Does it make sense to translate into your non-native language? Someone asked this on my monthly alumni call in October, and I think it’s an interesting topic, so let’s take a look.
The short answer
The TLDR version of this is: for most professional translators, it does not make sense to translate into your non-native language, but there are exceptions. Reasons for sticking to your native language include:
- most importantly, translation quality
- also, translation income, particularly if you get paid by the word, and you work more slowly into your non-native language
- industry conventions
But interpreters do this all the time…
Right. Here’s the big exception. I would never, in a million years, translate into French, other than something short, informal, and informational. Once in a while, a US-based client will ask something like, “Can you write an e-mail in French, asking when the Senegalese consultant will have the final version of the report?” Sure. But otherwise, I never ever translate into French, because I’m not a native speaker.
However, pretty much every single time I interpret, I interpret in both directions, because it’s unwieldy and expensive to have two interpreters for every court appearance, attorney-client conference, etc. Nearly every interpreter in the US works in both directions, all the time. In Europe, it’s more common for interpreters to have only one active language (their native language), and then work from multiple passive languages, but in the US, things don’t really work that way. So the big exception to the “only into your native language” rule is that interpreters are expected to, and do do this all the time.
My take: the key here is that interpreters are trained (at least in all the training I’ve done so far) to use specific techniques when interpreting into their B language. For the non-interpreters, a B language is one that you interpret from and into, but it’s not your native language. Into-B techniques include using the simplest phrasing that is accurate; using concise phrasing even when the speaker is very wordy; using voice expression to convey meaning; “when in doubt, leave it out” if you can do that without compromising meaning; using phrases like, “the interpreter will paraphrase,” when you know that you don’t know the equivalent of a quote, idiom, or proverb in your B language, etc. And you can’t really use those techniques when you’re translating.
Why stick to your native language?
As stated above, there are many reasons to translate into your native language only. The most important is translation quality. Even if you have near-native fluency in your source language(s), you’re still not a native speaker. It’s likely that all of us know people who are really, really, fluent in a language, but still say things that, while they make complete sense, aren’t something a native speaker would say, or the tone is completely wrong. Like asking someone, “What’s wrong?” (empathetic) versus, “What’s your problem?” (rude). My husband and I went to Nepal on our honeymoon, and I took a picture of the sign outside a trekking lodge that proudly proclaimed, “We will welcome you so warmly, you will feel like going home.” That’s the kind of thing a fluent non-native speaker might say or write, without realizing that it means the opposite of what it’s supposed to mean.
The whole point of a good translation is to convey more than word-for-word meaning, and that’s really hard to do in your non-native language.
Additionally, most translators are going to work more slowly into their non-native language(s), which will drag down your income if you’re getting paid by the word.
A final risk is looking unprofessional. In the US, where the vast majority of translators work into their native language, it can look unprofessional to even offer translation services in the opposite direction.
But of course, there are exceptions
Exceptions to the native language rule include:
- Translators whose dominant professional language is not their native language. If you came to the US from Italy when you were 18, then went to college and grad school here and have lived and worked in English for 25 years, your dominant professional language may no longer be Italian.
- Translators who work with small-diffusion languages. If you need a translation from Tagalog, or Bulgarian, or Amharic into English, chances are it’s going to be hard to find a native English speaker to do that. You’ll probably have better luck with a native speaker of the non-English language, and then a native English proofreader.
I think that the native language convention is also at least partially cultural. Anecdotally, it seems that the US market has a strong preference for translators who work into their native language only, while the European and Asian markets are a bit more tolerant of non-native speaker translators.
Readers, over to you; any thoughts on this?
There are cases when it’s absolutely essential to use a specific non-native speaker for a translation. Once I was asked to edit a large text translated from French into English by someone who was neither a native speaker of French nor of English. At the beginning I got annoyed and wondered why they hadn’t given the job to me to translate into English in the first place. As I got into it, though, I saw that the non-native translator had knowledge of the technical field that was so specialized that only someone who worked in the specific facility would have the right terminology to use, and I couldn’t find that terminology in any lexical source publicly available.
