By Amber Marcum Combaud

In December 2020, I took part in the French Language Division’s monthly meet-up. A longtime member of the ATA but trepidatious newcomer to the live, informal meetings held since the beginning of the pandemic, the chosen topic of discussion drew me in and motivated me to extend my normal work hours (GMT+1) to fit it into my schedule. That topic was feedback: giving and getting it, and hosted by Karen Tkaczyk. At the end of an hour spent pleasantly chatting with other members on both sides of the Atlantic and sharing our experiences—and apprehension—about feedback, the FLD announced it would launch an ATA Certification Exam Study Group in January 2021.

A no-brainer decision

After learning of this new FLD activity, making the decision to participate and integrate it into my CPD goals for 2021 was a no-brainer. After I completed my certificate in translation through the NYU SCPS’s online program in 2010, the idea of sitting for the ATA certification exam was enough to make me break out in hives. Though I now have a number of years of full-time freelancing under my belt, the added stress of having to fly back to the US to sit for it always made me push the exam to the bottom of my to-do list. The accountability, group dynamic, and the possibility of connecting with peers were all factors that convinced me that this was the perfect time to rise to the challenge and I planned to join this new group.

Certification exam practice à la FLD

The FLD was inspired by the Slavic Languages Division’s 2017 concept to form its own remote, asynchronous study group. In contrast to the SLD’s approach, the FLD’s self-study group is a less formal version, designed to suit the style and dynamic of the division. At the beginning of each month, an email is sent out by Andie Ho with a short text to translate under exam conditions, along with some context as to the purpose of the text, similar to the instructions that would be given on an actual exam. Links to the ample resources available on the ATA website are provided each month for newcomers. These cover the certification exam itself, a framework for standardized error marking, along with error descriptions. From that point, the translator is free to organize their practice as they wish. They must simply alert Andie by the stated deadline in order to be paired up with a partner for review and feedback. The pairs or groups (in the event of an odd number of participants in a given month) determine how they exchange feedback, whether via the Track Changes mode in Word, a Zoom or telephone call, email exchanges, or a combination of these. A separate, dedicated Discord channel was also created as a forum for terminology, discussing challenges and asking general questions.

How I approach the practice texts and feedback

Translation strategy

I generally complete the translation towards the end of the month so that the text is top of mind. To train myself for the actual exam, I try to stick to an hour max. for all steps in the process: reading the instructions and the full text, term identification, research, drafting, revision and a “read-aloud” review. A side-by-side comparison with the original is important for ensuring that I haven’t left out any words or ideas, a mistake that could be costly. In an exam situation, I would move on to the second passage after the revision step in order to leave time for my text to mature in my mind before doing any tweaking prior to submittal. Depending on the subject and type of text, most months I am able to stay within this timeframe, but in others I have pushed it to 1.5 hours. This would be risky in a real exam, since the time limit is three hours.

The feedback phase

Once partner assignments have gone out, I take the time to review the original passage as well as my own translation, listing any questions I might want to bring up with my partner. As I read through their text, I try to keep in mind the fact that the first item in the list explaining what the certification exam tests for is “compliance with the specifications of the Translation Instructions.” While the goal is certainly not to train as a grader, following the example of one of my peer reviewers, I now try to apply the grading framework in order to identify types of errors. This helps me to keep to the neutral side of constructive criticism. Finally, since the Framework for Standardized Error Marking does allow points to be awarded for “up to three specific instances of exceptional translation,” I make a point to highlight well-written phrases and good word choices in the person’s text as well as smart approaches to prickly issues in the original.

Regarding feedback

I’ve most appreciated when we’ve been able to create dialogue regarding the challenges of a specific text and individual choices. In general, I have received feedback in Track Changes in Word, but I have also been able to connect virtually with a few of my partners to make their acquaintance on Zoom. This has been a positive, satisfying part of my experience. Overall, the process has allowed me to open up more to constructive criticism and confront potential blind spots with humility.

Personal takeaways

A wider range of texts to translate

From the start of my career, I’ve had a pretty narrow niche, due to how I got my start as a translator in a technical field. When I began freelancing, I was able to branch out into other fields and types of documents. The study group has provided a refreshing variety of topics to work on, and not having a choice in the assignments has been beneficial to help me identify and break free from old patterns.

Style

Living in Europe, at times I am asked to conform to UK spelling rather than US. This means that my eyes have become more accepting of spelling variations, an area where losing points would be nonsense! Further, being surrounded by French speakers can prove dangerous if I allow Romance-language structure too much influence on my writing in English. Going into the practice test and any real exam sitting, I’ll know to pay particular attention to both of these points.

Unexpected situations

Through the proposed texts, I’ve encountered a few unexpected situations, like a presumed typo in a company name. While I’m not sure that this curveball was intended, I’ve been able to research how to handle this situation were it to arise during a real exam sitting. I’m also better prepared to manage the technical aspects of what graders expect in terms of deliverables.

Next steps

As summertime is quickly approaching, my next step is completing a practice test passage. I’m also considering how to take advantage of this typically slower period of the year to do more self-study. If all goes as planned, I’ll sit for one of the remote exams offered in September.

In the future, once I’ve reached my goal of certification, I’d like to join a Rev Club. I’ve really enjoyed getting to work with other translators in this non-competitive setting and enriching my own work through contact with theirs.

Advantages of the remote, asynchronous format

• You can participate on your own time, per your schedule.
• Joining the study group does not require you to translate the text each month.
• The long-term nature of the group allows you to familiarize yourself with the dense information about the exam over a longer period of time and break it down in smaller, easy to digest portions.
• Participants can choose a way to meet and give feedback that suits their personality, preferences and/or schedule.
• The Discord channel is open for discussion outside your assigned pair or group.

Limitations of a remote practice test group

• It can be hard to gauge improvement, as the type of text changes each month.
• There is no benchmark translation with which to compare your work.
• You may find that translating one text per month may not be enough practice and it could be difficult to maintain momentum.
• Feedback and interaction with peers vary.
• Not everyone sees or is connected to the Discord group.

Possible routes to refinement

Getting started

For an into-English group, it could be helpful to spend the first month focusing on the Into-English Grading Standards. This would set aside time specifically for reading the available resource materials, getting familiar with the test format and dos and don’ts, as well as questions, before starting to work on translation passages.

Fostering group interactions

Because the group is not static, and not everyone completes the translation each month, you may end up working with the same partner on multiple occasions. In this event, the Discord channel can be used to request additional input on a specific point or to share something you’ve learned. An additional benefit of doing so is that other FLD members may see your post and get involved in the discussion.

Involving already-certified translators

One particular component of the SLD’s study group cycle that stands out as a potential improvement to the FLD initiative is the Expert Feedback step. The article linked above mentions that “the organizers put together a list of challenges encountered and solicit feedback from volunteer experts… the reviewers do not grade each individual translation, but do provide overall guidance on common challenges.” I found this appealing, although it would require care so that guidelines and expectations are clear for both participants and volunteer CT.

Final thoughts

Over the past five months, the experience has given me the opportunity to meet and exchange feedback with five different colleagues, only one of whom I had ever crossed paths with in the past. This has been the most surprising benefit of committing to working towards certification. When I first joined the ATA, I lived outside a major metropolitan area without a local chapter. In spite of attending the annual conference in NYC in 2009, I found it difficult to stay in touch with members before social media was considered an essential part of our professional lives. Thus far, I’ve really appreciated feeling a sense of belonging to the FLD and developing stronger ties to the ATA by extension.

