Overcoming Challenges in Technical Translations - TechBullion - Translation

Because most translation work involves some aspects of technical translation, technical translations are a significant part of the language services industry. Companies often need translations for everything from reports and software to patents and user documentation, especially when they are thinking about introducing new products and services or entering new markets. Technical translations are a lot more than rewriting documentation in a different language, as the translator has to have a deep understanding of the technical requirements of the industries they work in. Because of this, technical translations come with some challenges whose potential solutions we will explore below.

Theoretical Understanding

All translators working in technical translation must have a technical understanding of the documents they are translating and their related industries. For instance, do you know what transforming asset management is? If not, you need help.

An understanding of key concepts as well as specific technical and scientific knowledge about the industry are also key. For instance, you want to be sure that you hire a specialized translation company since they have members of staff with in-depth knowledge and understanding of these industries. They understand that inaccuracy can lead to costly mistakes, and so they want people who have worked in these industries dealing with these types of translations.

Knowledge of Terminology Translations Between Languages

One of the biggest challenges technical translators have to overcome is some languages do not have direct translations for some words. This often happens when translating documents between languages that have a strong and mature vocabulary in a certain industry and one that does not. For example, there are a lot of medical terminologies that do not have an equivalent in Arabic.

In such instances, the translator must use their skills and knowledge of the industry they are working in to fill the gaps in vocabulary and information. While ensuring the translation is accurate, they must also ensure that it reflects the intended messaging in the original documentation.

Tight Deadlines

Most technical documents are subject to tight deadlines and time constraints. These limitations introduce another level of complexity to technical translations. These constraints are often due to legal requirements or document expiration, such as in cases of patents and company rights.

Companies should try to work with translators who have extensive experience in their industries and who have a proven track record of working fast while still being incredibly accurate. This is because speed often introduces errors and this can lead to bad outcomes, especially in cases where language accuracy is critical.

Localizations

Even when keeping an eye on the technical aspects of technical translations, translators and companies alike should be careful about the effects of their translations and the documentation of local norms and customs. If translated documents are meant for mainstream audiences, translators and companies alike must ensure they are sensitive to the locals and remove all language, images, and content that may be inappropriate.

Proper preparation before embarking on any technical translation project can help overcome many of the challenges technical translators face. Asking for additional information and supporting documentation, lots of research, and understanding local customs and norms can also go a long way in making the technical translation fit better.

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Opinion | Is Essential Patient Information Lost in Translation? - MedPage Today - Translation

"I am sorry. Don't speak English. Spanish?"

I had just entered the room to speak with a mother whose daughter was admitted to the hospital.

I quickly returned with a video translator, and we were able to discuss in detail what was going on with her 5-year-old daughter whose asthma had flared.

When I left the room, I let her nurse know the patient's mother felt most comfortable speaking Spanish.

"Are you sure? She seemed to understand what I was saying when I talked to her earlier," the nurse replied.

This scenario is not uncommon in the children's hospital. When a child's caretakers speak little to no English, the decision is simple: a translator is necessary. When their caretakers' English fluency spans from basic to conversant but they do not request a translator, a decision is forced -- because no one asks if they need a translator. This approach to assessing translator needs must change.

More than 25 million people in the U.S. have limited comfort with English as their primary language. This number may be an underestimate. Making a bad situation worse, the language used in medical history taking includes vocabulary regarding anatomy, medications, and diagnoses that are not always part of fluent English speakers' vocabulary, let alone the vocabulary of people with less proficiency.

In one study, Mary Pilarz, MD, and colleagues assessed translator use in a children's hospital. They found over 91% of residents and nurses reported communication with families with limited English proficiency without translators. This is unsurprising at face value.

I previously believed appropriate translator service usage was a matter of health equity to ensure all children and families, regardless of background, ethnicity, or immigration status understood what was happening with their child's health. I realize now it goes beyond only equity -- it is equally a matter of patient safety for hospitalized children.

In another study, Jennifer White, PhD, and colleagues found that patients with limited comfort with English were less informed of their care. These patients were more likely to receive larger volumes of information over a shorter time period, likely due to their consistent need for interpreters. This resulted in fewer total interactions with medical teams during their hospitalization. While this study analyzed adult patient encounters, the findings forced me to reflect on my experience caring for children. I am guilty of having chunked information into one conversation rather than utilizing a translator multiple times. In my drive for efficiency, what costs did my patients bear?

In other research, Alisa Khan, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that hospitalized children whose families had limited comfort with English were twice as likely to experience medical errors during their stay. While there is no singular reason explaining this risk, less thorough and inconsistent communication with these families was a common theme.