There are also cases where you shouldn’t translate into your own NATIVE language. This includes when you have been living in the country of your B language for so long that you have lost your native-speaker sense for your native language. If you go to French sessions at ATA conferences, you can see that many American translators who live in France suffer from a sort of “francophobia”, where they reject perfect good English words that we use all the time because they happen to be the same in both French and English. Also, I once had to edit a horribly done English translation that was full of mistakes a Czech speaker would make. I complained to the project manager that they didn’t give the project to a native English speaker, and she said, “She’s American, but she’s been living here a really long time.” It’s possible to get so immersed in a foreign language and culture that you become the equivalent of a non-native speaker of your own language.
Excellent point, James, and I see this in some of my translation colleagues. I’m a native English speaker who has lived in France for almost 30 years. Every day I try and read quality English (The New York Times is at the top of the list), watch part of an English or American TV show or film, and write creatively or correspond with friends in English. I think if you’re aware and disciplined, you can fight this syndrome.
I’ve always wondered about accent for interpreters .A problem translators do not face.
Being “native” is an accident of geography (just like “citizenship”). I am part of the group in the first exception you mention, having lived in the US the last 36 years, and reading and speaking English 99% of the time. And, modesty aside, my knowledge of American English spelling and grammar is better that that of 90% of people born here. Yes, I have a (mild) accent, but it doesn’t show up when I type.
Christian, I don’t agree that being a native speaker of a language is an “accident of geography”. It’s a matter of lots and lots of practice and contact time with the language that people not born into a family that speaks it or an otherwise native-speaking environment can usually not achieve. There are people like you, who’ve spent all that time immersed in their second language and reach the level of proficiency you have, but there are also people like my grandmother, who lived in the same kind of immersion you did but never developed more than low-intermediate proficiency. Plus, there are people like many in my city, who arrive and immediately pick up a local pidgin variety (an actual pidgin in the scientific sense) and after 36 years both fail to reach intermediate proficiency in English and also lose their command of their native language.
James: I think we are probably “on the same page” (how’s that for “native” proficiency?). The problem is when people use “native” as a synonym of “proficient”. Just because you are born in a certain country (therefore a “native”) doesn’t qualify you to translate anything. Not to get political on this November 3rd, but DT is a “native speaker”. Assuming he knows any other language, would you trust him over me as a translator?
Honestly, I’d have to see how the guy writes in a formal setting. My grandfather was at intermediate level in his English speech but wrote beautifully in English with an actual style. You can’t tell by how someone talks whether they’d be a competent translator.
Corinne,
Excellent topic, but I missed seeing a key reason for translating into one’s native language. Every translator is a writer in the target language.
Being a good writer is a prerequisite for doing a good translation. it’s more than the little mistakes of usage and nuance.
There are many writers who write excellent material in languages other than their native language (most often English, in Europe). However, as a translator, I can hear the native language working in their brains behind the text they write. “Adequate for the purpose” is not the same as “smooth and native”. Not surprisingly, I edited original English for non-Anglophone professionals, and they seemed very happy with the collaboration.
Your comments about long-time residents are apt, also, The native language changes while one is away.
I offer this in addition to the points you made, not in place of any of them. Thanks again for a timely post.
JT
Hi Corinne,
I understand your point of view, because naturally we do not want the proverbial neighbours’ cousin who lived in the States for 6 moths to translate into English. However, I agree even more with James’s comment above about translators living away from their home country.
What is my native language? Born in Poland, I left for France when I was 20 and never worked in Poland. I became completely fluent in French because it was learning it by full immersion. I then also worked and lived 22 years in the UK.
There is psychological research which supports the idea that there is no such thing as permanent Language 1, acquired during early years (the so-called Critical Period Hypothesis). An individual’s dominant language can change with age, circumstance, education, social network, employment, and many other factors. Sequential bilingualism is just as valid as the simultaneous acquisition (a child raised in 2 languages from birth). Most bilinguals have a “dominant language”, often influenced by the majority language of the society in which they live in.
