| Teemakohased leheküljed: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7] > | Are general translators capable of translating highly specialized medical texts Vestluse postitaja: LilianNekipelov
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| I don't understand this preoccupation with form over content | Jul 13, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
LilianBoland wrote:
I think it is better if the text does not have perfect style, or a few grammatical errors, even, as long as the message is accurately conveyed.
[Edited at 2012-07-13 15:16 GMT]
Please tell me you're kidding there too!
Why?
While I do not entirely agree with Lilian, I do absolutely agree on this point. (Could have been expressed better, but we know what she means!)
In the real world, minor grammatical errors are not a disaster, while conveying the message accurately is crucial in medical texts.
If a grammatical error is serious enough to change the meaning, it is not what I call minor.
But I think translation - and in particular translation of specialised subjects - should be done by qualified linguists. Personally, I believe a linguist can study a medical topic quite well enough to be able to translate, without necessarily having the routine, for instance, to be able to practise medicine.
A surgeon's skills are not verbal. A specialist translator can understand and translate a text about a surgical procedure. (Well, I can...) But I for one do not have the experience to perform it, and I certainly do not have the manual dexterity. As Ty says, they are two completely different jobs.
It is quite possible to translate a pharmaceutical text without having the detailed knowledge required to prescribe a particular drug to different patients, possibly suffering from different conditions.
And so on. Writing the language well IS important, or the meaning will not be clear. Some doctors are in fact excellent linguists, others are not.
Of course, a medical translator needs to specialise, so no, a general translator with no experience of medicine should not attempt medical translation.
But that does not mean a medical translator cannot occasionally translate in other fields where he or she has sufficent knowledge to tackle the text in hand. Variety is important too, to stay on the ball and not get stale.
| | | | neilmac
Hispaania
Local time: 18:40
hispaania - inglise
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The answer in my case is sometimes. For example, I reckon I can look at a (medical or other specialist area) text and decide if I will be able to do a decent job on it, whether or not I know much about the subject or not, as long as I can liaise with the author or someone knowledgeable about the area to clear up any non-linguistic doubts that might arise.
Of course, it is always better to get an expert in, but sometimes you just need to rely on a skilful chancer like myself. For exa... See more The answer in my case is sometimes. For example, I reckon I can look at a (medical or other specialist area) text and decide if I will be able to do a decent job on it, whether or not I know much about the subject or not, as long as I can liaise with the author or someone knowledgeable about the area to clear up any non-linguistic doubts that might arise.
Of course, it is always better to get an expert in, but sometimes you just need to rely on a skilful chancer like myself. For example, I did one on deep brain surgery once (many moons ago) and it was published...
Something about thoracic surgery rings a bell too...
[Edited at 2012-07-13 20:15 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Hispaania
Local time: 18:40
hispaania - inglise
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| Physician, heal thyself (or stick to the day job) | Jul 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
I think it is better if the text does not have perfect style, or a few grammatical errors, even, as long as the message is accurately conveyed.
[Edited at 2012-07-13 15:16 GMT]
I'm afraid I have to differ on this point. As a jobbing wordsmith, I think a good and appropriate style and absence of errors, however minor, are more important than getting Dr Frankenstein in to boot up the monster. Any old Igor can pull the switch.
Horses for courses, my dears.
| | | | LilianNekipelov 
Ameerika Ühendriigid
Local time: 12:40
vene - inglise
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TOPIC STARTER | Of course I am not kidding | Jul 13, 2012 |
It is much better that a text is translated correctly -- a text related to medical research, than that is has a perfect style and punctuation, but most if the content is wrong, because a translator who is not a highly specialized doctor in the same field could never translate such medical texts correctly. A good editor can always fix the punctuation, or some small grammatical errors -- this is their job, in fact. Who cares about the style -- it is really the research that is the most important t... See more It is much better that a text is translated correctly -- a text related to medical research, than that is has a perfect style and punctuation, but most if the content is wrong, because a translator who is not a highly specialized doctor in the same field could never translate such medical texts correctly. A good editor can always fix the punctuation, or some small grammatical errors -- this is their job, in fact. Who cares about the style -- it is really the research that is the most important thing. I am not talking about a doctor who doesn't know both languages well --- I have in mind only some minor stylistic and punctuation mistakes.
