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Poll: Have you ever transposed a grammatical error because it is a usual form in the given specialty?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Oct 29, 2019

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you ever transposed a grammatical error because it is a usual form in the given specialty?".

This poll was originally submitted by Susana E. Cano Méndez. View the poll results »



 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 15:05
Spanish to English
+ ...
Other Oct 29, 2019

I tend to approach grammar in as flexible a manner as possible, within reason. I suppose it would depend on the "error" per se. A lot of spoken language is ungrammatical, so, when translating verbatim interviews, we tend to refrain from over correction as long as the content is understood.

So the answer is probably yes.


Panna Kakuszi
Liena Vijupe
Katya Kesten
Gibril Koroma
Josephine Cassar
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 14:05
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Yes Oct 29, 2019

I worked as a sworn translator for some years in Belgium and because a sworn translation has legal implications one is obliged to reflect everything exactly as it appears in the original, even if there are grammatical errors. It happened once or twice with names of persons and more often with names of places. I also remember doing that in a different context when translating an article for a magazine containing a dialogue and I marked it sic. These are exceptions because I’m a sticker for gram... See more
I worked as a sworn translator for some years in Belgium and because a sworn translation has legal implications one is obliged to reflect everything exactly as it appears in the original, even if there are grammatical errors. It happened once or twice with names of persons and more often with names of places. I also remember doing that in a different context when translating an article for a magazine containing a dialogue and I marked it sic. These are exceptions because I’m a sticker for grammar.Collapse


Katya Kesten
 
Mar Brito
Mar Brito  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:05
Member (2015)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Yes, when forced to by the client Oct 29, 2019

I frequently translate research articles for the Department of Marine Ecology of a Spanish University and their specialist proofreader has branded some of my translation choices as "too grammatically correct" for their domain, forcing me to make certain changes I didn't agree with...

 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 15:05
French to English
. Oct 29, 2019

Not me directly. But working in-house, I had to transcribe an interview with a cis male musician who actually said "when I was pregnant" (meaning "when I and my partner were expecting a baby"). I transcribed the exact wording, even though I was usually given licence to tidy the text up (after a terrible incident with a remarkably inarticulate Bruce Springsteen). The translator of course then came to me telling me I had a made a mistake. In the end I think she translated it as expecting a baby s... See more
Not me directly. But working in-house, I had to transcribe an interview with a cis male musician who actually said "when I was pregnant" (meaning "when I and my partner were expecting a baby"). I transcribed the exact wording, even though I was usually given licence to tidy the text up (after a terrible incident with a remarkably inarticulate Bruce Springsteen). The translator of course then came to me telling me I had a made a mistake. In the end I think she translated it as expecting a baby since it would be even weirder to write the word pregnant in French without the feminine ending. I have since seen other examples of couples or men being "pregnant" - mostly American, so maybe they don't use the expression "expecting a baby"?Collapse


Katya Kesten
 
Arabic & More
Arabic & More  Identity Verified
Jordan
Arabic to English
+ ...
@Kay Oct 29, 2019

I think it would be fairly common for a male to say that "we" are pregnant or expecting a baby to represent his interest and involvement in the pregnancy (but not "I" was pregnant). Perhaps he misspoke or really believed it on some level. : )

 
Justin Peterson
Justin Peterson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:05
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
No, but there are really are words that should be added to the language Oct 29, 2019

In Spanish, nobody says "adelante"; as in, move your car up ... "venga, más adelante".
The word is "alante".

And yet, it does not exist, according to the RAE.
Curious.

In English, why have gonna, wanna, shoulda, coulda ... never been accepted?
Will they ever be?
Will people in the future find it strange that we resisted making these "real words"?

And don't get me started on the "correct" use of because, as and like, due to ..
... See more
In Spanish, nobody says "adelante"; as in, move your car up ... "venga, más adelante".
The word is "alante".

And yet, it does not exist, according to the RAE.
Curious.

In English, why have gonna, wanna, shoulda, coulda ... never been accepted?
Will they ever be?
Will people in the future find it strange that we resisted making these "real words"?

And don't get me started on the "correct" use of because, as and like, due to ... ; )
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:05
Member (2008)
Italian to English
No Oct 29, 2019

I would never translate obvious grammatical errors into the target text. For example, I would never translate "I will likely go home early" (an increasingly common error in which an adjective is misused as an adverb) as "andro' probabile a casa presto".

