This is a guest post by by Ann Marie Boulanger, M.A., Certified Translator (FR-EN). Ann Marie is a Quebec-based French to English translator.
Seen any unicorns lately? Me neither!
Extremely rare is the translator who can translate back and forth seamlessly in the same language combination, producing texts that audiences in either language would never suspect had been translated. Unicorn-rare, Iâd venture to say. Conversely, translators who actually do so and claim to produce work of equal quality in both languages are a dime a dozen.
Unicorns asideâbecause, really, has anyone ever proven they donât exist?âIâm going to make the bold and probably controversial statement that a translator should only translate into their native language.
Among the bidirectional translators Iâve encountered over the years, the number-one argument I hear in support of their translation practice is that theyâre fluently bilingual. Yet, weâre all familiar with the eyeâroller of the âbilingual secretaryâ whom clients constantly cite as their go-to translator, right? So, letâs state the obvious: Being bilingual doesnât make you a translator. But, hereâs something a little less obvious: Being a translator doesnât qualify you to translate from language A to language B, and from language B to language A.
The role of culture in translation
Too often overlooked in the translation equation is the element of culture. In Translation Studies, Fourth Edition, translation theorist Susan Bassnett makes this elegant analogy: âIn the same way that the surgeon, operating on the heart, cannot neglect the body that surrounds it, so the translator treats the text in isolation from the culture at his or her perilâ (2014, 25). This means that the translator must not only have absolute mastery of the language of their target audience, but also an intimate understanding of the culture of that audience. For this to occur, the prevailing wisdom is that a translator should ideally have been born and raised in the target language and culture, or at the very least, almost completely immersed in it from birth.
I offer myself up as a prime example. I was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, to an Anglophone mother and a Francophone father, making me fluently bilingualâenough to succeed at being a translator, anyways. However, English is my mother tongue (they donât call it that for nothing!), and I was raised in an Americanâinfluenced, AngloâQuebec cultural context. That means that all of my media consumption (television, radio, movies, books, newspapers, magazines) has always been predominantly in English. And while Iâve spent my whole life straddling the provinceâs linguistic divide and have always been aware of Francophone QuĂ©bĂ©cois cultural phenomena playing out in the background of my everyday life, I remain firmly planted in the English-speaking world. I am somewhat embarrassed to say that QuĂ©becâs star systĂšme of celebrities, and its cultural scene in general, is a virtual mystery to me, and to many of my Anglophone peers, for that matter.
What Iâm not embarrassed to say is that, even though I may speak, read and understand French at a high level, I do not write impeccably in French. I mean, Iâm okay. Better than average, actually, and better even than many native Francophones in Quebec. But, would I ever attempt to translate into French? Jamais! Number one, I do notâand will neverâwrite like a native speaker who grew up immersed in the French language, with all the elegance and refinement that implies. And number two, I am lacking the Franco-QuĂ©bĂ©cois cultural background that would give my translations credibility and authenticity. Point final.
When the client asks…
Itâs fine for a translator to say they have native-level proficiency in their second language, and, hey, they just might. Thereâs not a lot that canât be learned and perfected. However, translating into a language in the absence of a solid grounding in the culture of that language is like walking a tightrope without a safety net. You can string the words together in grammatically perfect form, as eloquently as can be, but if you fail to correctly render a cultural reference from your source text, your translation is going to land on your target audience with a sickening thud.
Many clients also mistakenly assume that all translators are capable of translating in both directions. And translators who do so often get away with it precisely because their clients donât know any better and often arenât strong enough in the target language themselves to spot the inevitable errors. These errors may be glaring or tiny, and grammatical or cultural in nature, but a native speaker will always pick them out. And so, some translators who really should abstain continue to translate into their nonânative language because their clueless clients (who often speak the same native language as the translator) continue to accept their less-than-perfect work.
Letâs stick to honing our craft in our target languages and leave the other side of the coin to the true experts: the native speakers. Thereâs more than enough work to go around without attempting to translate in both directions of our language pairs. And that goes for all translatorsâunicorns notwithstanding, of course.
