Ten common myths about translation quality

Lincoln Hui wrote:

There is no problem with this situation as it stands, which is why I said I was fine with the status quo. I will not link or directly quote from the locked thread because it's against the rules to do so, but I will paraphrase them as "general arguments given":

- Someone who has native proficiency in a language and putting it as their native language is misusing the word "native"
- If someone who learned English later and puts it as their native language, they are lying
- Anyone putting a second language as native is a fraud
- ProZ is promoting fraudulent self-promotion
- No one's learned language can be as good as that of a native speaker's
- No one's second language can be better than their first

These are the people who want ProZ to allow only one native language, and these are the people who are now, either through short memories or deliberate deception, trying to place the blame on the other side.

Between the law and my conscience, I will side with my conscience every time. But that doesn't mean that I won't be put to the chair.

[Edited at 2013-07-31 11:13 GMT]

Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:



I'm all for freedom... if you can prove you have native proficiency in a second language, I don't see it as a problem. The rest is semantics, IMO...

[Edited at 2013-07-31 11:34 GMT]

Tatty wrote:


Everyone has to take exams to become qualified or gain recognition, it's a standard procedure, however undignified you may find it; this is simply because your word is not good enough. If you make a claim, you need to substantiate it. That's the way the world works, luckily, and you need to come to terms with it.

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

So, who are the native speakers of German? Apparently it doesn't go by birth certificate.

Tatty wrote:

Posts have been far too wordy in this "debate" to be effective. Consequently, I don't believe that anyone has been persuaded of anything.

Everyone has to take exams to become qualified or gain recognition, it's a standard procedure, however undignified you may find it; this is simply because your word is not good enough. If you make a claim, you need to substantiate it. That's the way the world works, luckily, and you need to come to terms with it.

@ Lincoln. Hence you are not proving your innocence, rather your claim.

Not a thought has been spared here for consumers and their rights. Posting your thoughts and feelings in a public forum is not comparable to the constraints presented by a professional translation. What would you think if you received a "translation" that you've paid hundreds of euros for (for example) and the sentences are awkwardly expressed and wrong prepositions have been used? I'd be livid. Or do you expect some other unidentified person to do the "tidying up for you"?

LilianBNekipelo wrote:
And believe me, "native" does not really mean anything -- since it can mean too many things at the same time, which totally nullifies any validity of the term. It is also a bad word in the US when spelled with a small "n" ("nativism", especially)-- meaning some groups of people similar to KKK. When spelled wiith a capital 'N" is is always related to the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Balasubramaniam L. wrote:

Why should I suffer the indignity of being thought dishonest when I declare a certain language as my native language in which I have excellent proficiency?

And why should I be forced to declare a language which I don't consider as my native language (English, for example) just to get jobs? That I can do the jobs in English is a different matter altogether. The issue is, the site forces me to resort to falsehood in order to access an opportunity.

Enrique will of course say that no one is being forced into falsehood and the rules of proz.com allow one to declare two native languages. But unless proz.com defines what native language is, there is always the risk of being thought dishonest in doing this.

I may not want to run this risk, and for this I have to pay by not being able to access the jobs that I can do.

To make it more clear, let us say, for me only Hindi can be my native language because I culturally and personally identify myself with it. The native language is a slot in my identity which can only be occupied by Hindi. Call it sentimentalism or whatever. But let us say for the sake of argument that this so.

At the same time I have equal competency in English as in Hindi and am eligible for translating into English. To do this, I will have to declare English also as my native language, which may not be palatable to me.

Why put me (and many others like me) in this unenviable position? Matters can be simplified for all concerned if we define native language as a language you are proficient in.

But for this proz.com will have to unequivocally say what it takes native language to be.

If proz.com defines native language as an identity thing, I will declare only Hindi as my native language. But if it defines native language as a proficiency thing I will declare both Hindi and English as my native language. There would then be no dishonesty involved or no perception of being dishonest would be conveyed.

Maybe as a solution, you could continue to have native language as an identify badge, but for professional purposes, you only use proficient languages. May be this could solve the problem, as I see it.

If that is done, I can declare Hindi as my native language, and Hindi and English as my proficient languages. And these proficient languages would be used by job posters for filtering translators, but not the native language. The native language would be used only as an identity indicator of the person.

Balasubramaniam L. wrote:

Wow, this thread has set a blistering pace
It is sizzling with ideas and moving like a river approaching the sea in many channels.

Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
Maybe we too can do that and define native language as:

a language in which a person has proficiency equal to that of educated natives of that language.

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:





My mother-in-law was born in Berlin. Her family moved to Brazil when she was 4 (yes, four), and this was 80 years ago.

Of course, her first language is German, though she took all her studies, since kindergarten, in Portuguese.

Yet after eight decades, she still looks German, speaks flawless German (according to other Germans - I wouldn't be able to judge it), her smug countenance is visibly German, and in spite of her accent-free Portuguese, she speaks it with German intonation. I'll make the last point clearer. For instance, though very rarely a question in Portuguese will end with a verb, all her questions end with a twirl towards an emphatic higher pitch, as if the last word there were actually the essential verb. This sounds German enough within a Brazilian environment. (Two late originally German aunts of mine - not directly related, married to two brothers, neither of them from Berlin - did exactly the same.)

A friend of hers, just a few years younger, born in Brazil to a family of German immigrants, formerly married to a legitimate German for many years, and who took some higher education studies in Germany, does not have such peculiarities.

So there may be some hard-to-pinpoint ingredient about being born in Germany that causes your argument, Berhard - specific to native German speakers and to the German language - more valid than others.

To illustrate further, there is another ingredient of this kind in Japanese descendants, though not all of them. In Portuguese, they end most of their sentences with "né" (= "não é?" = "isn't it?"). Sometimes they are third-generation Brazilians, and still do it. Quite often, by telephone, I can detect that my caller has some "Japanese content" just from this peculiarity. BTW, I have no idea whether it is common, or at all usual, in JP to end spoken phrases with "isn't it?".

So there may be more details that we can see under the broad "native speaker" issue.