No matter the form it takes, a certification exam study group is a golden opportunity to invest in your professional development. In the end, it only requires a few hours each month. If this inside look at what the FLD study group can be has motivated you to give it a go, contact divisionFLD [at] atanet.org to sign up and specify if you would like to participate in the French to English group or the English to French group.

Amber Marcum Combaud holds a professional certificate in French to English translation from NYU and a Bachelors in French and Linguistics from UVA. She got her big break in translation thanks to a wine and cheese party. Thereafter, she spent five years working as an in-house technical and corporate communications translator–project administrator for a company in the power generation niche. Currently based in Marseille, she began freelancing in 2016 to serve a wider range of clients in the energy, industry, and construction sectors, local businesses seeking to expand their horizons abroad, and individuals. An active member of the Société française des traducteurs in PACA, she served as a delegate from 2017–2019. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, paddle boarding, art museums, and live jazz. amber [at] amc-communication.com / www.amc-communication.com

 

By Sam Mowry

How it can be March 2021 when it feels like it never stopped being March 2020, I’ll never know! But it’s a new month and a new chance to compare translations. If you need a quick refresher, you can read about the premise of the Beat the Machine mini translation slam in our inaugural post here. Very simply, we’re out to prove how much better human translators are than machines and maybe learn something from one another in the process. After last month’s technical beast, we’re going in a very different direction this month with by far our shortest sentence ever:

Le réveil fut brutal.

Yes, it really is just four words long! This is an excerpt from the book L’Insomnie by Tahar Ben Jelloun. Rather than showing you what Google Translate would have given us (feel free to check, if you’re curious!), here is the context for this sentence, which ends a chapter:

Mes rêves étaient denses et riches. Je me voyais voguer sur les flots bleus de la Méditerranée, comme si j’étais sur des skis. J’allais très vite, des oiseaux de toutes les couleurs m’accompagnaient. Je chantais, je dansais, comme dans un film de Fred Astaire ! J’étais heureux et je crois même que je m’entichai d’une femme brune à la longue chevelure. Mais quelqu’un me disait à l’oreille : « Attention, c’est la mort ; il arrive parfois qu’elle se déguise pour faire diversion ! » C’est alors que je suis tombé dans la mer, je me noyais. Le réveil fut brutal.

Despite the rest of these words before it, I’m only asking for a translation of the very last sentence there. Four words, including a tense we don’t have in English and a noun that doesn’t have a direct equivalent. There are a million ways to go with this, so let’s see what you do!

Submit your translation here by March 31, 2021, and the blog post discussing it will go up in April!

Please note the following:

• Only FLD members will have their translations posted on this blog. Membership is free for current ATA members, so if you aren’t a member yet, make sure to join before you submit your translation!
• You are free to submit your sentence anonymously, but half the fun will be crediting the creative submissions we receive by name and recognizing their authors.
• You may submit as many times as you like in case you have a stroke of genius after your initial submission. This month in particular; you are encouraged to submit as many times as you like!

Have you translated or read a particularly pesky sentence this year that you can share for this project? Please send it along! Are you interested in helping us do the same virtual translation slam, but from English to French? We’d love to have one or more volunteers to do this series, but in reverse! If you’re interested, please contact Ben Karl, the À Propos editor, at ben [at] bktranslation.com or myself, Sam Mowry, at sam [at] frenchtranslation.expert to let us know!

 

 

By Sam Mowry

Welcome to the February follow-up of our Beat the Machine challenge! In our January post, I suggested a sentence to be translated and asked FLD members to submit their own versions, presumably improving upon the machine translated option. Now it’s time to go over some of their particularly interesting solutions.

As a refresher, this is what we were working with:

La gestion des résultats hors spécification a été revue au travers du dossier suivant : n° XYXY relatif à la fiche n° 123 de maléate de trimébutine dont le point de fusion a été mesuré non conforme ; l’hypothèse d’un capillaire trop rempli pour l’analyse a été confirmée par les séries de mesure n° 2 et n° 3 qui ont donné des résultats conformes.

And here’s what Google Translate gave us:

The management of non-specification results was reviewed through the following file: No. XYXY relating to sheet No. 123 of trimebutine maleate whose melting point was measured as non-compliant; the hypothesis of a capillary too full for analysis was confirmed by series of measurements n ° 2 and n ° 3 which gave consistent results.

Isn’t that fun? No points awarded for guessing this month’s theme, which is clearly SUPER DUPER technical. If it weren’t patently obvious (see what I did there?), this sentence was supplied by our beloved FLD colleague and technical translator extraordinaire, Karen Tkacyzk. Thanks, Karen, for this fascinating glimpse into technical translation. While this sentence struck fear into many hearts this month, mine among them, it’s an excellent opportunity to reflect and appreciate how varied the world of translation is. Even within a single language pair (French into English), the range of materials to be translated runs the gamut from literary fiction to texts like this one and literally everything in between. From a marketing perspective, it’s a good reminder that it’s almost impossible to specialize too narrowly, because this kind of extremely specific text exists in the world and needs to be translated. From a competition perspective, it’s a delight to remember that the vast majority of FR>EN translators are your colleagues, not your competition. I’m just one example, but this text is so far from the kind of texts I work with, and more importantly, it’s even farther from the kinds of texts I have any desire at all to work with. There are more than enough topics for everyone—and on the rare chance that there are many translators specializing in your language, direction, and specific subject: what a gift! A community you can reach out to when you get stuck on a term!

 Karen, blessedly, provided two translations, in her words, “the first one fairly faithful and the second more me writing what they mean”:

Translation 1:

The management of out-of-specification results was reviewed through file No. XYXY regarding form No. 123 for trimebutine maleate, where the melting point was measured as nonconforming. The hypothesis given of testing having been done with a capillary that was too full was confirmed by second and third measurement series, which gave conforming results.

Translation 2:

The management of out-of-specification results was reviewed through file No. XYXY regarding Certificate of Analysis No. 123 for trimebutine maleate, where the melting point measurement did not comply. The hypothesis given, that this was caused by testing with a capillary that was too full, was confirmed by two more series of measurements, where the results complied.

 To translate this yet again into what the sentence actually means (for laypeople like myself): there was a result that didn’t fall in line with the numbers it was supposed to. It was used as a case study for how that kind of result is handled. In this case, specifically form 123 in file no. XYXY, the melting point of a specific chemical seemed wrong. The people testing hypothesized that there was too much of said chemical in the tube to get an accurate result, which they verified by doing it two more times. Then the results were good.

Due to the nature of this sentence, evaluating the submissions we received is more a case of pass/fail, “Is this correct?” than critiquing fun turns of phrase. If you submitted a translation for this sentence, thank you! I really appreciate it, and you did a great job. All the submissions we received were reasonably accurate. I wanted to highlight one that read as particularly smooth to me, as someone without a technical background:

Out-of-specification result management was reviewed using File No. XYXY relating to Sheet No. 123 for trimebutine maleate, whose melting point was found to be non-compliant. Test series No. 2 and No. 3 yielded compliant results, which confirmed the hypothesis that a capillary tube had been overfilled during testing.

