Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by ClarityKid on December 08, 2003 at 09:37:57

In Reply to: Re: Said differently, then. . . posted by Victor Khomenko on December 07, 2003 at 12:01:45:

Victor:

The example with Asian product manuals translated by Asians into English may be laughable, but are the instructions *implementable*?
Nextly, were those components of a significantly different design than North American/European ones and translated by non-Asians, would makes you believe the reader-user's userability would be higher?

The example with the Russian's translation of the Longfellow poem is indeed surprising. It is surely an anomoly, but even you note that some wordings were "inexact" . . though you claim the tone from the Russian Russian translation *matched* the original you read years later in English.

It's a problem of Stage One getting accomplished or achieved. You can't KNOW the original text UNTIL you've felt the 'associations' that native language offers. Typically, translators (and foreign correspondents--those Whores of Journalism) never become acquainted with the Second Language/Second Culture until they are midway through their college education. That's at 20 years of age, minimally. That is not the kind of person I would care to trust a knowledge of a foreign culture or foreign text.

C.K.

"Clarity: It's a rarity."