily, as easily as it can be changed in the written format. So, I need someone with whom I can consult before reading sentences that sound too odd or sentences that contain errors that require looking into. Can you help?
Thank you very much.
[unknown] Hello Arthur, I'll look into this
Thanks
Piyali I do know exactly what you speak of Piyali my lovely darling, I know this because so very few in the whole world so far have ever as yet transcribed the text into a verbal speech and then with the further aim of a high quality performance, aligned with the oxbridge bodleians. It has nearly always been short excerpts mixed into a commentary radio show, or video commentary extracts, or with the use of machine algorithms. Most of the people reading the english are not speakers of english as you say, so they, with respect, blinded to the reality of how an english speaker actually talks with a muscle in the throat vibrating up and down, most of these people, bless them, once spoke to an english speaker over the video conference that one time or at that train station one time.
We did used to have translations on the FOM website which had been refined by human beings over about 10 years of refinement, but a few years ago it was all overwritten by a machine learning algorithm then swiftly and promptly authorised as an officially approved translation, all before an actual english speaker had come along and properly critiqued the work, which won't be happening again because last time this occurred they didn't like it. They collectively expressed rejection at the words stemming from the old-french portion of the standard modern english, because they hold a special agenda which they don't offer up to the general public and this is the promotion of the german language, they don't particularly like that the english language is capable of as much if not more than it, because they've already decided and its disadvantaged an around fifteen hundred million person potential audience. Anyway ought to cut that conversation short because enough has been said.
It is possible to make the FIGU texts flow smoothly and be grammatically correct, punctuated correctly and possible to read them as if they have been written by a good writer. However, extensive revision of the texts has to occur, this means reforming the whole sentences and moving content around other way in some cases, and then selecting words that correspond better to the german equivalence, this is a big big work. I tried this with a 10 minute video presentation, it required extensive reworking of all the text, and then again and again, several weeks of work to revise it so that it could be read well.
My advice is to read it as best you can, and read it as its written, as if quoting the text, this means its not being read from the heart and its not got the rhythm that it could have but its at the end of the day written by a german speaker, translated by a robot, and now its being dumped on you and you're not allowed to make reasonable adjustments. So, as I say, do it as best you can, work with what you have got.