I asked Karen for her professional opinion, and she noted that, “Whoever submitted it knows what’s going on and is a decent technical translator.” Congratulations, anonymous submitter! Karen said that the only thing she’d change is that “during testing” at the end of the sentence is ambiguous, but in the source, it does mean the first series. She suggested “…during initial testing,” or “…during the first series.”

Thanks again for all of your submissions! Stay tuned for next month, which I promise will be very different indeed!

Did you forget to submit a translation in time? Not to worry! Share your version on Twitter and tag the French Language Division (@ATA_FLD) and me, @SamTranslates.

If you would like to submit a sentence for a future slam, I would like that very much! You can contact me, Sam Mowry, directly at sam [at] frenchtranslation.expert or on Twitter at the handle listed above. You can also contact the À Propos Editor Ben Karl at ben [at] bktranslation.com.

If you’d like to help launch a similar slam but into French, please also reach out!

Par Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo, PhD

Bonjour à toustes !

Si la lecture de cette formule de politesse n’a provoqué chez vous ni embolie gazeuse ni violente allergie, vous pouvez continuer à lire le reste de cet article. Âmes résistantes au changement, s’abstenir.

La représentativité constitue un enjeu majeur en ressources humaines. Que l’on traduise une offre d’emploi, une politique d’entreprise ou une nouvelle directive, il s’agit de permettre à tout le monde (et non « à chacun », tournure genrée) de se reconnaître et de se projeter dans un texte. À une époque où les entreprises investissent des sommes considérables dans leur image et veillent à assurer une meilleure parité des genres sur leurs visuels, il est de bon ton — et grand temps — que les textes que nous traduisons soient à la hauteur.

« Aujourd’hui, une offre d’emploi rédigée uniquement avec un masculin générique (par exemple, informaticien recherché) pourrait être perçue comme sexiste. Un texte qui s’adresse à un lectorat mixte, ou qui concerne des hommes et des femmes, peut être rédigé de manière à ce que les deux sexes s’y trouvent équitablement représentés. » (Druide. « Rédaction inclusive ». Points de langue. Avril 2020.)

Ceci n’est pas plus une stratégie

« Dans ce texte, le masculin englobe les deux genres et est utilisé pour alléger le texte. »

Bien entendu, la foudre ne s’abattra pas sur vous si vous utilisez encore cette formule ô combien pratique (« je n’ai pas à m’embêter et puis on a toujours fait comme ça ![1] »), mais, progressivement, votre clientèle exigera de vous, spécialistes de la langue, des solutions. « En français, l’identité de genre des personnes et le genre grammatical, féminin ou masculin, sont étroitement associés. » (OQLF, Banque de dépannage linguistique)

Force est de constater que toutes les régions francophones n’en sont pas au même stade de réflexion. Le Québec a, très tôt, commencé à se pencher sérieusement sur le sujet. Il n’est donc pas surprenant de trouver une pléthore de recommandations, de guides et de suggestions linguistiques en matière de rédaction inclusive au Québec. En France, l’indifférence et la résistance des autorités linguistiques et de certaines institutions ont considérablement ralenti la créativité linguistique. Aujourd’hui, cependant, personne ne veut être en reste et la plupart des pays francophones d’Europe ont emboîté le pas au Québec, à des degrés différents.

Dans ce qui suit, je présenterai quelques stratégies toutes simples pouvant être appliquées aux textes de ressources humaines que nous traduisons de l’anglais au français, langue qui marque plus fortement le genre que l’anglais et dont l’évolution se heurte à des résistances de tous genres. Partant du principe que la traduction est une forme de rédaction contrainte, les mots « rédaction » et « rédiger » utilisés ci‑dessous engloberont automatiquement l’activité de traduction. Je précise que ce billet n’a aucune prétention à effectuer un recensement exhaustif de toutes les ressources des régions francophones évoquées.

Le Petit Robert en ligne précise que l’écriture inclusive s’efforce « d’assurer une représentation égale des hommes et des femmes dans les textes. » Aussitôt dit, aussitôt fait ? Pas si vite, pas si simple. Féminiser un texte consiste à utiliser des formes féminines en le rédigeant, ce qui peut passer par la féminisation des noms de professions (informaticien ou informaticienne, informaticien(-ne), informaticien·ne) ou par le choix de certaines formes grammaticales (tous et toutes). On reviendra sur le choix des formes à notre disposition dans quelques instants. L’écriture épicène, c’est-à-dire qui ne varie pas en fonction du genre, constitue l’une des autres stratégies pouvant être mises en œuvre. « Le nom journaliste, l’adjectif pauvre et le pronom je sont épicènes. » (Dictionnaire Usito). La prolifération récente des guides et manuels d’écriture épicène montre que cette stratégie est aujourd’hui recommandée partout et par tout le monde, car elle permet d’alléger le texte sans imposer de changement et, par conséquent, sans provoquer de résistance audit changement.

Examinons quelques stratégies de rédaction équitable, puis quelques exemples de stratégies de rédaction épicène.

Doublets

• Les conseillers et les conseillères

Alternance de désignations à caractère dit « générique »

• Utiliser à tour de rôle « infirmier » et « infirmière »

Accord de proximité

• Les rédacteurs et rédactrices sont préparées.
• Les rédactrices et rédacteurs sont préparés.

Notons au passage que l’accord de proximité est encore loin de faire l’unanimité et qu’il est encore difficile, dans le milieu de la traduction, de le proposer à sa clientèle, bien que la règle d’accord du masculin générique n’ait pas toujours existé. En effet, l’accord de proximité a été appliqué dans la langue française pendant plusieurs siècles.

L’utilisation de la troncation, encore appelée doublets abrégés, constitue une autre stratégie d’équité linguistique, dont les formes préconisées varient en fonction des sphères géographiques et des préférences personnelles. L’auteur·e de l’article « Rédaction inclusive » publié dans Points de langue en avril 2020 conseille de les réserver « à des contextes exceptionnels où l’espace manque (tableaux, formulaires) et où aucune solution de rechange n’est possible », et propose un classement des formes de troncation en fonction de leur « nuisance croissante », dont voici la distribution :

« adjoint(e)s
résident·e·s
salarié[é]s
plombier/ière/s
réviseur-euse-s
étudiantEs
lecteur.trice.s »

La troncation avec point médian, comme dans « les candidat·e·s » ou « les candidat·es » (notons que la seconde formule, avec point médian unique où la marque du pluriel est accolée à la marque du féminin, semble être aujourd’hui davantage préconisée que la première), est beaucoup utilisée en sciences sociales et dans la presse française. Les doublets abrégés, comme dans « autorisation du (de la) directeur(‑trice) » ou « signature du [de la] sauveteur[-euse] », sont préconisés par l’Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). Le Bureau de la traduction, au Canada, déconseille fortement tout signe de troncation, position assez problématique lorsque l’on traduit un texte avec de fortes contraintes spatiales, tel qu’un formulaire, et que des doublets complets ou une tournure épicène sont impossibles. Avant d’aller plus loin, précisons que les partisans du point médian font valoir que ce signe typographique était disponible, au sens de « pas encore pris », tandis que le point traditionnel marque la fin d’une phrase, que les parenthèses indiquent un propos secondaire (connotation problématique lorsque l’objectif désiré est l’équité), que la barre oblique fait référence à la division et que le tiret est déjà utilisé pour le trait d’union (dont la connotation est cependant nettement moins problématique que les parenthèses).