[Edited at 2019-10-29 15:38 GMT]


 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 07:05
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
No Oct 29, 2019

Because I translate the meaning, not the words.

Kaisa I
Gibril Koroma
 
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 15:05
English to German
In memoriam
Style guide comes first Oct 29, 2019

I'm not sure if this is an example of what you are asking, but I am often forced to compromise German language rules if the style guide of the client requires it. For example, a German compound word normally must not contain spaces. Let's say you are a company and have invented an incredible product like the "Susana Mendéz machine". In German, this would have to be a compound word, and since we allow no spaces in compound words, we would hyphenate it: "Susana-Mendéz-Maschine". Some clients do ... See more
I'm not sure if this is an example of what you are asking, but I am often forced to compromise German language rules if the style guide of the client requires it. For example, a German compound word normally must not contain spaces. Let's say you are a company and have invented an incredible product like the "Susana Mendéz machine". In German, this would have to be a compound word, and since we allow no spaces in compound words, we would hyphenate it: "Susana-Mendéz-Maschine". Some clients do not like this hyphenation in their brand names and would explicitly state in their style guides to leave out the hyphen in their brand name, so that I would have to use "Susana Mendéz-Maschine", for example, which is actually not correct in German.

Normally, writing flawless German is my highest priority, but the client's style guide overrides this.

[Edited at 2019-10-29 16:47 GMT]
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Katya Kesten
Noni Gilbert Riley
MARIA LEIDAL KOVACS
 
Katya Kesten
Katya Kesten
Local time: 09:05
Russian to English
+ ...
Sometimes Oct 29, 2019

I've kept errors when working with indy docs and documentary theater productions—they conveyed an additional layer of information about the characters and added to the work's artistic merit. Sometimes when working with fiction, too, but only if they were intentionally placed in the dialogue for aforementioned reasons.

 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 07:05
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
I can't remember Oct 30, 2019

I may have, because I follow Eugene Nida's "dynamic equivalent" principle. In other words, the translation should generate the same response in the reader as the original text does in the source language. Since I've been translating for 55 years, it's hard to remember when or if I intentionally preserved a grammatical error.

There were a number of times when I struggled to find the dynamic equivalent of socially unacceptable language - for example, in a screenplay and in free-text r
... See more
I may have, because I follow Eugene Nida's "dynamic equivalent" principle. In other words, the translation should generate the same response in the reader as the original text does in the source language. Since I've been translating for 55 years, it's hard to remember when or if I intentionally preserved a grammatical error.

There were a number of times when I struggled to find the dynamic equivalent of socially unacceptable language - for example, in a screenplay and in free-text responses to a questionnaire. For the screenplay I had an informant for whom the genre was part of his everyday life. When translators get this language wrong, it smells a mile away.

[Edited at 2019-10-30 02:09 GMT]
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Katya Kesten
 
Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 11:05
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Yes, it happens Oct 31, 2019

Not only gramamr erros but even spelling errors or the use of words that are not actually in the dictionaries of the target language. It is quite curious that if you use the correct terms and the correct rules, the client will usually ask you to change them to the incorrect one of their jargon, and even complain about the correct translation.

 
Annamaria Amik
Annamaria Amik  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:05
Romanian to English
+ ...
What does transposing mean? Nov 1, 2019

I am not even sure how grammatical errors can be transposed. Even if they are a usual form in the field in the source language, it does not mean they are that in the target language too. Transposing them would be a form of unacceptable literal translation or would imply creating different grammatical errors that are 'appropriate' in the target language.
Outside literary translation or, where relevant, perhaps court transcripts, such errors are not essential parts of the intended meaning, s
... See more
I am not even sure how grammatical errors can be transposed. Even if they are a usual form in the field in the source language, it does not mean they are that in the target language too. Transposing them would be a form of unacceptable literal translation or would imply creating different grammatical errors that are 'appropriate' in the target language.
Outside literary translation or, where relevant, perhaps court transcripts, such errors are not essential parts of the intended meaning, so I see no reason to propagate them.
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:05
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Yes, what is "transposing"? Nov 1, 2019

In fact, I don't even know what "transposing" means in the sense of "transposing a grammatical error".

transpose
verb
1. cause (two or more things) to exchange places.
2. transfer to a different place or context.


 
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Poll: Have you ever transposed a grammatical error because it is a usual form in the given specialty?






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