With naturalness, naturally

Since I’m a Brazilian translator, I'll naturally restrict my examples to the pair English-Portuguese, in either way.

Unnaturalness in translation can be lavishly exemplified, by resorting to anything translated automatically by any of the tools now available therefor. Bad human translators will also contribute a lot of these unhappy examples.

I know a blogger whose stuff is read by too many people from too many places. He has his posts translated automatically. Anyone can see the texts so translated are invariably clumsy, hard to understand, full of absurdities, incoherent, in short, they simply never sound natural. No wonder. Anyone but those who believe something automatically translated is adequate to be ‘served’ to a multilingual readership can see how texts are impoverished by direct machine translation, without at least a competent review.

Delivering the raw translation made by Google Translator, for instance, to readers of another language may seem almost unthinkable to anyone who has the slightest idea of what a well written text is. However, that’s just what some people out there are doing. No kidding. You’ll certainly get plenty of sentences which sound now stilted, now unintelligible, nonsensical and utterly ridiculous.

These automatic translating resources do not work in much the same way as we humans (the ‘natural’ translators) use to. For one, most of them, as far as I know, work for free. We humans also make mistakes, of course. The great difference I see lies in the fact that we, at least, stand a chance of ever feeling ashamed for such mistakes.

Onn the other hand, there is no point in praising a machine translator for an outstanding performance, is there? or in telling it off on account of a shabby, unspeakably ridiculous rendering. It is supposed to react with exactly the same indifference to either the highest praise or the harsher scolding, aren’t I right?

What is the point in expecting any naturalness from a machine? It can’t react to any opinion, it can’t understand anything at all, it can’t make any sensible choice to fit situations or circumstances, it can’t consider what it takes in order to choose how to say what to whom, it can’t translate with minimum taste or expertise. Only we humans, who have the experience of using a language as a tool for real communication, can supply any degree of naturalness in translation.

There is much to be considered when you translate, if you want to sound natural. First of all, you have to understand very well what is being conveyed in the original text, and you should also be able to guess certain intentions on the part of the author. For instance, when an author says/writes something only to be funny - no matter how successfully - if his translator just can’t guess this, and worse still, treats the would-be joke as something serious, something important will certainly be lost in translation. No naturalness will be attained. The language used in a given situation may be full of metaphors that give color to the original, but hell to the translator, unless if it is a machine, who isn’t anyway supposed to care for naturalness, adequateness, taste, etc...

Many a time I saw expressions like ‘How far is far?” translated into Portuguese as “Quão longe é longe?” True, it is a literal, word-for-word translation. The problem is that no Portuguese speaker would ever think of asking such a question this way. It is on the whole unnatural. There are human translators who don’t seem even to suspect how unnatural “quão longe é longe” sounds. These will never be good translators before they manage to make such an obvious realization. Machines will never be good translators at all, in this sense, before they can understand what is being said and react accordingly.

I don’t think a cold machine is likely to make the right decision when ‘good morning’ can be translated literally as ‘boa manhã’ (if that’s what these words really mean, for example, in “I spent a very good morning with them”), or when to translate it as “bom dia”, a usual greeting. As a rule, human translators are.

Expressions like “both A and B are …”, according to my experience, are too often translated as “ambos A e B são …”. Laughable, to say the least.

In order to translate even objective, predominantly referential texts with naturalness, the person (or machine, if it were possible) should possess both a lot of experience with the target language handling and a sound knowledge of the source language. In the absence of both, it’s simply impossible, for either man or machine.

Workout

I'm giving private classes again.
A new friend's wife had picked my phone number somewhere, so he gave me a ring a couple of days ago.
After a short introduction, we appointed a first class which took place at his house.
He is in his early thirties and wants to acquire a working command of the English language for professional reasons. He is in marketing, has a university degree and now he has to learn English, otherwise he will be doomed to stick to his present position in the business.
I had sent him some exercises by email, which were used in our first training session. He began to understand and use basic structures of the language by manipulating them himself in the way I had shown him.
He was glad to see by himself that the whole stuff works.
This kindled in him justifiable hope. He had already tried 'fashionable' methods which are expensive but led him to no progress worth mentioning.
Let's see what comes next.

Nutness

I'm nuts. Plain like that, I am, and that’s all.
I don’t expect you to believe a word of what I am writing here (even if you are also nuts like me, which I have no reason to believe), despite the fact that I'm talking so shamelessly about myself (not at any rate my favorite subject, however much I resort to it while blogging).
In fact, I suspect my very wording here discourages belief in my nutness, but this won't make me any less nuts, though.
Then my hard-to-believe nutness.
If I want to explain it, it is highly advisable to do so understandably, otherwise in the end I won’t have explained a thing to any possible reader. I suppose I can do this, but the better I explain my own nutness, the harder to believe it naturally gets.
So, whether you believe me or not, I'm stating my nutness here. What the hell am I doing that for? This is something I don’t know myself, which makes good sense if you bear in mind that I'm really nuts.
The strangest fact about my nutness is its intriguing implausibility. Things I say do sound sound, and things I write usually sound still more so. There seems to be no way out.