Qui fait quoi ?

Au Québec, la plupart des universités publient des guides sur la féminisation et sur la rédaction inclusive. L’Office québécois de la langue française, le Bureau de la traduction et Druide, l’entreprise de services linguistiques qui est à l’origine du logiciel Antidote, mais aussi du blogue Points de langue, offrent une pléthore de ressources, dont certaines figurent dans la liste de références qui suit cet article.

En France, les multiples résistances de l’Académie française ont considérablement retardé l’entérinement de la féminisation des noms de métier. L’écriture épicène et la troncation avec point médian sont aujourd’hui préconisées par certains organismes publics, dont le Haut Conseil à l’Égalité, qui publie un guide pratique intitulé Pour une communication publique sans stéréotype de sexe. Le point médian semble être rentré dans les mœurs de certaines rédactions et l’agence de communication Mots-clés publie un Manuel d’écriture inclusive recommandé dans certaines universités françaises.

En Suisse, des efforts conséquents ont été déployés en la matière, notamment par l’Université de Genève (Guide romand d’aide à la rédaction administrative et législative épicène) et par le Canton de Vaud (« Exemples et conseils pour la rédaction épicène »).

Quelques solutions toutes simples en ressources humaines

On trouvera ci-dessous quelques suggestions de traductions neutres ou épicènes propres au domaine des ressources humaines :

Le personnel, le personnel salarié (employees)

Cadre, direction, responsable, supérieur·e, dirigeant·e (Manager/management/supervisor)

La clientèle (clients)

La main-d’œuvre (workers, workforce)

L’effectif (workforce)

Les collègues (coworkers)

Le corps enseignant (professors)

Son ou sa supérieur·e (their supervisor)

Son ou sa responsable (their supervisor)

La personne

• La personne salariée (employee)
• La nouvelle recrue (new employee)

La personne, cette formidable désignation

Le mot épicène « personne » constitue une stratégie d’écriture aussi simple qu’efficace, comme l’illustrent les quelques exemples qui suivent.

Droits de la personne (Droits de l’homme)

Exemples d’utilisation du mot « personne » au Québec et au Canada :

• Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (QC)
• Charte des droits et libertés de la personne (QC)
• Tribunal des droits de la personne (QC)
• Loi canadienne sur les droits de la personne (CA)

Cet extrait de la Trousse d’accueil et d’intégration en emploi des libraires publiée par le Conseil québécois des ressources humaines en culture fait une belle démonstration de la simplicité d’utilisation de l’écriture épicène en ressources humaines[2].

« On peut saisir la culture organisationnelle d’une librairie à partir du choix du fonds de livres, des livres qui sont mis en évidence, des caractéristiques des personnes sélectionnées pour y travailler, de la nature des conseils prodigués à la clientèle. »

• Toute entreprise a avantage à définir de manière précise les conditions de travail des personnes qu’elle embauche.
• Conseiller la clientèle sur des choix possibles de lecture et répondre à des demandes particulières. Écouter attentivement la demande formulée par la personne.
• Soumettre à la personne responsable des achats dans la librairie la liste des livres à acheter.
• L’employeur[3] peut effectuer une retenue sur le salaire si elle est consécutive à une loi, un règlement, une ordonnance du tribunal, une convention collective, un décret ou un régime de retraite à adhésion obligatoire. Il doit obtenir un consentement écrit de la part de la personne salariée pour toute autre retenue. »

L’utilisation de noms collectifs (clientèle, auditoire), du nom des services d’une entreprise (la direction, la comptabilité, le service du personnel) ou de mots épicènes (spécialiste, bénévole, collègue) permet de facilement dégenrer le texte. On retrouve d’ailleurs souvent ces stratégies d’écriture dans la presse de langue française, qui évoque « le milieu de la traduction », « le patronat », « la rédaction », etc.

Le Canton de Vaud, dans son excellent « Exemples et conseils pour la rédaction épicène », propose quelques trucs fort astucieux en matière de tournures non personnelles. Il s’agit ici de mettre l’accent non pas sur la personne en elle-même, mais plutôt sur son autorité, sa compétence, son activité ou son état, éléments d’ailleurs beaucoup plus pertinents que le genre en milieu de travail.

• Date de naissance (plutôt que « Né/Née le… »).
• Le tribunal fixe les sanctions de sorte que… (plutôt que « Le juge fixe »).
• Les secours sont arrivés (plutôt que « Les sauveteurs… »).
• En cas de blessure, ne pas laisser l’élève sans surveillance (plutôt que « ne pas laisser l’élève blessé seul »).

Le Manuel d’écriture inclusive de l’agence Mots-Clés illustre les possibles à partir de la déclinaison suivante :

Formulation genrée initiale :

« Merci à tous d’être à leurs côtés. »

Formulation inclusive fléchie :

« Merci à tous et à toutes d’être à leurs côtés. »

Formulations inclusives épicènes :

• « Merci d’être à leurs côtés[4]. »
• « Merci à vous d’être à leurs côtés. »
• « Merci à tout le monde d’être à leurs côtés. »
• « Merci à l’ensemble de nos collègues d’être à leurs côtés. »

Au-delà des tournures ci-dessus, assorties de degrés d’économie variables, les spécialistes de la langue que nous sommes disposent d’une autre tournure, très économique, mais nouvelle. Les personnes présentant une résistance naturelle au changement sont susceptibles de sursauter. Cependant, posons‑nous en toute honnêteté la question essentielle : qui ne comprend pas le sens de « Merci à toustes » ?

Il en va de même pour les pronoms non binaires « iel » et « iels », qui sont les formes les plus fréquemment utilisées pour traduire en français le « they » non binaire, même si quelques variations orthographiques sont parfois observées (« ielle » et « ielles »). Bien que ces pronoms n’aient fait leur apparition que tout récemment, ils se comprennent parfaitement en contexte.

Progressivement, les textes que nous traduirons en ressources humaines reflèteront une volonté d’intégration de toutes les personnes, au-delà du masculin générique et du binaire traditionnel. La langue doit suivre, y compris la nôtre, et elle suit déjà. Il suffit d’observer son usage actuel pour s’en rendre compte. Il est donc important de pouvoir être force de proposition vis-à-vis de notre clientèle. Par ailleurs, en mettant en avant cette compétence, nous nous dotons d’un atout supplémentaire de taille, qui ajoute de la valeur aux services que nous offrons.

Merci à toustes de votre attention.

[1] Oui, la terre était plate aussi pendant longtemps.

[2] Caractères gras ajoutés par l’auteure.

[3] « Employeur » est ici utilisé au sens de personne morale (entité juridique), et non de personne physique.

[4] Palme de la tournure économique.

Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo est titulaire d’une maîtrise et d’un doctorat en traduction de l’Université de Montréal. Elle est traductrice agréée par l’OTTIAQ, au Québec, et interprète médicale agréée par la CCHI, aux États-Unis. Elle exerce depuis une trentaine d’années et a commencé sa carrière en Europe, puis en Afrique avant de se tourner vers les Amériques. Aujourd’hui, elle enseigne la traduction à l’école de traduction Magistrad, à Québec, et l’interprétation et la traduction à l’Université du Massachusetts Amherst. Ses domaines de spécialisation comprennent le secteur médical, les ressources humaines, les sciences humaines et sociales, la culture et le sous-titrage. Elle dirige le projet de traduction d’archives coloniales intitulé Colony in Crisis in Haitian Creole et sa première monographie, The Politics of Transaltion Sound Motif in African Fiction, est sortie en mars 2020 chez John Benjamins Publishing. Coordonnées : laurence@intofrenchtranslations.com | https://intofrenchtranslations.com/home/

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Liste de références

ARTICLES

Auteur anonyme. « La bataille de l’écriture épicène ». https://cursus.edu/articles/43843/la-bataille-de-lecriture-epicene. Thot Cursus. 7 octobre 2020.

Auteur anonyme. « Rédaction inclusive ». Points de langue. Druide. Avril 2020. https://www.druide.com/fr/enquetes/redaction-inclusive

Bruno. « Pourquoi utilise-t-on le point milieu dans l’écriture inclusive ? Le Figaro, 23 novembre 2017 https://leconjugueur.lefigaro.fr/blog/point-milieu-ecriture-inclusive/#:~:text=Le%20point%20milieu%20(aussi%20appel%C3%A9,%C3%A0%20la%20place%20des%20espaces.

Eschapasse, Baudouin. « Écriture inclusive, on caricature le débat ». Le Point, 29 octobre 2017. https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/ecriture-inclusive-on-caricature-le-debat-27-10-2017-2167914_23.php

DICTIONNAIRES SPÉCIALISÉS

James, Christopher, et Antoine Tirard. Dictionnaire des Ressources humaines : français-anglais/Dictionary of Human Resources: English-French. 4^e édition. Rueil-Malmaison : Éditions Liaisons, 2009.

Ménard, Louis. Dictionnaire de la comptabilité et de la gestion financière. Version numérique 3.1. Institut canadien des comptables agréés, 2014. [Une nouvelle version numérique sort en décembre 2020]

Peretti, Jean-Marie. Dictionnaire des Ressources humaines. 7^e édition. Paris : Vuibert, 2015.

DOCUMENTS TYPES ET GUIDES DE RÉFÉRENCE EN FRANÇAIS

Agences Mots-Clés (France). Manuel d’écriture inclusive. https://www.motscles.net/ecriture-inclusive

Association Divergenres. https://divergenres.org/regles-de-grammaire-neutre-et-inclusive/

Haut Conseil à l’Égalité (France). Guide pratique pour une communication publique sans stéréotype de sexe. https://www.haut-conseil-egalite.gouv.fr/stereotypes-et-roles-sociaux/bibliographie/

Conseil québécois des ressources humaines en culture. Trousse d’accueil et d’intégration en emploi des libraires

Canton de Vaud (Suisse). « Exemples et conseils pour la rédaction épicène ». https://www.vd.ch/guide-typo3/les-principes-de-redaction/redaction-egalitaire/exemples-et-conseils-pour-la-redaction-epicene/

Université de Genève (Suisse). Guide romand d’aide à la rédaction administrative et législative épicène. https://www.unige.ch/rectorat/egalite/files/9314/0353/2716/charte_epicene_GE_ecrire_genres.pdf

LEXIQUES, GLOSSAIRES, RECOMMANDATIONS AU QUÉBEC ET AU CANADA

Office québécois de la langue française. Articles sur la féminisation et la rédaction épicène.

Office québécois de la langue française. Formation sur la rédaction épicène. (2018)

Bureau de la traduction. Recommandations sur l’écriture inclusive dans la correspondance

Bureau de la traduction. Lexique sur la diversité sexuelle et de genre : https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/publications/diversite-diversity-fra.html?fbclid=IwAR34q_vFMc4vVSngX9RxO_mYLTvmlbz3sHP78y3igMctQVjyBVJDKj-eU8w

 

By Kate Deimling

How do we know if a translation is good? Most people probably think of accuracy first, but we shouldn’t forget about style. Of course, a translation must accurately reflect the meaning of the source. But the way it expresses this meaning is also important.

The style should always be tailored to the context and the audience: a marketing text needs a certain kind of writing, while an international development report requires a very different tone. Style is especially important for writing that wants to inform and convince: to convince someone to buy something, to convince someone of an argument, or simply to convince them to continue reading! After all, the reader will close the book or navigate away from the screen if they don’t feel engaged.

Here are some translation strategies for dealing with common features of French style, along with tips for efficient revision. For this post, I’ve cherry-picked points from a talk I gave at the October 2020 virtual ATA conference. Examples are all from my own translations.

Creating Contrast with Si

Si is a very common connector word in French that can be translated a variety of ways. When si is used for contrast, the word “if” is a lot weaker in English, and alternatives will make a stronger impression. Here’s an example:

French: Si la Baigneuse est un sujet traditionnel de la peinture et de la sculpture, Picasso l’investit d’une manière toute singulière. 

English translation 1: While the bather is a traditional subject in painting and sculpture, Picasso treated it in a very unique way.

English translation 2: Although the bather is a traditional subject painting and sculpture, Picasso treated it in a very unique way.

English translation 3: The bather is a traditional subject in painting and sculpture, but Picasso treated it in a very unique way.

These are all acceptable choices for translating “si,” though the second two versions are probably more common in US English.

Don’t “Bury the Lede”

“Burying the lede” means hiding the most important information later in the news story, instead of emphasizing it at the beginning. Here’s an example where the translator should move the essential information to the front of the sentence in English:

French: Au fil des années, sous l’impulsion de ses directeurs et de ses ingénieurs qui, sous l’influence du terrain et des chantiers, ont créé leur propre champ de recherche, le LRMH a grandi.

English translation: The LRMH has grown over the years, spurred on by its directors and engineers who have created their own field of research through fieldwork and major projects.

Reordering sentences improves the translation more often than you might think. Here’s a sentence from a report on young people and the internet. It took me some time to figure out how I wanted to rework it for a stronger effect in English:

French: La nécessité de mieux comprendre le rapport des jeunes à Internet, aux plateformes et aux réseaux sociaux apparaît d’autant plus forte dans la période actuelle où les mesures de confinement liées à la crise du Covid-19 impliquent une utilisation plus grande des outils numériques.

My initial translation followed the French sentence structure:

English translation 1: The need to better understand young people’s relationship to the internet, social media, and online platforms appears even more crucial in the current period, when isolation measures due to the Covid-19 crisis involve increased use of digital tools.

When revising, I thought this sounded a bit stilted. So, I asked myself: how would this sentence read if I saw it in an English-language report? I decided to rearrange the relationship between the two key elements: “in the current period” and “even more crucial.” This is what I came up with:

English translation 2: Today, when isolation measures in response to the Covid-19 crisis have increased the use of digital technology, it is more crucial than ever to understand young people’s relationship to the internet and social media.

What’s the Best Way to Revise for Style?

Does this mean we should revise our translations over and over again to perfect their style? No. With tight deadlines and a demanding workflow, this just isn’t practical. Plus, you can tinker with a translation forever without coming up with a single “right” version. So, how can you approach revising in a way that’s both effective and efficient?