A very interesting blog post, and I agree to most of it. I would never dream of translating into my source language English because I’m just not good enough at it. However, what do you think about specialisations where culture isn’t as important as in for example movie reviews or articles for a local beauty magazine? An example: in Dutch we’d never write ‘please’ in technical instructions or patient information leaflets, and translators who put that in manuals or instructions are easily spotted as beginners or in any case as not being aware of the differences between the English and Dutch writing styles. But I’m inclined to think that a near-native or bilingual translator with great industry knowledge and experience would be able to produce a good technical or medical translation, and no native would raise their eyebrows when reading it (no, it’s not me; I’m talking about people who grew up in a bilingual household like yourself or spent decades abroad). I’m curious to hear what you think – perhaps as a member of the target audience of such texts.
Thanks for your comment, Edith! I suppose it’s possible, but I find there’s inevitably always some sort of little “tell” when a translator is working into their non-native language, whether it be an error in terminology or just something that’s not quite perfectly idiomatic. That’s always been my experience, anyways. But there’s no ruling out the unicorns, I suppose đ If anything, I’d actually give technical texts a very wide berth if I was working into my NNL, since the stakes are usually always much higher (especially with medical texts!).
I agree with Ann Marie, including with her view on a translator’s competence both in the target language and target culture, cultural references etc. But I think her conclusions mostly apply to translators who live all or most of their life in their country of origin. However, there might also be people who become professional translator at some point in their lives after having lived in their *source* language country (and immersed in its culture) for many years. Sometimes getting married with citizens of their host country and sending their children to local schools. Not everyone lives their whole lives in the country they were born and raised in. Some of those who don’t may still keep in close touch with their “mother” tongue and culture (often through deliberate effort), some may indeed lose touch with them. If not “lose”, at least become less up-to-date, less knowledgeable about linguistic and cultural changes in their country of origin, and therefore less confident about producing an accurate translation (from their source language into their “mother” tongue). I’d say in these cases some of them might feel confident enough to attempt to translate into their host country language, in addition to (or instead of) translating into their mother tongue. It all very much depends on the individual’s experience and relationship with their source language country and culture. It’s difficult to generalise.
Thanks for your comment, Paola! You’re right, it can happen that someone’s native language doesn’t end up being their target language of translation. I was thinking more of the situation here in Quebec, where French-speakers attempt to translate into English, and vice versa, usually not very successfully!
Great post, and I agree 100%. Do NOT translate into anything other than your native language. No “what abouts,” or “ifs, ands or buts.” It just should not be done. It is unprofessional and detrimental to our profession.
Thanks for saying so, in so many words đ
Great article, completely agree with you
Thanks, Nora đ
I completely agree with Ann Marie. I’m a good writer in my second language (Arabic)… if I compose whatever I’m writing while thinking in Arabic. Translating my previous English writing into Arabic is a whole other story. In a native speaker’s eyes, it probably looks like someone translated it like a chef cooks on a teppanyaki grill; they chop it up and occasionally set it on fire. OK, I hope it’s actually not that bad, but I know I don’t represent the original flow of the source document. It also takes a lot longer to translate into my second language, not to mention it’s exceedingly stressful.
Stressful, for sure! Thatâs why I donât even attempt it – plus Iâm a huge perfectionist
I understand and agree with the underlying idea, but I would like to point out that though bidirectional translators have historically been “unicorns” – at least on this side of the pond – I believe that this is slowly changing. The very notion of “native language” ignores the reality that some people truly do grow up fully bilingual. Of course, this does not a translator make. However, someone who grew up fully bilingual and who then goes on to become a professional translator could very well translate into both languages. Further, in a situation like mine, I challenge you to tell me which is my mother tongue (and therefore, which direction I should exclusively translate in):
I, like yourself, grew up in Montreal. However, I had one English speaking parent and one Spanish speaking parent. I went to a French QuĂ©bĂ©cois school from the age of 5 onwards, because of Bill 101. Neither one of my parents spoke French until much later. However, my English speaking parent had English as his second language (he was a native Farsi speaker, but never spoke it to me). In theory, this would make Spanish my “mother tongue”, which is what I put down on the census. However, in practice, I would NOT use it as a target language because I only began to formally study it two years ago. It is therefore, my weakest language.
So, what is the verdict? Should I simply choose a different career, because, clearly, I am not fit to translate into any of these languages.
