Never Without My Translator

Hi everyone,

Here is an article I like!

-> 20 Minutes Paris April 26, 2013, go to page 14.

The article I'm speaking about is "Jamais sans mon traducteur" (strangely it's on page 20 of my paper issue and on page 14 of the PDF - Anyway!)

4 French writers: Katherine Pancol, Yasmina Khadra, Amélie Nothomb & Gwenaëlle Aubry, were asked about their relationship with their translators.
I do like this article because it illustrates the importance of culture in a language.
I can read that the exchanges between writers and translators differ according to the destination language: the southern Europe language translators: Italians, Spanish, Romanians, don't have big problems as these people have the same view of things as we; as for northerners, their approach to sexuality, for example, is very different.
Katherine Pancol says the link with her American translator is very strong. He respects her energy, style, music, without translating word for word, he writes for American ears.
The translator must know the writer very well.
Amélie Nothomb adds "Translating me gives her access to what I am".

I didn't report above every part of the article so, please, read it.

We are not professionals but...
Beyond a level in the language, after a certain threshold, we directly think in the destination language and it is necessary.
Impossible to think in French and translate word for word as we have to build the sentence differently, to sometimes soften words (because it would be e.g. too aggressive, etc.)
I don't know if you have a good experience of immediate translating (I mean observed a professional interpretor) but a pro begins the translation of the sentence, then has to go back and change words to use another more appropriate one as they could better understand the true intention/meaning, etc. very impressive because they do this very quickly - fortunately the guy at the mike (casual for microphone) with the experience of international speeches knows he has to speak slowly and explain, and tell jokes, etc.

Again, to properly speak a foreign language, we have to learn the culture of the people: their way to think, their casual expressions, a bit of their history, the recent news and the talking of the day, etc.

Hi Gérard, everyone
That 's the reason why it is much more interesting to watch films in VO. Almodovar's films translated into French lose flavour and jean Gabin can't be translated into English.

Hi Muriel,

MurielB a écrit:... watch films in VO...

Yes and to appreciate them, it is absolutely necessary to know a lot about cultural facts.
In return watching in original version teaches oodles of things.

Hi everyone,

An article about computerized translation:

-> Traduction juridique automatique : plus rapide, moins chère, mais est-elle meilleure et sans danger pour les cabinets d'avocats ?