Here are a few tips:

• If time allows, set your translation aside and revise it later when you can take a fresh look at it and catch any phrasing that sounds awkward.
• Read over your translation while putting the source text aside. Read aloud to check for readability. This can help catch proofreading errors too!
• Make stylistic changes in the context of surrounding sentences. For instance, instead of repeating the conjunction “but” in two adjacent sentences, rephrase one sentence with “although.”

Extra Tips

• Know yourself and your tendencies!
• If you translate fast, you may have produced an overly literal translation. Make sure to set the translation aside and read it afresh when revising. This will help you focus on issues of style.
• If you tend to be a perfectionist, estimate how long revising should take. (You’ll need to come up with your own sense of this timing, based on the fee for the job, client expectations, the purpose of the translation, and so on.) Then set a timer. Check the timer and pace yourself as you revise so that you don’t spend too long on any one section.

Now you’re ready to polish those translations until they shine!

 

An ATA-certified French-to-English translator, Kate Deimling loves learning new things, whether she’s translating a museum audioguide or a report on climate change or writing copy about gemstone jewelry. She holds a Ph.D. in French and previously worked as a French professor and an art journalist. She has translated six books and her volunteer activities include serving on the PR committee of the ATA and directing the mentoring program of the New York Circle of Translators, an ATA chapter. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, cooking, and playing word games. You can find her online at katedeimling.com.

By Sam Mowry

It’s a new year and a new chance to learn from our respected colleagues to improve our translations through the Beat the Machine Mini Translation Slam. If you need a quick refresher, you can read about the premise in our inaugural post here. Very simply, we’re out to prove how much better human translators are than machines and maybe learn something from one another in the process. This time we’re going a different direction, with a sentence submitted by technical translator extraordinaire Karen Tkaczyk, so you know this is going to be a wild time:

La gestion des résultats hors spécification a été revue au travers du dossier suivant : n° XYXY relatif à la fiche n° 123 de maléate de trimébutine dont le point de fusion a été mesuré non conforme ; l’hypothèse d’un capillaire trop rempli pour l’analyse a été confirmée par les séries de mesure n°2 et n° 3 qui ont donné des résultats conformes.

Not exactly poetry! This is what Google’s output looks like:

The management of non-specification results was reviewed through the following file: No. XYXY relating to sheet No. 123 of trimebutine maleate whose melting point was measured as non-compliant; the hypothesis of a capillary too full for analysis was confirmed by series of measurements n ° 2 and n ° 3 which gave consistent results.

The technically minded terminology sleuths amongst us should have a field day with this one!

Submit your (obviously) much better translation here by January 31, 2021, and the blog post discussing it will go up in early February!

Please note the following:

• Only FLD members will have their translations posted on this blog. Membership is free for current ATA members, so if you aren’t a member yet, make sure to join before you submit your translation!
• You are free to submit your sentence anonymously, but half the fun will be crediting the creative submissions we receive by name and recognizing their authors.
• You may submit as many times as you like in case you have a stroke of genius after your initial submission. I will only discuss one submission per person in the review post.

Have you translated or read a particularly pesky sentence this past year that you can share for this project? Please send it along! Are you interested in helping us do the same virtual translation slam, but from English to French? We’d love to have one or more volunteers to do this series, but in reverse! If you’re interested, please contact Ben Karl, the À Propos editor, at ben [at] bktranslation.com or myself, Sam Mowry, at sam [at] frenchtranslation.expert to let us know!

 

Welcome to part two of our second Beat the Machine challenge and our last Beat the Machine post of 2020! In our September post, I gave a sentence to be translated and asked FLD members to submit their own versions, presumably improving upon the machine translated option. Now we’ll go over some particularly interesting options.

As a refresher, this is what we were working with, taken from Le Devoir:

Mais si les relations sont aujourd’hui plus conflictuelles que jamais, il était pour ainsi dire écrit dans le ciel que la formidable croissance économique chinoise des quarante dernières années, orchestrée qui plus est, depuis huit ans, par un régime Xi particulièrement autoritaire et expansionniste, finirait par déboucher sur une lutte de pouvoir de grande envergure entre la Chine et un empire américain qui n’est forcément plus ce qu’il était.

Here’s what Google Translate gave us:

But if relations are today more conflictual than ever, it was almost written in the sky that the tremendous Chinese economic growth of the last forty years, orchestrated moreover, for eight years, by a particularly authoritarian and expansionist Xi regime, would eventually lead to a large-scale power struggle between China and an American empire that is not necessarily what it used to be.

We have plenty to work with, so let’s dig in! We’ll start with each phrase before talking about strategies for breaking down the sentence as a whole.

Mais si

“Si” to start a sentence is a well-known and fully despised French convention. The five respondents all chose different and equally valid solutions: “However,” “Though,” “Since,” are very appropriate. Two particularly interesting options here were simply starting the sentence with “And…” which is a fun way to mix up sentence structures in English (and reflets the French! You can view the full paragraph this sentence was taken from in the September post). One respondent, Beth Smith, foreshadowed the broad timeline of the rest of the sentence by starting with “Nowadays…”. I particularly like this option because it conveys the sense of “So, this thing…” that the “si” hooks into, but also incorporates a time element.

…les relations sont aujourd’hui plus conflictuelles que jamais…

“Relations” and “relationship” were both used, and both are valid here. The international aspect suggests “relations” (as in “foreign relations,” “international relations”), but since it’s between two specific entities, I think relationship is also applicable. All of the human respondents discarded Google Translate’s painfully literal “conflictual,” which is apparently a real English word. Interestingly, out of five submissions, they all selected one of two options. “Contentious” was more popular, with three submissions, and the other two used “fraught.”

…il était pour ainsi dire écrit dans le ciel…

Here we come face to face with Google Translate’s nemesis: figures of speech. I assure you that no skywriting was involved in announcing this news. In another distinct win for the humans, none of the human translators fell for this trap. Many good options here: “it almost seems like fate,” “it was inevitable,” “we might have predicted,” and “It was almost a foregone conclusion.”

…que la formidable croissance économique chinoise des quarante dernières années, orchestrée qui plus est, depuis huit ans, par un régime Xi particulièrement autoritaire et expansionniste…

Formidable had a number of good options: incredible, remarkable are both very solid. My favorite, from Andie Ho, was “prodigious.” The rest of this section is frankly straightforward (“economic growth,” “authoritarian and expansionist”), and the real problems come with how you fit it in with the rest, so we’ll address that later. One fun twist I particularly liked was offered by Ben Karl, who opted for “four decades” of economic growth instead of forty years. Since “eight years” comes up only a few words later, this is particularly clever to avoid repeating “last x years” almost immediately.”

…finirait par déboucher sur…

“Finir par” is another known and loathed French construction. All five translators combined “finirait par déboucher sur” into one expression, rather than getting bogged down by needing to render every word in English, with something like “would result in leading to” or similar. Good options included “lead to,” “end in,” “end up as.”

…une lutte de pouvoir de grande envergure…

Google Translate gave us “large-scale,” which is adequate. Two translators used “major,” and my favorite option was submitted by Andie Ho, who used “all-out brawl.” That seems a little bit more aggressive than the French, but it certainly is large-scale, and I love the idiomatic use of brawl.