Finally, I would like to add that in the multicultural city that I grew up in, this situation is by no means rare. In fact, most of the people I surround myself with are stronger in their second language than in their mother tongue because of how big cities have evolved. It is 2018. I do not understand the need to put so much weight onto the idea that only native speakers will ever be able to be successful translators. A bad quality translation will speak for itself. Though I am sure there are no ill intentions hidden behind this rhetoric, it does go to show how insidious ethnic discrimination really is. Even the best intentions still work to exclude anyone who has a different background. I can no longer count how many times professors have told us that we should only translate into our mother tongue, and every time, it chips away at my confidence in all three languages that I speak and leaves me all the more confused as to which one I am meant to translate into to appease the critics.
Instead of insisting on “mother tongue”, why not focus on the importance of immersing yourself in a culture, and perhaps using a reviser? Especially when it comes to technical translation, I have a hard time grasping why anyone would need to have watched Star AcadĂ©mie and Passe-Partout to be able to translate into French.
Thanks for your really insightful comments. The landscape of Quebec really is a particular one when it comes to native languages and translation in general! Come to think of it, I know translators who, like yourself, grew up speaking neither English nor French as their first language (Italian and Portuguese come to mind), yet donât translate to or from those languages, having done their schooling in English or French and therefore chosen one of those languages as their âtargetâ language. So, thanks for that added perspective And a big yes to using revisers!
Corinne I agree 100%! Great article!
Thanks for the very interesting post! Like many translators, I do get quite passionate about this topic, especially after a bad experience having to revise a translation carried out by a non-native English translator who had overestimated their abilities. Not to say this would be the case with everyone translating into their non-native language, I think I was very unlucky.
I learned my source language in my home country at 18, so in situations like my own, itâs very clear I shouldnât translate into my source language. I know I write imperfect Italian, and thatâs fine by me – as long as I know I read and understand it perfectly. However, as some of the commenters above mention, itâs not always so clear cut, and some people really do have bilingual backgrounds. Iâm just thinking about some friends of mine who had their schooling in Welsh, and are bilingual in English and Welsh – even if their parents didnât necessarily speak Welsh at home. Iâm not sure if there are any welsh speakers these days who arenât also native in English.
Itâs also quite common for translators in certain language combinations to translate in both directions because of a lack of native translators. For example, my sister-in-law is a native Japanese translator but there are fewer Japanese to English translators in her specialisation, so she translates in both directions and has a native English speaker to proofread her English translations.
I also wrote my own take on this topic here if anyone is interested: https://fuschiahutton.com/2018/06/21/expanding-outside-your-home-market/ – sorry for the shameless plug!
Thanks for your comment! I am coming around to the fact that it may be possible to translate into your non-native language, but as you said in your own post (which I loved, btw!), such translators are indeed rare and come from a special set of circumstances and background. And, oh boy, do I feel you about revising texts by non-native translators – Iâve been there. So painful. I actually âfiredâ a client who persisted in thinking she could pull it off as long as she had me to clean up her mess
I grew up partly in northern Quebec and consider myself very much Quebecois culturally. However, i also lived in other parts of Canada and went to English school (French mother, anglo dad). I feel like I could translate to an 80-90% level toward French. BUT – and this is a big but – I could not compete with a totally native French translator in terms of speed. It would take me much longer to check everything over and I would lose the contract. Unfortunately, I have seen many job ads lately that casually request people who can translate into and from both languages (and often expect many other skills, like copy-writing as well!).
Thanks for your comment, Caroline! I also consider myself very much a Quebecer, albeit an Anglo one! So, I feel like I’d always be missing those crucial cultural and linguistic nuances that a native speaker would have đ
And, yes, those job postings frustrate me no end. It seems we still have a lot of client education to do!
I totally agree. It is somehow complicated to distinguish between a native and non-native translator since translators often claim they are bilingual. What we did was introduce a policy for which a translator could translate into his or her native language only. This is vital as the final outcome has to be flawless and not just understandable, this is what clients want. Specifically, we collaborate with thousands of local – Italian – and foreign translators who aside from being native are also specialized in a specific sector (medical, engineering, legal, etc…)
https://www.linguavalley.com/
Thank you đ The imperative of flawlessness is what I was trying to get across! That, and the need for a text to be perfectly adapted to the culture of the target audience. Almost impossible to do when you’re translating into your non-native language, IMO.
Very true, and you gave a very good example of this with your own personal story. Culture is key. I have heard of translators translating both ways in rare language combinations where there are simply not enough translators for the demand, but I guess this is a bit of an exception.