The optimum solution would be a bilingual linguist -doctor - researcher working for $0.02/word. Medical translator should know the medical field, or even more, the precise specialization related to the research materials, well, and write in simple, grammatical language. This is it. This is all that matters. Who cares where the person was born, what language his or her parents or grandparents spoke. This is all irrelevant to specialized translation.
[Edited at 2012-07-13 21:16 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-13 22:23 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Natalie
Poola
Local time: 18:40
Liige (2002)
inglise - vene
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Selle foorumi moderaator SITE LOCALIZER | This is a completely wrong point | Jul 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
Who cares about the style -- it is really the research that is the most important thing.
As far as I can see, you must have never seen any poorly translated medical or scientific document... otherwise you would have never say so.
[Edited at 2012-07-13 20:36 GMT]
| | | | LilianNekipelov
Ameerika Ühendriigid
Local time: 12:40
vene - inglise
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TOPIC STARTER | I saw many documents, Natalia | Jul 13, 2012 |
Most of the documents were absurd -- they could only be placed in the funny translations section. I don't know if they were grammatical or not, because they did not mean anything.
They were done by regular translators, not doctors, or engineers, because the rules apply to technical translation as well, I think.
[Edited at 2012-07-13 22:25 GMT]
| | | | Natalie
Poola
Local time: 18:40
Liige (2002)
inglise - vene
+ ...
Selle foorumi moderaator SITE LOCALIZER | Wrong point - 2 | Jul 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
The optimum solution would be a bilingual linguist -doctor - researcher working for $0.02/word. Medical translator should know the medical field, or even more, the precise specialization related to the research materials, well, and write in simple, grammatical language. This is it. This is all that matters.
What a high price for a piece of hard work requiring special knowledge!...
| | | | Natalie
Poola
Local time: 18:40
Liige (2002)
inglise - vene
+ ...
Selle foorumi moderaator SITE LOCALIZER | Wrong point - 3 | Jul 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
This is all that matters. Who cares where the person was born, what language his or her parents or grandparents spoke. This is all irrelevant in specialized translation.
One more wrong point. Non-native speakers rarely provide translations of highest quality. And you will never convince me that a good editor will be able etc. etc. etc. The editor should edit, and not re-write.
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Natalie
Poola
Local time: 18:40
Liige (2002)
inglise - vene
+ ...
Selle foorumi moderaator SITE LOCALIZER
LilianBoland wrote:
Most of the documents were absurd -- they could only be placed in the funny translations section. I don't know if they were grammatical or not, because they did not mean anything.
They were done by regular translators, not doctors, or engineers, because the rules apply to technical translation,, I think.
Which rules are you talking about? If the documents "did not mean anything", perhaps this was just a machine translation.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
Suurbritannia
Local time: 17:40
portugali - inglise
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| Thank you Natalie | Jul 13, 2012 |
Natalie wrote:
LilianBoland wrote:
This is all that matters. Who cares where the person was born, what language his or her parents or grandparents spoke. This is all irrelevant in specialized translation.
One more wrong point. Non-native speakers rarely provide translations of highest quality. And you will never convince me that a good editor will be able etc. etc. etc. The editor should edit, and not re-write.
Need I say more?
I also completely fail to understand the logic that this is less relevant (or even irrelevant) in specialised translation.
