Lost (and Found) in Translation 2 - English

As a Brazilian, my sense of humor is a crucial cultural factor deeply ingrained in my personality. You can say anything about Brazil, but we always laugh a lot, and basically, at everything. To laugh at what you do and what you work with is one of the most common things in my country. It is seriously difficult not to laugh at my colleagues, and, mainly, at myself. In this context, laughing at poor translations is a constant occurrence. And that is not exclusive to translators and peers; when a translation is poorly done, it is noted by others as something wrong, inadequate, and can damage the company's image related to such translations. I love Mox's blog, so I bring up another comic from him to you, about this subject:

Much is blamed on the use of Google Translate as the culprit of this type of problem. That is just as false as blaming Photoshop for the lack of curve (and excess cellulite) on Beyonce, or blaming Excel (or another numeric processing software) for the fall of an overpass. The problem is the part between the keyboard and the chair back. It is this "part" that doesn't know that mango (manga in Portuguese), a fruit, is not "sleeve" (as in a shirt's sleeve, one of the mistranslations, among other possibilities), and names mango juice "sleeve juice." The software is there to help, not to do the task. Only a well-trained, experienced professional, with a trained judgment and ever-updating knowledge, will have an idea of how to bring this to the other side, without war losses. While thinking about this, trying to understand how much this type of "problem" affects companies, looking for some figures, numbers, which could give me an idea of the impact that inadequate translation, or even incorrect translation, can cause, I found this report below (from Nellip's website)

Quantifying Quality Costs and the Cost of Poor Quality in Translation – Quality Efforts and the Consequences of Poor Quality in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation

The report applies to the DGT (Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission). Still, the processes of risk control, internal evaluations, and, primarily, the assessment of losses caused by inadequate or incorrect translations are thorough and provide a valuable source of information, interesting to both agencies and translators themselves. This site contains a wealth of information to be extracted. I say goodbye to you with a hug, until the next newsletter.

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