Thanks for your comment! Yes, I imagine rare combos would be an exception. I was referring more to the common language pairs, where there are more than enough translators that there should be no need or reason to translate into your non-native language đ
Couldn’t agree more. It’s the only way to go. German to English is what I do, for instance. Honestly, no matter how much training and experience you have, if I were to turn the tables – and want something translated from English to German – why would I consider a native English speaker if I could get a German native instead? There’s always just that little bit missing. It’s the nature of things. I know because I also translate to German – but not if I can avoid it.
I have read Bassnett, as well as other scholars. The phrase âabsolute masteryâ is not what Dr. Bassnett says or means. That’s Ms. Boulanger’s free interpretation. Equally troubling is the use of the phrase ânative speakersâ in the context of translation. Translation is about writing, not speaking (with due exception and credit given to video or movie script translation and subtitling). Yes, culture is important because that’s the place where we learn to read and write and consume what’s being written and seen.
The bold statement that translators should only translate into their native language is neither bold nor novel. Many have claimed it, but it strikes me as blindsided by the solid fact that many translators in India or in European countries (as example) were born in multicultural environments, with two or three languages at their disposal. Bidirectionality in translation has been studied in that regard. Perhaps we can inform our opinions with empirical studies and facts rather than with our own anecdotes?
The ATA’s brochure for translation clients wrongly and falsely claims that there is a ‘rule’ of translating only into one’s native language, offering no proof or support for that outrageous claim. I, for one, prefer to dig deeper, investigate, read all I can about the topic of bidirectionality in translation in order to gain some understanding before making any bold pronouncements.
You made the point. Any serious translator should always choose only to translate into his/her mother tongue. As English>Chinese translators we translate into Chinese only, and won’t attempt to go diversified with hundreds of different foreign languages. We leave those to their native speaking linguists.
I disagree with the author’s opinion. L2 translation is taught in many translation schools in response to market demands. Inverse translation quality is not about the translator being native or not is about language competence. I recommend reading “L2 Translation: to Teach or to Discourage?” by Tomasz KoĆciuczuk.
I agree in principle, but it gets awkward sometimes when looking for a job (not sure how to phrase that in opposition to working freelance jobs for individual clients, but that’s what I’m getting at). For individual assignments when you work as a freelancer, it’s easy to say “No, I don’t work in that direction.” But when someone’s looking to hire a full-time bilingual translator/writer/editor (the fact that all those three often get lumped in as one job is a whole other issue…), you kind of find yourself in an awkward dilemma. You can fudge and say “Sure, I can do both ways,” perpetuating that less-than-ideal practice, or you can give the better answer of “No, I only do one way,” and let the job go to someone willing to give the fudgy answer. When companies expect to be able to find someone to do both rather than hiring two people, and you know you’re not going to be able to convince them otherwise â certainly not during the interview process â it’s a bit of a tough call.
Hi Brenda, thanks for your comment đ I certainly get what you’re saying, and I too have seen countless of those job ads basically asking translators to wear all the hats. But, honestly, I don’t look twice at them. It’s out of the question for me to even consider translating both ways, and I would never want to work with a company who believed that that was a legitimate way of operating!
The points made by Paola and S. Gutierrez highlight what I think is a fundamental question: what do we mean when we say “native” language? Given the complexities of many people’s linguistic backgrounds, I think we should consider using terms like “primary” language or “best” language (I’m open to suggestions!). Put simply, I think in general you should translate into the language you know best, i.e. the one in which your understanding of everything from grammar to word usage to cultural context is most refined and most nuanced. That may or may not be the one you learned first, and in fact you may have more than one.
As an example, my husband immigrated to the U.S. from Bulgaria when he was 12. All of his higher education, including his Ph.D., were in English. Even though both of his parents are Bulgarian and he speaks Bulgarian with them, his English (both spoken and written) is now clearly better than his Bulgarian. He very rarely makes errors in English, and if he were a translator, his translation quality and speed would both be better working into English.
Thanks, Rachael! I’ve also heard people use the expression “dominant professional language,” which I think is interesting.
I like it! Or just dominant language. And to make things even more complicated, here’s a fun article on variations in language dominance in different areas of life (e.g. work, school, sports, clothing): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-bilingual/201604/what-does-it-mean-be-dominant-in-language. I took a speaking test recently in my third language, and I did much better discussing social and political issues than describing basic things like my appearance. Ha ha!
