Should “native language” claims be verified?

Nicole Schnell wrote:




I, as a native German speaker refuse to do high-end translation into Austrian or Swiss German. I hire natives or hire native editors from Austria or Switzerland respectively. I can NOT do it by myself. Just as a Brit can not deliver proper American English and vice versa.

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

I can't mention names here, however a short visit to the translators application page on an expressive number of outsourcers' web sites will show that they won't accept anyone working into any language other than their native one.

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

... consider them native German speakers as distinguished from any non-native German speaker. You're not going to give the job to a French native speaker if you want a German native speaker.

But I wouldn't say that lots of jobs for Germany couldn't be done by "Austrians" (who are professional translators) and vice versa.

B

[Edited at 2012-09-09 00:44 GMT]

Ambrose Li wrote:



This is so true. And it does affect translation quality—quite negatively in fact, which is probably not what they intended to do.

Nicole Schnell wrote:

However, if you want do consider all kinds of German in different countries just "German", then you also have to eliminate all different variants of English and call AE, BE, Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English and whatnot just "English", even if they don't understand each other.

Nicole Schnell wrote:



You edited your original post.

However, if you want do consider all kinds of German in different countries just "German", then you also have to eliminate all different variants of English and call AE, BE, Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English and whatnot just "English", even if they don't understand each other.

Phil Hand wrote:

@Ambrose

OK, so this is a valid point, if true. Finally we get to a reasonable argument over this whole idea.

1) Do you have any evidence? -- and you know that "I once saw a bad translation by a native English speaker" is not sufficient evidence for what you're claiming. I'm talking about something which shows that real problems are being caused by this policy, when a better policy would easily solve them. (I'm asking in good faith - personal opinions, anecdotes, I'm interested to hear why you think this.)

2) Do you think that Proz allowing widespread misinformation on user profiles is a good response to this problem? Would some education of the agencies not be better?

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

Do you really believe that?


I strongly disagree. I believe the request for native speakers is well founded.

You really think having a true native Chinese speaker with the appropriate experience will negatively affect the quality of his/her translation into Chinese?

Is it really your opinion that native speakers who are experienced translators will deliver poorer results than non-native translators?
I'm talking about the honest type.

Ambrose Li wrote:

Yes, I do really believe that. Strike that. I don’t believe that per se; I know that to be true because that’s my own situation. I translate much worse when I translate into my own native language. (But then the situation with my native language is a bit complicated.)

Ambrose Li wrote:
But what I’m disagreeing with really isn’t the request for native speakers, per se, but the refusal to consider non-natives.

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
You really think having a true native Chinese speaker with the appropriate experience will negatively affect the quality of his/her translation into Chinese?

Is it really your opinion that native speakers who are experienced translators will deliver poorer results than non-native translators?
I'm talking about the honest type.

Ambrose Li wrote:
That’s not my argument, but since you brought it up, let me just say that the situation with Chinese is way more complicated than that with English. So I’d be tempted to say, given sufficient experience, yes, a truly competent L2 Chinese speaker can translate better than a random L1 Chinese speaker into Chinese, given it’s the right kind of Chinese, of course.

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

I was referring to native Chinese speakers - my definition for native speaker was along the lines of having grown up and attended schools in a Chinese-speaking society and having continuously used Chinese throughout one's life.

[…]

I wouldn't argue that. What I'm arguing is that a native Chinese translator with experience (= truly competent), not a random native speaker of Chinese, will probably do a better job than a non-native speaker, especially if that non-native speaker claims to be native (= is lying).

Ambrose Li wrote:


The complication with Chinese is that, referring back to an earlier comment you wrote, it is entirely possible for native speakers from different regions to literally not understand each other.

If we’re talking about the written language (which is what we should be talking about since we’re talking about translation and not interpretation) things get much better, but these regional variations still cannot be disregarded.

So one specific combination which will make my claim true would be a competent translator native in one variety of Chinese translating into a foreign variety of Chinese (random = picking a competent native translator from a random geographic region and/or disregarding the translator’s native “dialect”, misunderstanding the difference between spoken speech, the written language, regional variations, and writing system differences, etc., things that agencies actually do if you take their job postings literally), versus a non-native translator that’s competent in the correct variety of Chinese. I wouldn’t say the non-native will be the better translator, but you just can’t say the native translator must always be the better translator. The non-native delivering a better translation would then be a distinct possibility. Probably still unlikely, but not impossible.

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

You're saying when people from different Chinese regions try to SPEAK to each other, they might not understand each other's speech at all. So, there is no common standard spoken Chinese language between them. I would then treat these spoken languages not as variantsof Chinese but as separate languages, similar to the difference between Dutch and German which belong to the "Germanic" language group but are separate languages.

You say when it concerns the WRITTEN word, the difference between regions isn't as bad - you said "things get much better, but these regional variations still cannot be disregarded." If they cannot be disregarded and are different enough to establish that there is no common standard that would be understood, then I would also break it up in different languages, not just variants. (I would never suggest that for English or German).

If you do that, you can apply again our concept of native language.

You could call yourself rightly a native speaker of Chinese Language A but not of Chinese Language B (or C or D whereby spoken languages could be languages onto themselves, important when it comes to interpreting).

Ambrose Li wrote:

Your understanding is quite correct; I’d say this is probably how a lot of (but not all) true native Chinese speakers would understand it.

But there is another complication: To simplify things a bit, let’s say there are just two Chinese languages, A and B. The spoken forms of A and B are not mutually intelligible. However, the standard written form of A is B. In other words, you could say that native speakers of A always write in a foreign language.

(Since the spoken and written forms of B are both B, native speakers of B are free to use colloquialisms, which can be unintelligible to native speakers of A. This is one reason why regional differences still can’t be disregarded.)

Now if an outsourcer comes along and asks for a “native speaker of B”, is it lying if a native speaker of A comes and say they are a native “speaker” of B? Technically speaking it is, but unless the outsourcer specifies the geographic region, the translator is in fact really a native “speaker” of a written form of B.

To exaggerate it a bit, to ask for a translation into an unspecified variant of Chinese is the same as asking for a translation into B. That means, technically, it is misleading for any native speaker of Chinese language other than variant B to claim to be a native speaker of Chinese, even though the claim is factually true.

(Of course, the reverse is also true: to ask for a translation into an unspecified variety of B is identical to asking for a translation into an unspecified form of “Chinese.” Technically speaking this is true, but in practice making such a claim would be construed as “misleading” or outright lying.)

So—short of massive outsourcer re-education—how do you define lying in languages like this?

Edited for typo.

[Edited at 2012-09-09 04:12 GMT]

Ambrose Li wrote:
But there is another complication: To simplify things a bit, let’s say there are just two Chinese languages, A and B. The spoken forms of A and B are not mutually intelligible. However, the standard written form of A is B. In other words, you could say that native speakers of A always write in a foreign language.

Ambrose Li wrote:
(Since the spoken and written forms of B are both B, native speakers of B are free to use colloquialisms, which can be unintelligible to native speakers of A. This is one reason why regional differences still can’t be disregarded.)

Ambrose Li wrote:
Now if an outsourcer comes along and asks for a “native speaker of B”, is it lying if a native speaker of A comes and say they are a native “speaker” of B? Technically speaking it is, but unless the outsourcer specifies the geographic region, the translator is in fact really a native “speaker” of a written form of B.