So, in summary, whilst you are by and large right to defend the native speaker only stance in translation, the concept of a native language is quite complex in some cases. I must admit that I am quite fed up with having to defend my bilingualism to translation agencies.
Elzbieta, I had a student who claimed to have no native language. She started out speaking Arabic and Chaldean in Baghdad, then was taken as a refugee to Kurdistan and a town where only an obscure dialect of Chaldean was spoken. Then she landed in Greece, and at 16 in the United States. She said she did not spend long enough in any one place to pick up what would be called native proficiency in any language. However, after two or three years in the US, it was hard to distinguish her from a native speaker of English, so I’m thinking that what she became most proficient at was not a language, but learning languages in immersion.
James, nice story that I kind of identify with, but not sure I understand your conclusion and its connection to my case. I am bilingual French Polish. The 2 myths I strongly disagree with in general are (backed up with Canadian research): 1. An individual must learn a second language as a young child in order to become bilingual. 2. A person is not truly bilingual unless he is equally proficient in both languages.
Elzbieta, I’m in a similar boat. Due to life circumstances my English overtook my Polish a long, long time ago. I would never translate into Polish even though technically it’s my native language. The native speaker pedestal is outdated, I believe translators should translate into their strongest language. Being a native speaker in no way guarantees being a good translator, either, and I’ve read plenty of awful translations produced by native speakers. We should all be judged by our skills, by what we can actually bring to the table, and not by our birth certificate. But I realise that we’re exceptions to a still widely accepted rule.
Thank you Corinne and James Kirchner, I appreciate your input on a question I’ve been musing over 🙂
In general, great advice. But I’ve learned of the exceptions through experience.
On several occasions, I have been called up on to correct a Spanish translation by a native speaker who was simply not capable enough to understand the source text.
Other times, I may have seen and translated hundreds of pages of a certain type of Spanish source text, so much that I can write in that style using that terminology better than most native Spanish speakers who may never have seen any of those documents before.
I’ve summarized these and a few other cases on this web page:
http://www.techlanguage.com/tips/non-native.html
I’m the person who asked this in Corinne’s monthly call. Since then, I’ve decided not to translate into my non-native language. Although I grew up speaking Japanese and lived there for a few years as an adult, my written English is much better than my written Japanese. Translating into Japanese requires so much more time and effort for me. I’d rather focus my time and energy on my strengths.
A lot of it depends on the purpose of the translation. For example, I see nothing wrong in a non-native translating personal documents, such as driver licences, birth certificates, educational credentials, as they are mostly in the form-filling style, requiring no particular fluency. In my market, they represent a boring but crucial portion of translators’ income.
We’re all aware of the economic factors that underpin this “native/non-native” discussion every time it comes up, right? Which it does, regularly, with most of the same arguments put forth every time.
These days:
Given the rich tapestry of human life, I’m prepared to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
But somehow it’s always more convincing if you compare your skills to the very best, not the mediocre or wobbly or manifestly deficient. E.g., I can’t imagine pitching a serious client by claiming that I translate better than the French school teacher down the road, or the well-meaning native speaker who spent his junior year abroad but can’t write his way out of a paper bag. The reason is simple: most native speakers of any language are not professional writers — and that includes most university graduates.
So for serious clients it’s a given that you’re better than all those guys, right? And of course fluent speaking does not necessarily mean fluent writing (or vice versa, as Jamie mentions in passing).
So pondering all that, I’m happy to consider promoting translators, native or non-native, with fascinating, much-traveled multilingual lives on condition they sign their work.
They must produce, maintain and show, in public, a portfolio of pieces they’ve translated and are proud to put out there as examples: “This is what I do. Want work like this? Come to me.”
Describing your journey through life and the exposure to languages it has given you, and the poor translators you have encountered whom you are better than — OK, OK, got it.
But if you can show me (and the world: let’s think big here…) *what you actually produce and stand by*, you’ve made your case. Boom.