| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | translating for law attorneys? Thread poster: Sophie Medina
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expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 20:57
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
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I worked between 1997-2005 as a translator and assistant in two law firms during my university studies.
After that, I participated in a job event for recently graduated translators and signed up as a freelance translator to collaborate with the Portuguese police and courts, and from there I started to meet more lawyers and clients. I don't work for courts anymore, because after a while they started paying too little and too late!
Who knows if contacting your local courts and police w... See more I worked between 1997-2005 as a translator and assistant in two law firms during my university studies.
After that, I participated in a job event for recently graduated translators and signed up as a freelance translator to collaborate with the Portuguese police and courts, and from there I started to meet more lawyers and clients. I don't work for courts anymore, because after a while they started paying too little and too late!
Who knows if contacting your local courts and police will help you to attract direct clients? I'm not sure if works, but give it a try!
Good luck 
About legal mistranslations... I remember, in one of those law firms where I worked, having to translate a service contract from English into Portuguese sent from Macau. The written English was very difficult to "decipher".
No, it wasn't "Mr Macheine Transleith" that was involved.
We had to hire the services of a fellow Chinese/English translator. In that time, repercussions of not using a professional native translator could be severe!
I think our experience as professional translators, regardless of our working languages, is the most valid evidence that texts translated by non-native speakers leads to bad translations and serious consequences, be it Chinglish, Engrish, Portuglish, etc. Also, (different) language branches play a role too.
Therefore, I do not consider Dan's statement/judgement "arrogant".
There are papers, articles, and even news about mistranslations in every corner of the world. Just to give an example: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-03/23/content_14894149.htm
But, the good thing about it is that it is only a small percentage, and we know that most is translated by native speakers.
As I see it, non-native speakers have lower linguistic competence than native speakers, which renders "their language" less reliable in conveying a message. I speak for myself only, because I translate exclusively into my native language, and I am quite happy with that!
I'm sure that pretty much of what I wrote here is Portuglish
[Edited at 2022-09-24 18:02 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-09-24 18:03 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Indeed for Japanese | Sep 24, 2022 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
I find that, in general, native speakers of Japanese are way too confident about their ability to write to a level that would be considered acceptable by native speakers of English.
These days the fashion among Japanese translation companies, and even some big direct clients, seems to be hiring the so-called bilingual Japanese who claim to be perfectly English mother-tongued. In most cases (as I was told by a Japanese translation company who balked at my claim that their English source text was not at mother tongue level) these are relatively young people who were born abroad (most of the time in USA or UK) and went to high school there, than came to Japan because their parents ended their working assignment.
I know one of these translators, who is my friend. When she speaks, she seems perfectly English native to me, but when she writes it's all another matter and even I, who I am very far from being able to write in English at a native level, am able to recognize her mistakes, some rather serious in my opinion. She told me that she did the very job of translating professionally into English for several years as soon as she came back to Japan (including copy-writing), but she got bored because it was too simple and not enough challenging for her.
When it comes to foreign languages, Japanese employers in general (including, most sadly, translation companies) are quite naive, for they firmly believe that by simply going to a foreign language university or living abroad for some years, or even many years—let alone being born abroad—is a guarantee of utmost skill and therefore perfectly acceptable in professional environments even without much translation experience. Trying to explain certain things to them is pointless, for they don't understand. For instance, they don't understand that translating too literally from Japanese is generally bad. Yet "all" Japanese-made English translations that I receive to translate into Italian are done like this. Or, they believe that I haven't translated faithfully when the number of commas in my translations doesn't match the number of commas in the English source text. I could continue with other illuminating examples.
At the end, I often find myself begging to let me translate directly from Japanese, although in most cases the situation wouldn't change much because they would still expect me to translate literally, possibly even without synonyms, which is probably the most serious attack to their quasi-maniacal quest for "consistency". And, of course, no matter how hard I try to explain, they thank me politely for my help and ask me to comply with their wishes because "we have the responsibility to provide the end client with what he expects". So much for translation quality.