Our current approach to assessing the need for translator use for hospitalized children and their caretakers is insufficient. It forces families to advocate for their child's needs in situations where families are less informed of their child's hospital course and at greater risk for experiencing medical error.

Addressing this shortcoming requires a consistent approach whereby the provider explicitly asks every patient or family about their language needs.

Healthcare workers should ask, "In what language would you be most comfortable talking about your child's health?" This question is not, "Do you speak English?" or "Can you understand me?" The first question centers on the child and caretakers' abilities to communicate, while the second two focus on the healthcare workers' needs. The onus to initiate this process should fall on the healthcare worker.

Normalizing active assessment of patient language preference is necessary and possible. It requires changes in medical school curricula, patient-provider interactions, and hospital administration policy.

All students, regardless of their chosen specialty, will need to be able to effectively communicate using in-person, phone, and video translators. Through standardized patient encounters and clinical skills sessions, students must gain the ability to identify needs and effectively communicate with translators prior to starting residency.

Residents and nurses serve as the healthcare team members who communicate most frequently with patients and their families. They may be the first to assess the patient's language preferences and may be responsible for communicating translator needs to the rest of the team. Incorporating this step into each new admission will normalize this patient safety measure. In the aforementioned study from Pilarz et al., participants who were familiar with poor outcomes for patients less comfortable with English were more likely to use interpreters in the future. By making it clear to nurses and doctors that interpreter use can improve patient outcomes, we can better motivate behavior change among providers.

Attendings too should advocate for appropriate translator use and ensure non-English speaking families receive equal amounts of facetime on rounds. As leaders of medical teams, they can warmly "call-in" others, as an act to encourage patient safety. Similarly to how proper PPE use and handwashing became a collective responsibility, appropriate communication using the patient's preferred language must follow the same principles.

Hospitals and administrators play a role too -- they will need to increase the availability of translators. Hiring in-person translators and investing in reliable video technology are actionable changes. With a medical community that is already stretched thin, it is unfair to simply ask healthcare workers to do more without equipping them with the necessary support. Additionally, hospitals are increasingly recognizing the need to commit to diversity and health equity. Ensuring patients who speak all languages have reliable and prompt access to translator services through proper staffing and investment in technology are tangible actions leadership can take to meet their stated goals.

All it takes is for healthcare workers to ask each child and family admitted to the hospital just one easy question. The gain is more equitable and safe care.

Patients should never have to apologize for the language they feel most comfortable speaking. And we, as a medical community, can easily avoid having to apologize for underserving their needs by giving them the appropriate resources up front.

Nishant Pandya, MD, MPH, is a PGY-2 pediatrics resident at Yale Children's Hospital.

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UB lecturer to discuss publication of her translation of Camus' 'The Plague' - UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo Reporter - Translation

Laura Marris, an adjunct lecturer in the Department of English, will begin a series of events in the coming weeks to discuss her translation of Albert Camus’ “The Plague,” the first new translation of the iconic French novel published in the United States in more than 70 years.

Marris will join Camus biographer Alice Kaplan and book critic Adam Dalva at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 for a virtual discussion from Brooklyn’s Community Bookstore. The talk is co-presented by the National Book Critics Circle.

An in-person Buffalo book launch party and reading will also take place at 7 p.m. Nov. 11 at Fitz Books, 433 Ellicott St., Buffalo, co-sponsored by the UB Poetics Program. That will be followed by a virtual lecture on the translation craft at 1 p.m. Nov. 12, presented as part of the UB English department’s Juxtapositions lecture series. 

Reservations are not required for the reading at Fitz Books. Guests can register for the virtual presentations at the links above. These early events were arranged before supply chain disruptions pushed the book’s publication to Nov. 16. Readers can still pre-order copies, and an excerpt from Marris' translation is available on the Penguin Random House website.

“It was an honor to work on this text, though I could never have predicted that I’d be doing so during the pandemic,” says Marris. “I hope new readers, especially students, will feel closer to the text now that a new translation is available.”

Mention of Marris’ translation coming as the world begins looking toward its off ramp from the COVID-19 pandemic seems inevitable. But that apparent coordination of art and life is actually coincidental. The Camus estate and literary scholars have for years been interested in an updated translation of the novel.

Having secured the translator’s role from the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which also published Gilbert Stuart’s 1948 edition of the book, the only other translation intended for an American audience, Marris began work late in 2019, a few months before public health officials had even identified the coronavirus.

