This advert for Leica cameras made me think of the translator’s craft. And the skill and work and care and honing and polishing that it takes to produce a really good translation that truly serves your client’s needs.
The Most Boring Ad Ever Made? from Leica Camera on Vimeo.
What do you think, readers: is craftsmanship boring?
With thanks to Katherine Parish (translation student and photographer) for posting this ad on Twitter.
Other posts you might like:
Translators’ pay: how much are you worth?
From GIGO to QIQO: the quest for quality
Omnishambles: object-lessons in how not to contract out language services
By Marian Dougan
6 Responses
Excellent and very relevant.
Thanks for posting.
Thanks, Steve.
I attended a “Translation Duel” with Ros Schwartz and Adriana Hunter at last year’s Edinburgh Book Festival. They’d both been given a section from a story by Dany Laferriere, L’air sentait Pilang-ilang, to translate and the event was a discussion of their translation choices (I don’t think they’d translated a single sentence the same way). The first 10-15 minutes of the event focused just on the title and the first couple of sentences – there was so much to say about their translation thought processes. All the thinking and re-thinking, not to mention research, that can go into just a single word.
Hi Marian,
Interesting point, thanks for sharing!
I think it is boring to watch – you want us to watch 45 mn of polishing? er… no thanks!,
But so would be a translator’s thoughts record while she/he polishing a text:
“should I get rid of that clause…? Mmh, let’s see… How about changing it for a gerund and put it at the start of the sentence…. Ah yes, but then the link with the catch phrase is weak… bladibladibladibladibla…”
😀
That said, it does make you aware of the time craftsmanship takes, as opposed to standardisation – something that it far from obvious.
Maybe it would be worth filming a translation job and putting it on youtube: no one would watch the entire vid, but everyone would find out the actual time it takes.
Well, that was my 10 mn tea break – back to boring translation train of thoughts (not to mention a delayed Scotnet’s call notice to finish…)
Hello Pierre, yes I have to confess I didn’t watch the whole video – I jumped to the end (I spend enough time on Twitter etc without then watching a 45-min video too!). But I think the concept is valid – it would be really boring to watch a translator poring over their final draft, but it’s not (usually) boring for the translator doing it.
What was the research for, Kim? I’ve seen website usability tests where the user is given a task to perform on a site – buy something, book a ticket, find some information – and voice their thought processes as they do so. It’s fascinating to watch/listen to.
Another interesting research area involves eye tracking.
I attended an academic presentation a few years ago where the speaker explained that they were trying to rebuild the grammar/syntax process that takes place in our mind by comparing the “reading” (the translator’s eye movements) and her/his “writing” (key strikes and mouse clicks).
Very insightful, especially to compare the way we build our thoughts in different languages, but pretty useless from a practical point of view 😉