[Edited at 2022-09-25 07:59 GMT]
| | | | Michael Newton 
United States
Local time: 15:57
Japanese to English
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| law attorneys | Sep 25, 2022 |
Mario, you nailed it! It's also a matter of ethnicity. Japanese feel more comfortable with people who are like themselves rather than with people who are not like themselves. Many translation agencies just cannot believe than a "gaijin" (foreigner) could ever learn to speak, read and write Japanese. It is not in their DNA. They will never change. Unfortunately, to their detriment. I remember one of my students once said: "Mr. Newton must be Jewish as only a Jew would be "zurui" (clever) enough t... See more Mario, you nailed it! It's also a matter of ethnicity. Japanese feel more comfortable with people who are like themselves rather than with people who are not like themselves. Many translation agencies just cannot believe than a "gaijin" (foreigner) could ever learn to speak, read and write Japanese. It is not in their DNA. They will never change. Unfortunately, to their detriment. I remember one of my students once said: "Mr. Newton must be Jewish as only a Jew would be "zurui" (clever) enough to learn Japanese." For the record, I am not Jewish and "zurui" has negative connotations: "tricky", "crafty", "sly". A foreigner who learns to speak Japanese fluently must have some infernal, diabolical powers that set them above regular, normal people. Also for the record, Japanese deeply resent foreigners who become fluent in their language. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:57
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Mario Cerutti wrote:
For instance, they don't understand that translating too literally from Japanese is generally bad. Yet "all" Japanese-made English translations that I receive to translate into Italian are done like this. Or, they believe that I haven't translated faithfully when the number of commas in my translations doesn't match the number of commas in the English source text.
I agree with your points Mario, but my experience is somewhat more positive than yours. Perhaps that is because I don't translate for direct clients, and the agencies and PMs with which I work are fairly sophisticated (being mostly specialists in finance, which is a global industry dominated by English).
One thing I have been banging on about for years is that English has a far lower tolerance for repetition and redundancy than Japanese. This is of course related to your point about translating without using synonyms, which would result in horrible English in many texts. Nearly every time I use a synonym I make a comment: "Using this to avoid repeating ABC; shun repetition where possible". I have noticed that my PMs are starting to accept this and to explain it to their clients.
The other thing that they have started to accept is the avoidance of odd Japanese constructions as "Balance sheet for the consolidated fiscal period XYZ". This looks innocuous enough but it is wrong. The balance sheet may be consolidated, but the period is not - it is just a measure of time. Recently I saw a note in the "standard" TM used by the agency that made this point, so I think we are making some headway. Things are getting better. Admittedly the pace of change is glacial, but this is Japan.
Ultimately, however, they who pay the piper call the tune, so I don't (usually) get upset when the end client says that they want something different.
As for Michael's point, I personally haven't found that Japanese people resent me for speaking good Japanese (and my agencies seem to accept the primacy of native speakers), but I have no doubt there are people like that out there.
Regards,
Dan
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| Couldn't agree more | Sep 25, 2022 |
Mario Cerutti wrote: Dan Lucas wrote:
I find that, in general, native speakers of Japanese are way too confident about their ability to write to a level that would be considered acceptable by native speakers of English.
These days the fashion among Japanese translation companies, and even some big direct clients, seems to be hiring the so-called bilingual Japanese who claim to be perfectly English mother-tongued. In most cases (as I was told by a Japanese translation company who balked at my claim that their English source text was not at mother tongue level) these are relatively young people who were born abroad (most of the time in USA or UK) and went to high school there, than came to Japan because their parents ended their working assignment. I know one of these translators, who is my friend. When she speaks, she seems perfectly English native to me, but when she writes it's all another matter and even I, who I am very far from being able to write in English at a native level, am able to recognize her mistakes, some rather serious in my opinion. She told me that she did the very job of translating professionally into English for several years as soon as she came back to Japan (including copy-writing), but she got bored because it was too simple and not enough challenging for her. When it comes to foreign languages, Japanese employers in general (including, most sadly, translation companies) are quite naive, for they firmly believe that by simply going to a foreign language university or living abroad for some years, or even many years—let alone being born abroad—is a guarantee of utmost skill and therefore perfectly acceptable in professional environments even without much translation experience. Trying to explain certain things to them is pointless, for they don't understand. For instance, they don't understand that translating too literally from Japanese is generally bad. Yet "all" Japanese-made English translations that I receive to translate into Italian are done like this. Or, they believe that I haven't translated faithfully when the number of commas in my translations doesn't match the number of commas in the English source text. I could continue with other illuminating examples. At the end, I often find myself begging to let me translate directly from Japanese, although in most cases the situation wouldn't change much because they would still expect me to translate literally, possibly even without synonyms, which is probably the most serious attack to their quasi-maniacal quest for "consistency". And, of course, no matter how hard I try to explain, they thank me politely for my help and ask me to comply with their wishes because "we have the responsibility to provide the end client with what he expects". So much for translation quality. [Edited at 2022-09-25 07:59 GMT]
Couldn't agree more reading your post. Japanese companies prefer bilingual Japanese trying to translate into English over English native speakers. A very weird trend, isn't it?
They even publish many books and know-how manuals exclusively for Japanese patent translators to file international patents in English, i.e. Japanese natives translating patents from Japanese to English, but I have never come across a book for the other way round.
