| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183] > | Should “native language” claims be verified? Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:10
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Vikki Pendleton wrote:
I think to have two native languages you really need to have been brought up bilingual.
... in which case you might end up like an Italian friend of mine who had an American mother and who recently wrote to me from Florence "settembre dovrebbe essere pronto l'appartamento..........devo fare un giro di conversazioni e poi get back to you"
What's the word for people who are bilingual and who just mix up their two languages?
Anyway - although this friend of mine speaks pretty good English, she mostly learned it from her mother and her mother's circle of friends and is not fully idiomatic and isn't really up to speed with English as it is spoken in the here and now. So her native language has to be Italian.
She used to translate from English to Italian but would have trouble translating from Italian to English.
I think there must be many people who fall into a similar category, in any language pair.
[Edited at 2012-06-21 14:56 GMT]
| | | | KKastenhuber 
Austria
Local time: 01:10
Russian to German
+ ...
| questioning native language dogmas | Jun 21, 2012 |
Tom in London wrote: Oliver Walter wrote:
I suppose it's possible for a person to have no native language. Indeed - I hadn't thought of that, although it's quite common. There are other problematic examples. Take the case of Joseph Conrad, who always spoke Engish with a marked Polish accent but is one of the greatest writers in the English language. [Edited at 2012-06-21 14:25 GMT]
... or Svetlana Geier, who, as a native Russian, translated Dostoyevsky into German and whose translations are said to be nothing short of brilliant.
I agree with what has been said about some people's multiple native language claims being quite ridiculous. On the other hand, I think there's a lot of demystification to be done when it comes to the actual value of so called native skills in translation.
E.g., what does "using a language on a daily basis" mean? Thinking in it? Watching TV? Conversing with other native speakers/learners? And why would this be a criterion for being a native speaker? I know when I lived in Brazil I'd sometimes not "use" my German (i.e. speak, write, listen, read) for several weeks in a row, but I doubt that means I gave up being a native speaker then. Also, not being in touch with your native language for a couple of years or even decades might disqualify you for some translation jobs, but surely not for all of them!
Also, I realize I may be coming out as an oddball saying this on a forum like ProZ.com, but I don't think that it's even necessary to exclusively translate into one's native language, at least not in certain fields and/or language pairs. For speakers of less widely used/taught languages, inverse translation is an economical necessity. And for some of the more standardized text types, it has actually proved to even be beneficial (of course on condition that the translator has strong foreign language skills).
I'm also tired of reading job announcements that rely on native target language skills as the sole qualification criterion. Clearly there's more to translation than having a mother tongue!
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Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote: Charlie Bavington wrote:
Yours, resignedly.... didn't win women the vote or abolish slavery.
True dat. May I point you in the direction of the serenity prayer? In order to broaden its appeal, I'll secularise it thuswisely:
May common sense grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
(In brief, disregarding the huge discrepancy in the significance of the issues, there is also substantial difference in the procedures governing, and long-term likelihood of, change.)
Meanwhile, feel free to compare me (or anyone else!) unfavourably to the leader of the Third Reich if you want to play a spot of forum bingo.
(see Godwin's Law)
FWIW, I do see this issue as being one that seems to mainly rile translators into English from FIGS, and the impression that English speakers are trying to protect their turf seems hard to avoid. We wouldn't want a rule just for us, would we? Or would we?
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 19:10
Spanish to English
+ ...