I think there are three issues with this post.
The first issue is the assumption that translation is, or can be, seamless. It’s not and can’t be. It’s hard work. And when a translation is seamless, that quality is generally the result, not of the seamless activity of translation, but of several factors, which include, beside the abilities to translate and to understand a second language at a very high level, the ability to understand certain subject matter as presented in a particular culture and (to put it somewhat narrowly) to write competently on that subject matter. Neither of these things have anything ostensibly to do with one’s native language. The ability to write well may be correlated to one’s native language, but correlation is, in the oft-cited platitude, not causation. Anyone with any experience in the translation industry should know this. How often have translations, which have been prepared by native speakers, suffered from poor grammar, poor word choice, incomprehensible syntax, and the like? … The assumption here turns a blind eye to this very unfortunate fact of life in the translation industry and runs the risk of leading poor translators, who render poor work product, to the belief that they can rest on the laurels of their native language.
The second issue is the interpretation of Ms. Bassnett’s quote. Ms. Boulanger claims is that Ms. Bassnett’s quote “means that the translator must not only have absolute mastery of the language of their target audience, but also an intimate understanding of the culture of that audience.” This statement does not follow from her quote, not even on the most charitable reading. Ms. Bassnett’s quote is a simile intended to warn about the dangers of experts treating their subject matter in isolation; it does not, and does not seem intended to, show that “absolute mastery of the language of their target audience” and “an intimate understanding of the culture of that audience” is necessary for translators; it might presume this. But that is not obvious either. How do we get from a general warning about treating complex subjects in isolation to, say, absolute mastery of just the language of the target audience? An absolute mastery of the language of the source audience and an intimate understanding of their culture is not presumed? How is this all connected? A lot more work would need to be done to show that this interpretation is in fact accurate.
The third issue is related to the second. Ms. Boulanger claims that “[f]or this [mastery of target language, intimate understanding of the culture, etc.] to occur, the prevailing wisdom is that a translator should ideally have been born and raised in the target language and culture, or at the very least, almost completely immersed in it from birth.” I’ve been in the translation industry for over 12 years, and I’ve never heard this. Nor does it sound like “prevailing wisdom.” It sounds selectively one-sided. And it looks as if it might result in a self-defeating irony. If the way to ensure mastery of a language and an intimate understanding of a culture is to be born, raised, or almost completely immersed in that language and that culture from birth, then no one who has not been born and raised with two languages and in two cultures can master a second language or have an intimate understanding of that second language’s culture. Both would mean that people who were not raised (almost) entirely bilingually and bi-culturally cannot ever gain an intimate understanding of the culture of the language out of which they translate. Without an intimate understanding of the source language and its culture, translation would be impossible, or nearly so. Of course, that’s not the case. Quite the opposite is true. … The problem is quite simply that terms such as “mastery” and “intimate understanding” are too vague to be useful in this context.
Hi Peter, thanks for your comment and for your interesting counterpoint. I appreciate your insights on the topic.
This post is too simplistic for a couple of reasons.
1. If one insists that translators only translate into their ‘native’ languages, should we also prevent those who don’t speak a language ‘natively’ from writing and producing literary output in that language? Joseph Konrad is regarded as a great English-language author, but it was by no means his native language. Similarly a number of scholars and writers in past centuries produced substantive writings in Latin and translations into Latin. Should they somehow be dismissed because Latin was clearly not their native language?
2. Not all languages that are put under one label have a single register and form that is known ‘natively.’ Probably the best modern example is the contrast between Modern Standard Arabic (‘fusha’) and the so-called dialect forms (‘aamiya’). The latter is what is learned natively by those we call Arabic speakers. In contrast no one speaks or knows Modern Standard Arabic as a native language, and it shows by just how often mistakes are made in Modern Standard Arabic morphology, construction and grammar by native Arabic speakers {here’s one example: see how often you find ÙÙ ÙŰ±Ù in attempts to write in Modern Standard Arabic when the correct form is ÙÙ ÙŰ±Ù (‘he did not see’)}. Similarly the Latin example above, and in a way the situation now with Arabic is similar to medieval Europe in the contrast between ‘Romance’ (essentially Latin aamiya) and medieval Latin (the fusha).