I remember working for a Japanese company where they let the Japanese native (I was one of them) translate into English. I asked them why, and their reason and their only reason was to avoid mistranslations by misunderstanding the Japanese source text by a "non-native" Japanese! Since this company did not work on Eng-Jap pair so I cannot say for sure, but according to the logic they stated, I bet English native speakers would be translating into their non-native tongue due to the same reason as the Jap-Eng pair.
| | | | Sadek_A
Local time: 23:57
English to Arabic
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Quick note on the herein-raised side topic:
Not every native is necessarily witty & resourceful to grasp and/or deliver everything in their mother tongue.
Case In Point: I previously wrote "They like to get front seats on their conditions"; some subtle winks followed, on that structure, by some (allegedly) English natives.
Apparently, they thought I meant "get front seats according/pursuant to their conditions".
Totally unable to read the context, loc... See more Quick note on the herein-raised side topic:
Not every native is necessarily witty & resourceful to grasp and/or deliver everything in their mother tongue.
Case In Point: I previously wrote "They like to get front seats on their conditions"; some subtle winks followed, on that structure, by some (allegedly) English natives.
Apparently, they thought I meant "get front seats according/pursuant to their conditions".
Totally unable to read the context, locate keys/milestones in the text nor try to make any sense of the sentence in relation to the rest of the text, their only other choice beside winks was to ask for an explanation, which could've called their nativity into question.
The correct meaning was implied and had to do with context, keys/milestones and some cultural awareness.
Most, if not all, medical documents in my country are furnished in English, not all doctors here discuss the details with their patients, and many patients don't master English (or medical English for that matter); hence, some patients might seek for the services of a translator to get an early-bird insider knowledge into the details of their medical conditions "even before speaking to their doctors".
Therefore, vouching for someone's accuracy on sole account of their nativity is hugely lacking.
So, whether the person is translating from or into their mother tongue, there are other factors of skill that need to be taken into consideration. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:57
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Hope for the OP yet | Sep 25, 2022 |
Sadek_A wrote:
So, whether the person is translating from or into their mother tongue, there are other factors of skill that need to be taken into consideration.
Absolutely. Only, what, 5% or 1% of native speakers will write with true fluency and reach in their own language, or maybe even fewer. Probably follows something like a normal distribution, with a huge bulge around the centre that tails sharply at the edges. The fatness of those tails is a point worth pondering.
That notwithstanding, the percentage of non-native speakers writing with true fluency and reach in a language not their own is probably 2-3 orders of magnitude lower still. As a heuristic, therefore, screening out non-native speakers is probably both an effective and efficient use of time unless there are very few native speakers of the target language in the market.
That's certainly not the case in French, so - despite the earlier comment about interns obviating the need for translators that led to this branch of the topic - I think there should be a market for the OP's skills, if she can only find the right clients...
Dan
| | | | | Please bear in mind that... | Sep 25, 2022 |
Sadek_A wrote:
So, whether the person is translating from or into their mother tongue, there are other factors of skill that need to be taken into consideration.
...we are talking about Japanese translators only, whom—in general, of course—by their own admission have more difficulties than others in handling foreign languages. Probably it's a cultural thing and you may not know this, but please also understand that we speak by direct experience.
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| Same experience, at least regarding understanding written Japanese. Or maybe not. | Sep 26, 2022 |
Michael Newton wrote:
Many translation agencies just cannot believe than a "gaijin" (foreigner) could ever learn to speak, read and write Japanese.
Many agencies send me English documents translated from Japanese together with the Japanese original "just in case" I need it, adding however that Japanese takes priority. Who knows, maybe they think that I understand Japanese better than English? Or, maybe it's just because my English to Italian translation rates are cheaper than my Japanese to Italian rates. If it's really so, this is a bit crafty
| | | | Sadek_A
Local time: 23:57
English to Arabic
+ ...
Dan Lucas wrote:
Absolutely. Only, what, 5% or 1% of native speakers will write with true fluency and reach in their own language, or maybe even fewer. Probably follows something like a normal distribution, with a huge bulge around the centre that tails sharply at the edges. The fatness of those tails is a point worth pondering.
That notwithstanding, the percentage of non-native speakers writing with true fluency and reach in a language not their own is probably 2-3 orders of magnitude lower still.
There is no successful telling of the exact statistics. However, I reckon they have to be much higher than those values.
Dan Lucas wrote:
As a heuristic, therefore, screening out non-native speakers is probably both an effective and efficient use of time unless there are very few native speakers of the target language in the market.
Only if/when determined to overlook allSadek_A wrote:
other factors of skill that need to be taken into consideration
Mario Cerutti wrote:
Please bear in mind that...
...we are talking about Japanese translators only, whom—in general, of course—by their own admission have more difficulties than others in handling foreign languages. Probably it's a cultural thing and you may not know this, but please also understand that we speak by direct experience.
I bore it in mind; therefore, my post was addressing the notion in general and not targeting a specific language.
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