 …entre la Chine et un empire américain qui n’est forcément plus ce qu’il était.

Everyone stuck pretty close to the source here, perhaps as an effect of fatigue from battling through the rest of the sentence. But it’s not inaccurate to say, “between China and an American empire that is no longer what it once was.” A more literary option might be “an American empire no longer in its heyday,” or perhaps “an American empire past its prime.”

Sentence breaks

Obviously, this sentence is a little unwieldy in English, and are a couple options to handle that. One person left it as one sentence, which is ultimately fine. Two people set off a section in the middle with em dashes, and one person used both em dashes and also segmented the first section as a separate sentence (“Nowadays, the relationship is more contentious than ever.”) The decision of how much to split off into a separate sentence depends heavily on the surrounding context and how much you want to vary sentence length for that reason.

Piecing together some of the best parts of all the sentences, here is a suggested composite:

Since the US–China relationship is as contentious as it has ever been, it almost seems like fate that China’s prodigious economic growth over the last forty years—orchestrated for the last eight by an especially authoritarian and expansionist Xi Jinping regime—would eventually lead to an all-out brawl between China and an American empire decidedly past its prime.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really pleased with that! That’s a considered sentence that does a number of clever things and avoids all of the worst pitfalls Google Translate replicated. Chalk up another win for the humans!

Did you forget to submit a translation in time? Not to worry! Share your version on Twitter and tag the French Language Division (@ATA_FLD) and me, @SamTranslates.

If you would like to submit a sentence for a future slam, I would like that very much! You can contact me, Sam Mowry, directly at sam [at] frenchtranslation.expert or on Twitter at the handle listed above. You can also contact the À Propos Editor Ben Karl at ben [at] bktranslation.com.

If you’d like to help launch a similar slam but into French, please also reach out! We would love to get this going in both directions.

By the FLD team

ATA61 is right around the corner! Below you will find a preview of all the sessions in the French track. Remember that ATA-certified translators can earn one CEP for each hour of conference sessions attended, up to a maximum of 10 CEPs. Plus, all the sessions will be recorded and made available to attendees after the conference, so you won’t miss a thing!

Mastering Cultural Nuances in French: Identifying and Translating Regionalisms

Natalie Pavey, CT

This session will focus on increasing your awareness of regional variations of French and identifying when a construction is characteristic of a specific geographic area. It will also propose strategies for translating region-specific vocabulary, expressions, idioms, and colloquialisms to capture the richness of the French language in your translations. Examples will be used to demonstrate how cultural awareness, local knowledge, and a solid understanding of standard French all come into play when attempting to retain local color in the target language.

Thursday, October 22 from 5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m. EDT

Who’s Afraid of DeepL?

Dirk Siepmann

Machine translation (MT) tools like DeepL have become a significant concern to the translation industry. Clients either turn away from professional translators, assuming that DeepL will do the job just as well, or they submit a machine-translated text for post-editing, blithely unaware that this may be more time-consuming than translating from scratch. This session will examine the strengths and weaknesses of DeepL and suggest strategies for post-editing. It will demonstrate that fully automated high-quality MT is still out of reach. In what ways does the machine either assist or mislead translators, and when to do without it? Presented with examples from German and French.

Friday, October 23 from 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. EDT

Style is Everything: Tips for Polishing Your French>English Translations

Kate Deimling, CT

This session will examine various aspects of French style and discuss approaches to translating them into well-written English. The goal is to identify problematic features in French while translating, instead of noticing stilted language while proofing the translation. Examples will come from various fields, including academic writing, journalism, international policy, and marketing. French style is more roundabout, whereas in English it’s important not to “bury the lede.” A main topic will be word order, including indications of time and place. The speaker will also discuss how to express emphasis and contrast. There will be an interactive portion for attendee contributions.

Friday, October 23 from 3:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. EDT

French>English Official Document Translation: From Attestation to Zoologie

Samantha Mowry, CT

The translator of French>English official documents has to contend with dozens of document types (e.g., birth/death/marriage certificates, criminal record reports, academic transcripts/certificates/diplomas at all levels of education, report cards, and more). The challenges are multiplied by the more than 25 countries using French as a language of government and academic instruction. This session will focus on the terminology in this field, including solutions for stock phrases commonly found on civil records and academic documentation, ambiguous course names in specialized fields, and the differences in grading systems. The speaker will include a detailed take-home glossary.

Friday, October 23 from 5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m. EDT

Inclusive English>French Translation for Human Resources in Francophone Europe and Canada

Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

Inclusive writing in human resources (HR) is now being recommended in Francophone Europe and Canada to address gender-based stereotypes and discrimination in the workplace. Translating from English into French, which is a gender-marked language, presents challenges when it comes to recreating an inclusive text. Attendees will learn about current recommendations for inclusive writing in Francophone Europe and Canada and gender-neutral strategies when translating HR materials into French. This session will be relevant to both English>French and French>English translators. Sample challenges and solutions will be discussed, and attendees will receive a handout with examples and resources.

Saturday, October 24 from 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. EDT

Thanks in advance to all of the presenters—we can’t wait! If any of you are interested in turning your presentations into blog posts, you know where to find us!

It still isn’t too late to register for ATA’s first virtual conference! Head over to ata61.org/register/ to reserve your spot and “see” you all next week!

 

By Sam Mowry

After a rollicking start to our Beat the Machine online translation slam, we’re back with a new sentence! If you need a quick refresher, you can read about the premise in our inaugural post here. Very simply, we’re out to prove how much better human translators are than machines and maybe learn something from one another in the process.

Here is the sentence for this month:

Mais si les relations sont aujourd’hui plus conflictuelles que jamais, il était pour ainsi dire écrit dans le ciel que la formidable croissance économique chinoise des quarante dernières années, orchestrée qui plus est, depuis huit ans, par un régime Xi particulièrement autoritaire et expansionniste, finirait par déboucher sur une lutte de pouvoir de grande envergure entre la Chine et un empire américain qui n’est forcément plus ce qu’il était.

What was that I said last month about French being fond of long sentences? This one will give you ample opportunity to wade through and potentially break into as many shorter sentences as you see fit. The sky is the limit!

For context, Xi refers to Xi Jinping, the President of the People’s Republic of China, who has been in power since 2012. His name doesn’t require any particular treatment, and “Xi regime” would be a fine translation in this context (but feel free as always to get creative!).

Here is the full paragraph the sentence came from:

Que Pékin ne joue pas franc jeu en matière commerciale est notoire et que la dictature chinoise ait depuis longtemps à l’ordre international un rapport « inadéquat » est incontestable. Que M. Trump joue la corde antichinoise à l’approche de la présidentielle, il fallait s’y attendre. Mais si les relations sont aujourd’hui plus conflictuelles que jamais, il était pour ainsi dire écrit dans le ciel que la formidable croissance économique chinoise des quarante dernières années, orchestrée qui plus est, depuis huit ans, par un régime Xi particulièrement autoritaire et expansionniste, finirait par déboucher sur une lutte de pouvoir de grande envergure entre la Chine et un empire américain qui n’est forcément plus ce qu’il était. Nous y voilà. Pour l’heure, l’ordre du monde est façonné par les faucons des deux côtés.

If you’d like to read the full article from Le Devoir, you may find it here.

