Re: ESL & vice versa

Subject: Re: ESL & vice versa
From: Daniel Strychalski <dski -at- CAMEONET -dot- CAMEO -dot- COM -dot- TW>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 1995 21:02:25 +0800

The first post entitled "ESL & vice versa" mentioned "tests/exercises" to
screen potential distributors overseas. If these are tests of the candidates'
English ability, it is reasonable to use "vice versa" in the instructions,
and fair to test whether the applicants can translate or define it. The very
idea of such a test, however, does not seem reasonable or fair to me, unless
the products in question are ESL tools or something of that nature.

As for using "vice versa" in a manual, although I've said that the term is
conversational English, I agree that "do x and then do y, or do y and then do
x" is better, and that's what I use. If space is limited, though, I will use
"vice versa." A non-native student of English seeing the phrase "the other
way around" for the first time might have just as much trouble with it
(depending on the context) as with "vice versa" (just try to interpret "the
other way around" literally) and will have more trouble finding "the other
way around" in the dictionary. English is full of seemingly simple Anglo-
Saxon phrases that are very confusing to non-native speakers (by whom I am
surrounded, I should note).

No one on this list ever said you can use any term as long as it can be found
in a pocket dictionary. Someone did imply that everyone will understand "vice
versa" because it's Latin. Latin hasn't had much influence on Chinese.

As for "etc." and "e.g." causing translation problems (Heli Roosild, March
23), I can imagine only one situation where that might occur: the translation
has to fit into the same amount of space as the English. Regardless of which
languages are involved, a clear, thorough translation is usually longer than
the original, whether the original contains abbreviations or not. This should
always be taken into account in the design stage.

Space considerations aside, anyone who has trouble re-expressing "etc.,"
"e.g.," or "vice versa" has no business translating anything. I say that as
someone who has translated between languages as disparate as Chinese and
English for well over a dozen years.

Giving translated material a native feel (Allen Kutner, March 24) is a BIG
problem, but has little to do with what terms you use in the original -- you
want that to have a native feel, too! It is hard to find a term in any
language that has an exact counterpart in another; that's one reason
translation is always hard work, and should be thought of as "re-expression"
or "re-creation."

In the best of all possible worlds, the product designer, the original
writer, and the translator would start working together long before the
product came out. I wonder if that has ever happened. I've seen such junk
from American companies with the resources to do better: bad translations
(overly literal, in most cases) of bad originals (usually techie shorthand in
material intended for non-techie use). Yecch.

Another long one. Can we refrain from quoting whole long posts, folks?
Even the digest processor seems to have digestion problems now. And can
we PLEASE lighten up on Japanese translations? As has been noted, there
is also excellent stuff coming from Japanese companies, and the
Japanese by no means have a monopoly on bad English. It would really
give the server problems if I sent all the fractured English I see on
Taiwan! English is among the harder languages to learn, especially for
someone whose native language shares no roots with it. So have a heart.

Dan Strychalski dski -at- cameonet -dot- cameo -dot- com -dot- tw


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