The collision of fiction and reality, while not a motivation for the project, echoes in a collection of essays inspired by that timing. Marris and Kaplan have collaborated on an essay collection about the experience of working with Camus’ original text during the pandemic, essays that explore the author’s portrayal of illness and quarantine, and other moments when the reality of COVID-19 met with the novel’s text.

In fact, since Marris’ research started before pandemic travel restrictions were in place, she was able to visit the French Algerian city of Oran, where Camus sets his story, as well as other significant locations in the novel, like the cliff road, the opera house and the cemetery.

“Though contemporary Oran is nothing like it was under French settler-colonial rule, it was helpful to see the scale of the city and to speak with experts who know the stories behind the landmarks Camus describes in the book,” she says.

And just as the backdrops have changed with time, so too have Marris’ perceptions of the novel since she started the first of several drafts that led to her final translation of an author whose work she has always admired.

“For me, the practice of translation is actually one of deep reading, and what emerges from that work is always surprising,” she says. “This time around, I was struck by Camus’ ecological imagination, particularly his sense of the ocean, the weather and the interconnectedness of humans and animals.”

More information on Marris’ tour dates is available online. 

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New words added to the dictionary - WYTV - Dictionary

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New words added to the dictionary  WYTV

A Freewheeling Translation of Dante’s Purgatorio - Hyperallergic - Translation

Merriam-Webster: How new words get into the dictionary - Quartz - Dictionary

Terms like”digital nomad,” “co-working,” and “gig worker” have been added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this year. As a whole, they reflect the growing popularity of words that describe the new parameters of professional life borne out of the covid-19 pandemic and the rise of remote working.

Also recently added are words like “blank check company,” for shell businesses also referred to as SPACs, “ergomania” or workaholism; “drudge” for monotonous labor; and “lucubration” a fancy noun that means intense study.

Lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, an editor at the 190-year old publishing company, explains that the nearly 1,000 new entries in this year’s edition have been used in print media enough times that they felt it was the right moment to establish a common definition. “We’re dutiful observers of the language,” he explains. “We’re reporting on the actual usage and we do have to wait a little bit. We want to make sure that these terms have staying power.”

Several words and acronyms used in online communication also made it to Merriam-Webster’s 2021 edition—”amirite,” “bit rot,” “copypasta,” (referring to data that have been copied and spread widely online, like a meme; not to be confused with “creepypasta” which is a scary story that’s gone viral). “Digital blackface,” “deplatform,” “FTW” [for the win], and “TBH” [to be honest] are also among them.

As strange as these linguistic constructions may sound, Sokolowski says that the job of the lexicographer is akin to that of a census-takers when considering a word. “We’re not so much gatekeepers of language,” he explains. “I don’t listen [and] think to myself, ‘Oh, that’s not a word.'” Lexicographers, he explains, are driven by curiosity instead of judgment.

For example, Sokolowski says his ears perked up when he first heard someone say the word “audioly,” to mean something perceived by the ear or “aurally.” “It’s a homophone of ‘orally’; I think this person was trying to make it clear that she wasn’t referring to the way you take aspirin,” he says. “Immediately I wondered if anyone else has ever used this term and if it might be a new word that’s coming to use.”

How a word gets into the dictionary

Every instance of a prospective dictionary word is dutifully logged. Before software streamlined their workflow, lexicographers took an hour each day to peruse various publications and journals in search of new terms—a process called “reading and marking.”  They jotted down notations on 3 x 5 inch index cards which were carefully organized in Merriam Webster’s citation files.

Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster’s citation file.

“It’s the largest body of collected evidence on paper in any language in the world,” says Sokolowski, describing the 6 million entries stored in red cabinets in the company’s headquarters in Massachusetts. “It records 20th century English in a beautiful way. However, 21st century English moves faster, so we have to search differently.” These days, linguists rely on online databases called corpora, he explains.

Apart from new terms, lexicographers are also attuned to novel uses of old words. This year, Merriam-Webster appended the definition of the word “because” and recognized its informal usage, as exemplified in a 2020 article in Bon Appetit magazine. It reads: “Drastic temperature changes mess with the molecules in food, you know, because science.

But as eager as lexicographers are to investigate all the ways language bends and morphs, they must sometimes call out questionable usage too, Sokolowski says. He cites a recent mix-up with the words “tortuous” and “torturous” in the New York Times.

“It strikes me that a path, even if it’s a figurative one, is more likely to be winding than to be pain-inducing,” he points out. ” We all have to be careful with our language.”

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Copyright and Translated Content: Who is the Creator? - IPWatchdog.com - Translation

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Copyright and Translated Content: Who is the Creator?  IPWatchdog.com