| In the end, exceptions are.....just exceptions | Jun 21, 2012 |
KKastenhuber wrote: Tom in London wrote: Oliver Walter wrote:
I suppose it's possible for a person to have no native language. Indeed - I hadn't thought of that, although it's quite common. There are other problematic examples. Take the case of Joseph Conrad, who always spoke Engish with a marked Polish accent but is one of the greatest writers in the English language. [Edited at 2012-06-21 14:25 GMT] ... or Svetlana Geier, who, as a native Russian, translated Dostoyevsky into German and whose translations are said to be nothing short of brilliant. I agree with what has been said about some people's multiple native language claims being quite ridiculous. On the other hand, I think there's a lot of demystification to be done when it comes to the actual value of so called native skills in translation. E.g., what does "using a language on a daily basis" mean? Thinking in it? Watching TV? Conversing with other native speakers/learners? And why would this be a criterion for being a native speaker? I know when I lived in Brazil I'd sometimes not "use" my German (i.e. speak, write, listen, read) for several weeks in a row, but I doubt that means I gave up being a native speaker then. Also, not being in touch with your native language for a couple of years or even decades might disqualify you for some translation jobs, but surely not for all of them! Also, I realize I may be coming out as an oddball saying this on a forum like ProZ.com, but I don't think that it's even necessary to exclusively translate into one's native language, at least not in certain fields and/or language pairs. For speakers of less widely used/taught languages, inverse translation is an economical necessity. And for some of the more standardized text types, it has actually proved to even be beneficial (of course on condition that the translator has strong foreign language skills). I'm also tired of reading job announcements that rely on native target language skills as the sole qualification criterion. Clearly there's more to translation than having a mother tongue!
Trudging out Conrad and Nabokov to support the notion that non-native speakers can become fully viable professional translators into their source languages is like pointing to Grandma Moses as proof that persons with no artistic training can become painters of world renown if they make their first efforts in their 70s.
These individuals are rare exceptions. In the case of the world of translation, they are very rare exceptions indeed. They do not invalidate the general rule, and should not be used to support continued fraudulent claims of native-claiming subliterates who, I think we can all agree, are certainly no Conrads....
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Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Should greater controls be put in place to cut down on the number of false claims?
How?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:10
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Robert Forstag wrote:
These individuals are rare exceptions. In the case of the world of translation, they are very rare exceptions indeed. They do not invalidate the general rule, and should not be used to support continued fraudulent claims of native-claiming subliterates who, I think we can all agree, are certainly no Conrads....
Well - indeed.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:10
Hebrew to English
| Mind reading | Jun 21, 2012 |
Robert, you read my mind. These exceptions only prove the rule, not disprove it.
As for turf protecting - I think that's partially true. I don't translate from FIGS, but I do frequently feel the need to protect not only my "turf", but also my native language as well....which is thoroughly abused by this breed of translators who falsly claim to be native.
Don't get me wrong, there are some really great HE>EN translators who aren't native English speakers, but they also ... See more Robert, you read my mind. These exceptions only prove the rule, not disprove it.
As for turf protecting - I think that's partially true. I don't translate from FIGS, but I do frequently feel the need to protect not only my "turf", but also my native language as well....which is thoroughly abused by this breed of translators who falsly claim to be native.
Don't get me wrong, there are some really great HE>EN translators who aren't native English speakers, but they also tend to be the ones who are at least honest enough not to claim to be native in English. In my experience, the more vehemently someone protests that English is native to them, the more obvious it is in their output that it isn't. ▲ Collapse
| | | | KKastenhuber
Austria
Local time: 01:10
Russian to German
+ ...
| what it all boils down to ... | Jun 21, 2012 |
Robert Forstag wrote:
Trudging out Conrad and Nabokov to support the notion that non-native speakers can become fully viable professional translators into their source languages is like pointing to Grandma Moses as proof that persons with no artistic training can become painters of world renown if they make their first efforts in their 70s.
These individuals are rare exceptions. In the case of the world of translation, they are very rare exceptions indeed. They do not invalidate the general rule, and should not be used to support continued fraudulent claims of native-claiming subliterates who, I think we can all agree, are certainly no Conrads....
I mostly agree, but what it all boils down to is that
a) giving truthful information about one's native language is more a question of honesty about one's skills and not about the definition of the word "native language".
b) translating out of one's native language is, IMHO, not dogmatically to be frowned upon (see my above post). Obviously this doesn't mean it's acceptable to lie about one's native language(s).