| | | | LilianNekipelov
Ameerika Ühendriigid
Local time: 12:40
vene - inglise
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TOPIC STARTER | If the text does not mean anything, the rest does not matter. | Jul 13, 2012 |
If a text related to complex medical research has factual errors, it does not really matter if Shakespeare wrote it himself. By the way, you know that Shakespeare's works are thought by some people, to have been written by different people for Shakespeare, or in collaboration with him? Who knows where they came from. Why should I really care. I don't even provide highly specialized medical or technical translation. I just can't see some of very important medical texts being butchered by some pe... See more If a text related to complex medical research has factual errors, it does not really matter if Shakespeare wrote it himself. By the way, you know that Shakespeare's works are thought by some people, to have been written by different people for Shakespeare, or in collaboration with him? Who knows where they came from. Why should I really care. I don't even provide highly specialized medical or technical translation. I just can't see some of very important medical texts being butchered by some people who have no clue, what every third phrase means. I mostly translate literature, articles related to art and a lot of legal texts, mostly pleadings, criminal records, contracts, and things like that. Things related to criminal investigations, sometimes. I would never accept any jobs which I am not capable of doing.
Many Russian translators I know, mostly technical or financial translators, can provide great translations into English.I don't know about medical translations, since I haven't really seen any Russian research materials translated. I actually think very few people could translate complex financial texts, especially, from Russian into other languages, if they don't have most of their education in Russian. The same is true about technical translations, that the best option for them seems that they should be translated by Russian engineers, very fluent in another language.
[Edited at 2012-07-13 22:37 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-13 22:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Natalie
Poola
Local time: 18:40
Liige (2002)
inglise - vene
+ ...
Selle foorumi moderaator SITE LOCALIZER
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
I also completely fail to understand the logic that this is less relevant (or even irrelevant) in specialised translation.
Everything is relevant everywhere, in medical, legal, technical translations.
Bye for now, it is getting too late here to continue this discussion
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Ty Kendall
Suurbritannia
Local time: 17:40
heebrea - inglise
| If such a person existed..... | Jul 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
The optimum solution would be a bilingual linguist -doctor - researcher working for $0.02/word.
I'm somewhat shellshocked that you think someone with that much knowledge and expertise (a bilingual linguist doctor researcher - a rare breed to be sure!) should work for $0.02 word (USD no less!).
More than that, that you describe that situation as "optimum" is jaw-dropping.
| | | | Ty Kendall
Suurbritannia
Local time: 17:40
heebrea - inglise
| Practice what you preach.... | Jul 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
I mostly translate literature, articles related to art and a lot of legal texts, mostly pleadings, criminal records, contracts, and things like that. Things related to criminal investigations, sometimes. I would never accept any jobs which I am not capable of doing.
So, I take it you're a fully qualified lawyer then?
| | | | Phil Hand
Hiina
Local time: 01:40
hiina - inglise
| 1. Stop fighting a straw man. 2. Mistakes matter | Jul 14, 2012 |
1. Lilian, I know you're posting this as a riposte to the native thread. You seem to think that supporting accurate disclosure of native languages means that we think all other criteria are unimportant.
A moment's thought will reveal that that's just silly.
To answer your question - I regard myself as a "general translator", and I don't take medical documents (I do pharmaceutical docs, because I have some experience there, but I won't translate medical records or treatment-rel... See more 1. Lilian, I know you're posting this as a riposte to the native thread. You seem to think that supporting accurate disclosure of native languages means that we think all other criteria are unimportant.
A moment's thought will reveal that that's just silly.
To answer your question - I regard myself as a "general translator", and I don't take medical documents (I do pharmaceutical docs, because I have some experience there, but I won't translate medical records or treatment-related stuff). But that's just me. Other translators will make their own decisions on that.
2. Mistakes matter. It's not a question of literary style, as you seem to believe. It's about syntax and meaning. To give you an example from my own experience:
I was involved as a proofreader/language checker in a medical doc project. (I made clear to the agency what I could/couldn't do.) The documents were translated very well by Chinese-native medical personnel, and I checked for language issues. Mostly I was fixing small things like articles, but there was one very important meaning issue in almost every document: tense. The Chinese natives consistently made tense errors, and this was very important. "XXX suffered from ABC for ten years" is a different kind of statement to "XXX has suffered from ABC for ten years", but non-native speakers frequently make this kind of mistake. The job I was doing could not have been done by a monolingual proofreader, because the translators had not successfully expressed the medical history, because they messed the tenses up.
Language quality is meaning. The two are not separable. ▲ Collapse
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