No speaka de english

I'm exhausted. And I have fried my bilingual brain.

The news summary and analysis that we do here at Incidencia Democratica is written in 100% español. During an office meeting though, not too long ago, someone said that it would be a great idea if we could translate at least some of our materials into English, and thereby reach an even larger audience.

I was not that person.

Oh sure, I thought it was a wonderful idea. It made plenty of sense. After all, many of the people who are interested in Guatemalan current events don't actually speak Spanish. The problem was that, as I carefully looked around the room, I realized that the "we" of "we could translate" meant... me.

It was kinda obvious, what with me being the only English-speaker in the room.

The good news, I was told (once my sobbing had subsided), is that we'd be purchasing a state-of-the-art translation program from Systran Technologies to do most of the "dirty work".

Well, the program arrived and we decided that our six-page "Week in Review" should be the first document that I englishize. (I know that's not a real word. But it should be.)

I installed the program, pasted in the Spanish text, and hit the translate button.

My coworkers, gathered around my computer screen, waited in eager anticipation as the cutting edge translation software worked it's idiomatical miracle. It reached into that Spanish text and grabbed ideas, questions, criticisms, quotes, proverbs, and deeply profound (ahem) thoughts, and turned them into....

"Well?!?!" asked my anxious workmates.

"The English translation is perfect" I exclaimed, to much applause and shouts of satisfaction. "If," I interrupted, "you define 'perfect' as 'the way that Yoda of Star Wars speaks'".

Sure enough, the translation was not very bueno.

My mind reeled as I read the line: "Reasons for the fears it has, and very well."

For comparison's sake, here is a Yoda quote: "Named must your fear be before banish it you can."

Uncanny, no? Instead of englishizing, the software Yodasized our Weekly Report!

(The actual translation of "Razones para los temores hay, y de sobra" is more along the lines of "there are plenty of reasons for concern".)

The program also had a nasty habit of translating proper nouns, such as names. The governing party GANA, through some x-rated word play, became "DESIRE". Ex President and current fugitive Alfonso Portillo became "Alfonso Opening". The Minister of Economy, Marcio Cuevas, became "Caves"; and columnist Marielos Monzón turned into a "Monsoon."

And finally, there were some simply bizarre translations such as: "an elect deputy by divided X does not change large stone bench so easily."

Hmmm.

(The original phrase: "... un diputado electo por equis partido no se cambie bancada tan fácilmente" refers to a new law proposal that would keep "members of Congress from switching party alliances so easily.")

So, in the end, this first translation has been brutally grueling and very time-consuming. In all fairness to Systran, the out-of-the-box software is really just a starting point. As I work with the program, I'll be adding words and phrases to the dictionary so that future translations will closer to perfect.

And looking forward to that day I am.

Tags: Guatemala, Translation, English, Spanish, Systran

Posted by elcanche at October 25, 2005 10:39 PM