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Spot the mistake

By Valérie Marzac
These are the ways of the world: Spot the mistake:  Project = Emergency. Payment Terms = 60 to 90 days We all know the deal. Most projects are due for yesterday. Clients on our backs, constant emails, we can’t pay this much, pretty please and a bunch of hypocritical excuses, while we work like maniacs to meet insane deadlines for often a mere pittance. But when it’s all set and done, should we have a question regarding our daily bread, only silence replies.  These are the ways of the world. Everyone looks after him/herself. Each to their own and nevermind the disposable poor sods who worked so hard for a few breadcrumbs.  Fortunately not all of us belong to this world but we are a minority.  Most clients have such little faith. No matter your qualifications and experience, countless free tests must be performed.  Imagine walking into a computer shop to have your laptop mended and asking for a free job just to test the technicians providing the service. We’d be kicked out on the spot! Y
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The most incredible translation into French!

By Valérie Marzac
 A creative translator pays attention to sounds as well as meaning. OK, let's say that you must translate 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte into French. No, not the book, only the title. Well, GOOD LUCK! Rendering the 'wuthering' sound as well as the meaning is a Mission Impossible.  And yet, an incredible translator came up with  "Les Hauts de Hurlevent" (sometimes spelt "Les Hauts de Hurle-Vent"). What an absolutely mind-blowing translation!!! Not only do the French sounds render the rather scary 'Wuthering' but the meaning is also present. I don't know how long it took to translate such a title but my guess is a rather long time.  Yes, we're only talking about 2 words. 2 incredibly difficult words to translate which exemplify rather well the work of a translator. We must pay attention to sounds as well as meaning, especially in a literary and marketing context and this can take ages. You can 'Chat GPT' or whatever, on
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When clients are a nightmare...

By Valérie Marzac
 Last week I was contacted by a company who needed me to proofread over 1000 Excel cells from English to French and French to English for the following day with a standard payment per cell. The pay was a bit poor but I accepted the project. And so the nightmare soon began.  First surprise,  I soon discovered that many of the cells had long and sometimes huge paragraphs to be double-checked. So the deadline was going to be so tight that I would have to work all day, all night and the following day to send back the work on time.  Second surprise: The source text was from very poor to gibberish in both languages. I found myself having to try and make sense out of nonsense in order to check the translations which weren't very good and often quite bad because of grammar, semantics and punctuation as well as because the poor translators who worked on this file must have had a nightmare trying to make sense of the source texts. I warned the PM about this. At first I decided to amend the s
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It's never been about whether or not you like AI!

By Valérie Marzac
Let's be blunt about this: No one cares whether you like AI. It has been imposed upon us and we have to deal with it. And that's that. Some scientists predict that AI will take over the world while human beings will become redundant at best and dead at worst.😨 We all know that the translation world as well as the world at large is changing tremendously because of AI. As a translator and writer, when before AI I would be asked to translate a document for say 0.1 USD, now I'm told to proofread/edit the document for a mere 0.03 USD per word. I'm well aware that the documents provided have been 'AIzed'. This word still isn't in the dictionary but I'm sure it will come in no time. Processing documents with AI such as Chat GPT or Gemini is what most clients do to save money on translations.  Before AI, I used to explain to my clients that proofreading and editing often take as much time if not more than actually translating. As any translator will know, this
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Examples of Translation from English to French

By Valérie Marzac
  If you've checked my blog, you already know that translating cannot be literal, it isn't just a matter of looking up a word in the dictionary. Context matters, Culture matters, Style matters, Grammar matters, so that the finished 'product' will sound like a text written in the target language while translating the original source document as faithfully as possible. Some fields are more standard than others. But what's certain is that you will come across some sentences which require some and at times a fair amount of thinking. 1 - Here is an example taken from the fashion industry: This year, green will grow on you. Translators, don't you dare start translating this right away! STOP! You should always pause first! Think about what the main problem is here in order to translate into French. Got it? Yes, the main problem is 'will'. We're always taught that will is the auxiliary used for the future tense. But 'will' also conveys the idea of a
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Location: 86000 Poitiers, France
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Translators are Traitors and rightly so!

By Valérie Marzac
  Sorry to break the news to those who refuse to accept this fact but we translators are traitors and I demand my right to remain a traitor! The famous Italian adage 'Traduttore Traditore" unfortunately cannot be rendered terribly well in English. The pun falls rather flat though the meaning remains understandable. So yes! As translators we are traitors since it's completely impossible to translate without our subjective approaches while our writing style is bound to show.  Even AI can't escape this fact. It may use lots of other people's subjective views but this is what they shall remain: viewpoints. And let's face it, AI doesn't have volition. It can be very fast and useful but cannot replace a human being. I'll be sharing more on this topic soon!    Once I was speaking with an British colleague of mine who asked me whether I believed that there was an actual proper translation for each word or whether I thought that there was a choice of terms
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