Blood and Thirst

A person badly wounded and bleeding to death is not a scene I'd ever choose to witness. I know it happens everywhere, of course. However, I'd rather be spared all details. I'm convinced that life has far better scenes to catch the eye of any observer anytime, anywhere, too. That certainly includes internet and the so-called virtual world. Producing this kind of scene virtually, for fun, is an experience I’m not inclined to ever want to try. And I feel really sorry for those who are. I just can't help thinking they could easily do something much better, and funnier, too, if they chose.
When I was young, my father used to read popular newspapers. They were utterly disgusting for me. On account of the overemphasis they gave to crime-related news, people used to say literal blood would come out if you wrung one of them. I never tried to check that for myself, but I hated those successful newspapers which thrived and fared ever better by turning the public attention to violent crime. I also hated all the appreciation that kind of news used to meet.
Things don’t seem to have changed much, since. That kind of press still thrives on the very same stuff. Today’s media has only made that thriving get ever stronger. Radio, television, internet, you name it, still supply too much of it. Add to that the fact that millions of people the world over have nowadays lots of options for having their thrill by actively doing abominable things like fighting, slaughtering, stealing, all of that virtually. This way, they keep shedding and losing virtual blood, thus feeding this side of their natures.
Again, my feelings about that aren’t good at all. I'm already in my mid-fifties now. There is no trace of my early revolt and hatred left any longer. But I still can’t stand those virtual games especially developed to please such a growing bloodthirsty demand.
All this is in flat disagreement with an excellent twenty-century old text which reads:
"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things".
Philippians 4:8.

A New Acquaintance

Last Saturday I knew Renan. He is a friend of my sons. I think he is in his late teens or early 20s.

I was with them to help with their English, which is unfortunately as poor as that of all those who, like them, don't like to read.

In fact, reading is something my sons scarcely ever do, and not at any rate in English or any foreign language. We had already spent a whole afternoon just talking and finally I got them to get started on a multilingual website I had already recommended many times before and as expected they forgot to read. The text I chose for them was about reading habits of young people the world over.

Then a friend of them came. He talked to me in fluent English, which was a very positive surprise for me. He is on the whole self-taught. What a fine example! An absolutely normal youngster who is also interested in studying, in reading, in learning things. He can also play the guitar. Again, a skill acquired just with personal effort. No classes, no teacher. With all this, he earned my unqualified admiration.

I got his e-mail and sent him the link for this blog. I guess he will eventually read. My sons never read spontaneously anything I write, even the stuff I write in Portuguese, let alone this blog, which I write in English. I love my sons as much as a father can, but I can't help feeling very sorry for their intellectual laziness.

During the session we had in order to strengthen their English, two other friends of them appeared. They tried to drive my kids attention away from the reading, and almost managed to spoil it. I was about to tell them off with all the necessary energy, but luckily they gave up their stupid behavior before I did. Thank God!

It is with this kind of friends that my sons spend much of their time. What a waste! This explains, in part, why they can't get better results in their capacity of students. Their grades are not something they can be proud of. They simply don’t care for being outstanding students, and no reward, no example, nothing seems to motivate them to make necessary effort. Most of those with whom they interact on a daily basis choose the same action avoidance. Reading is a habit which obviously has no room in their lives.

By contrast, the inconvenient 'contribution' from the two other boys during the reading my sons were doing half-heartedly only led me to think even better of Renan, whose respectful participation did help a lot and gave me a feeling that everything is not lost.

Weird Mails

This week I got a weird virtual message from someone who initially said something about having a translation job for me.

As always, I forwarded an e-mail for details.

Then the whole thing proved a ridiculous, obvious bait. Someone claimed to be entitled to a substatial fortune in dollars from a deceased Asian big wig and tried to get my consent to have it all deposited in my bank account.

I could not care less for this whole business, but sent back the following reply, verbatim:

"In all earnest, I dont know who told you I was interested in getting so stinking rich overnight, but I'm really NOT.
Keep tempting me, if you like. In the long run you'll see what a waste of your time and best efforts on someone like me."

That's how I decided to keep worrying about how to make ends meet here, and remain as poor as the English in this person's mail. A choice I'm sure I'll never be sorry for.

Rights

What right had I to fly so high?
To hide behind see-through disguise?
To trust so far so many a lie?
To pay no heed to words of wise?

What right had I so deep to dive
Into my self for fun, on whim?
Disturb did I a quiet bee-hive
And still have stings all o’er my skin.

The time has come for me to know
How wrong I've been, how wrong, how wrong!
My stupid heart, so weak, so low
How can it love so much, so strong?