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Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 19:10
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Limited bilingualism | Jun 21, 2012 |
Oliver Walter wrote:
[Using that definition, I suppose it's possible for a person to have no native language. Suppose, for example, a person is born and brought up in one language until the age of about 3 or 4, then lives in a different family (adopted?) in a country with a different language. For that person there is then no language to which the above definition would apply!
I think that in this situation, the person would effectively be native in the second language by the age of about 10, but not satisfying the definition. Yes, it's a deliberately contrived case, but it could happen.
Oliver
I think that a somewhat analogous example applies to millions of Spanish-speaking adults in the US who grew up speaking Spanish daily, but never learned the language formally while (because of poor school systems and other socioeconomic factors) never really mastered English either.
Can such individuals be called bi-lingual? Yes, but only in a highly qualified sense, and not in terms that come close to reflecting the ability to become viable professional translators within this language pair, in either direction.
[Edited at 2012-06-21 15:40 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:10
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Robert Forstag wrote:
Can such individuals be called bi-lingual? Yes, but only in a highly qualified sense, and not in terms that would qualify them as viable professional translators within this language pair, in either direction.
Something similar happens here- on my street there are middle-aged refugees from Bosnia, Somalia, etc. who keep themselves to themselves and who speak their native languages amongst themselves. But their kids go to English-speaking schools and are bilingual. After a generation or two (as we've seen with earlier waves of immigrants) their children's mother tongue is English and they become captains of industry, Members of Parliament, etc. They could certainly translate into English.
Vive la différence !
[Edited at 2012-06-21 15:41 GMT]
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 00:10
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| In my experience, | Jun 21, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
In my experience, the more vehemently someone protests that English is native to them, the more obvious it is in their output that it isn't.
they're the ones who declare they "speak very well English".
| | | | hazmatgerman (X)
Local time: 01:10
English to German
| howdy folks, | Jun 21, 2012 |
to get this through vetting I'll stick to supporting everything
Charlie Bavington wrote:
, indicated, had in mind, or has not mentioned re probability of "we can".
hazmatgerman
[Edited at 2012-06-21 15:44 GMT]
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Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 19:10
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Different phenomena | Jun 21, 2012 |
Tom in London wrote: Robert Forstag wrote:
Can such individuals be called bi-lingual? Yes, but only in a highly qualified sense, and not in terms that would qualify them as viable professional translators within this language pair, in either direction. Something similar happens here- on my street there are middle-aged refugees from Bosnia, Somalia, etc. who keep themselves to themselves and who speak their native languages amongst themselves. But their kids go to English-speaking schools and are bilingual. After a generation or two (as we've seen with earlier waves of immigrants) their children's mother tongue is English and they become captains of industry, Members of Parliament, etc. They could certainly translate into English. Vive la différence ! [Edited at 2012-06-21 15:40 GMT]
I'm familiar with this pattern also, but the phenomenon I'm describing is radically different.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:10
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | That's the point of this thread | Jun 21, 2012 |
Charlie Bavington wrote: Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Should greater controls be put in place to cut down on the number of false claims? How?
To thrash it out. What we have so far is:
1) People should only be allowed to declare one native language. However, this doesn't tackle the issue of reportedly large numbers in the NL/DE>EN language pair who mysteriously change their (sole) native language to English.
2) We should be able to report non-native speakers claiming to be so.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an inordinate amount of policing (of grown-ups) required on this site and I think we're all agreed it's borne of an open-door policy which has got out of control.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:10
Hebrew to English
KKastenhuber wrote:
b) translating out of one's native language is, IMHO, not dogmatically to be frowned upon (see my above post). Obviously this doesn't mean it's acceptable to lie about one's native language(s).
I don't think anyone here would seriously advocate a blanket ban on all translation done by a non-native speaker of the target language. We are all aware of the arguments for this scenario: dealing with specific texts which require a native speaker of the source language, dealing with languages of "limited diffusion", dealing with situations in which no relay opportunity exists etc.
However, these scenarios represent the unusual, in most cases here, none of these arguments apply and non-native speakers of the target language are performing translations under the guise of being a native speaker.
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