Here is Google’s feeble attempt:

But if relations are today more conflictual than ever, it was almost written in the sky that the tremendous Chinese economic growth of the last forty years, orchestrated moreover, for eight years, by a particularly authoritarian and expansionist Xi regime , would eventually lead to a large-scale power struggle between China and an American empire that is not necessarily what it used to be.

Submit your much better translation here by September 30, 2020, and the blog post discussing it will go live in October!

Please note the following:

• Only FLD members will have their translations posted on this blog. Membership is free for current ATA members, so if you aren’t a member yet, make sure to join before you submit your translation!
• You are free to submit your sentence anonymously, but half the fun will be crediting the creative submissions we receive by name and recognizing their authors.
• You may submit as many times as you like in case you have a stroke of genius after your initial submission. I will only discuss one submission per person in the review post.

Have you translated or read a particularly pesky sentence this year that you can share for this project? Please send it along! Are you interested in helping us do the same virtual translation slam, but from English to French? We’d love to have one or more volunteers to do this series, but in reverse! If you’re interested, please contact Ben Karl, the À Propos editor, at ben [at] bktranslation.com or myself, Sam Mowry, at sam [at] translation.expert to let us know!

Welcome to part two of our inaugural Beat the Machine mini translation slam! In our July post, I asked FLD members to re-translate a complicated sentence to improve upon the machine translation output provided in the post. Now it’s time to review some of the submissions!

Before diving in, I would like to acknowledge that I may have had a little bit of hubris when selecting this first sentence. One of my favorite FLD members suggested it and I thought, “perfect, this thing is a mess, let’s do it!” Then I sat down to tackle it myself and… eesh, this sentence really was a challenge! The good news is that this has been a fun learning experience for us all, and I now know what I’m looking for in future sentences. The other good news is that many of our colleagues were clearly less daunted than I and submitted some really creative solutions. So, let’s dig in!

To refresh our memory, this was the sentence we were working with:

L’excellentissime pianiste classique autrichien Friedrich Gulda n’eût peut-être pas été d’accord, lui qui ne cessa de transgresser les deux grands ordres (jazz et classique) en les reprisant et déprisant dans des concerts qui filaient standards de jazz, classiques des classiques.

And here’s what DeepL gave us:

Perhaps the excellent Austrian classical pianist Friedrich Gulda would not have agreed, as he never stopped transgressing the two great orders (jazz and classical) by reproducing them in concerts that spun jazz standards, classics from classics.

As foreshadowed, there are a lot of things we’re working with here. There are four different parts to this monster, so let’s take it part by part before addressing some really neat things some people did with the structure of the sentence as a whole.

L’excellentissime pianiste classique autrichien Friedrich Gulda…

In the first seven words, everyone agrees about three of them. “Friedrich Gulda” and “Austrian” are pretty concrete! Things immediately diverge after that. Some of the options for excellentissime were excellent, brilliant, and outstanding. However, two people did something pretty clever here, opting for “virtuoso” in English. This is particularly delightful because it folds the level of skill into the noun: Friedrich Gulda, classical piano virtuoso. The alternative, [adjective] + [classical pianist], is perfectly accurate, but virtuoso conveys a level of talent beyond “excellent” that better matches excellentissime (the –issime meaning very excellent) and changes up the sentence structure ever so slightly.

…n’eût peut-être pas été d’accord…

Everyone went with either “would not have agreed” or “would have disagreed.” This a fun reminder that you can structure even seemingly straightforward text more than one way. The difference is slight, but real, and which option is “better” depends on the rest of the sentence: is the goal fewer total words? Shorter words? Depending on the context, choosing something like “may have begged to differ,” could potentially be great.

…lui qui ne cessa de transgresser les deux grands ordres (jazz et classique)…

Here’s where things start to get messy. Ne cessa de became: ceaselessly, always, continued to, constantly, and continually. So many options to convey “something that never stops!” Transgresser is clearly a problem in English, as “to transgress” is much weightier than just mixing musical genres, not to mention the moral or religious overtones. DeepL fell right into this trap. Our human options here included “intermixed,” and “transcended.” My favorite solutions were “went outside the box,” which, while it could use a stronger verb than “went,” encompasses the notion of transgressing in a more palatable way, and my very favorite, “pushed the limits.” He didn’t necessarily break the boundaries, as a transgression might suggest, but he’s right up against it.

…en les reprisant et déprisant dans des concerts…

Oh no, wordplay in the source! The holy grail here would be to come up with something that has the same kind of parallelism or at least some kind of interplay as reprisant et déprisant. Options included: “combining and undoing them,” (accurate, if not a little clunky), “reappraising and transforming,” (yet clunkier, in my opinion). “Taking them apart and putting them back together”: we’re getting there, it’s literal but closer to the mark. “Deconstructing and reconstructing,” is almost there and is the best non-metaphorical option that was submitted; it checks both boxes, opposite words with a similar structure to match the source.

However, there was one superlative submission here that does all of the above but also leads into the next part of the sentence beautifully: “unraveling and reweaving them in concerts.” I swooned.

…qui filaient standards de jazz, classiques des classiques.

The swoon-worthy submission continues: “…that spun together jazz standards and classical classics.” This is why I love this option so much for the previous part. The translator saw filer in this section and put it to excellent use in the previous one, using a thread metaphor to describe how Gulda took apart and reassembled the musical components. The use of “spun” continues the metaphor perfectly.

Lastly, “classical classics,” submitted by two translators, is snappy and alliterative, and I don’t know what more you could ask.

Sentence breaks? What are those?

This mouthful of a French sentence reminds us that what is valued for style in French doesn’t always correspond to what we look for in English: French sentences can run on and on and on. And I actually chopped this sucker in half before issuing this challenge! Two of the translators used a period and broke it into two fully separate sentences; one person used a semicolon for the same purpose. One option that surprised me was to pull the initial verb (“might have disagreed”) all the way to the end, so it read something like “Friedrich Gulda, [description], who [did the things], may well have disagreed.” This, again, is a decision where context matters, and this option may or may not flow into what comes next in the text. But it certainly has the option to, and that’s awesome. Next time, I’ll provide more context so that we can better evaluate options like this one.

Putting it all together, this is a string combining my personal favorite individual translation solutions for this sentence:

Friedrich Gulda, the classical piano virtuoso who continually pushed the limits of two great genres (jazz and classical), unraveling and reweaving them in concerts that spun together jazz standards and classical classics, may well have disagreed.

You know what? I think that’s pretty good! That’s a well-crafted sentence. And, given the notable lack of preceding or following sentences, I can claim it is ideal for the context. So… whew! We made it! I hope that it was useful and informative to see how many options there are for even simple phrases, and what neat things you can achieve with even mundane words. Stay tuned for next month, where we’ll do it all again (with a more approachable sentence this time!).

Did you forget to submit a translation in time? Not to worry! Share your version on Twitter and tag the French Language Division (@ATA_FLD) and me, @SamTranslates.

If you would like to submit a sentence for a future slam, I would like that very much! You can contact me, Sam Mowry, directly at sam [at] translation.expert or on Twitter at the handle listed above. You can also contact the À Propos Editor Ben Karl at ben [at] bktranslation.com.

If you’d like to help launch a similar slam but into French, please also reach out!