attitudetravel
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1#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
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(Date Posted:11/15/2005 4:35 AM)
Hi Felipe - your question was so good, I set up a new folder for it.
A few things before we get started:
1) I want to offer people coming in Roma.
I want to offer people coming to Rome.
2) a romantic experience in a personalized theatre.
a romantic, personalised experience
3) I asked to friends of mine
I asked friends of mine
4) to traduct my webpage in english
to translate my webpage into English
5) Here is the link of theses traductions
Here is the link for these translations
6) the paragraph is not yet traducted.
the paragraph is not yet translated.
I'll have a look at your link when I have time this week and see what I can recommend.
Know that Alsky, in the Travellers Cafe is a professional translator and is the best placed to comment on the four proposals you have received.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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Anonymous
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2#
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Registered:04/06/2001
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/15/2005 4:53 PM)
$%*'`[Felice]%*'`@ It's quite interesting to compare the different versions. Difficult to say which is best without seeing the original, though.
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felipebattisti
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3#
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Rank:none
Score:3
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Registered:11/15/2005
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 4:24 AM)
Thanks a lot, and sorry for my bad english... ;-)
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Alsky
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4#
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Rank:none
Score:88
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Registered:07/22/2003
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 10:34 AM)
Hi Felipe,
The words "I asked to friends of mine to traduct my webpage in english" worried me, and my worries were not unjustified. Ask yourself "Do I want my website to be the best?" Actually, it sounds like you already have. You want the translation to be magic. That's the right attitude to have.
The service you're offering sounds great, but people won't bother to read your website if they have to struggle to work out what it says.
To be fair, the translations are by no means that bad, and they're not a struggle to read. But still, each has the odd word that's out of place, the odd phrase that jars.
It's unfortunate that D seems to have put the most effort in, because it's the worst of the 4. I'd put A in 3rd place, slightly behind B. I think C is the one you want to go for. To me it reads best in English. Pace Felice, it doesn't really matter which of the translations most accurately reflects the Italian. Your readers won't care about that. What you're looking for is a text that works in its own right.
It's true that the cost of getting a translation done by a professional can come as a shock to people ("60 Euros for a couple of pages?!! You're having me on!"), and when you're starting a business you probably want to save every cent you can. So if you don't want to get a professional to do it (and if you do you should get a native English speaker -try www.proz.com, www.translatorscafe.com, or www.aquarius.net and you should find someone), get friend C to do it and then get a native English speaker who knows Italian to proofread it (the 3 sites I mentioned should help you there as well).
Best of luck with it -I expect you'll be very busy around February 14th :-)
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Anonymous
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5#
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Registered:04/06/2001
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 11:37 AM)
$%*'`[Felice]%*'`@ Oh come on Alsky! Of course the translation should read well, but it has to be an accurate translation too!
SG from St P says hi,btw
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Alsky
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6#
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Rank:none
Score:88
Posts:88
Registered:07/22/2003
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 1:51 PM)
All right -perhaps "it doesn't really matter" is exaggerating things :-)
But really, if the text says everything that Felipe wants it to say, and says it well in English, it's not that important if it's not that close to the Italian -though of course, certainly in this case, it should be written in the same spirit/style.
After all, the point of translations like this is to get the customer to purchase the product, as well as to convey information that the customer requires, not to prove how good an understanding of the source language the translator has. A good translation reads as if it's the original text, so if the "translation" is an original text (such as a copywriter might provide), I think that's OK.
And don't forget -we're always hearing about things being "lost in translation". The translator can add things as well, to improve the text. There's no reason the translator shouldn't add some more vibrant adjectives, romantic metaphors, etc.
In terms of quality assessment, it's quite clear that D's is the worst text. It matters not a jot that in a translation exam D would probably get the highest mark of the 4, simply by being the only candidate to have completed the job. You don't need the original to see that D's diction and phraseology are not good enough. A, B and C are harder to separate. Though I put A in 3rd place, there are plenty of passages where A's translation is better than C's -in fact, looking at the latter half again, A's translation of it even looks slightly better than C's. C does start off very well though. But in general, the 4 translations are so close to each other in content that the original wouldn't be that much use to us in deciding which is best.
Hi to SG :-)
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Anonymous
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7#
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Registered:04/06/2001
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 2:58 PM)
$%*'`[Felice]%*'`@ "Adorable motorized red insect"?! Paragraph 3 alone demonstrates A's superiority.
Why do all of them refer to "historical Roma"? Is it a romantic Gypsy break?
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Alsky
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8#
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Rank:none
Score:88
Posts:88
Registered:07/22/2003
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 4:11 PM)
Reply to : Felice [Anonymous]
"Adorable motorized red insect"?! Paragraph 3 alone demonstrates A's superiority.Why do all of them refer to "historical Roma"? Is it a romantic Gypsy break?
You know perfectly well why they all refer to Roma ;-)
Given your previous comment about having the original handy, it's ironic you've chosen that bit about the "motorized red insect", because it's here that A's translation is the furthest away from the original. It's too much of a coincidence for B, C and D to have thought up the same image independently.
As I said, there are some places where A's translation is the best, and some places where C's is; when I first read the translations I thought C's sounded more poetic. What I was really trying to say was that none of them are good enough!
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Anonymous
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9#
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Registered:04/06/2001
Time spent: 0 hours
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(Date Posted:11/16/2005 4:42 PM)
Ah, but Alsky, I never said that the translation should stick to the original. All i meant was that you have to stay faithful to the original content-wise. Otherwise I could just compose a poetic advert for 'Roma' off the top of my head and pass it off as a translation.
The thing about the motorised red insect clearly sounds daft - maybe it's OK in Italian. Let's call a car a car and Roma Rome.
I'm baffled about the "sublime character of lights" too.
Anyway...
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Alsky
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10#
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Rank:none
Score:88
Posts:88
Registered:07/22/2003
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(Date Posted:11/17/2005 1:34 PM)
No you didn't, that's true. Point taken.
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felipebattisti
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11#
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Rank:none
Score:3
Posts:3
Registered:11/15/2005
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(Date Posted:11/19/2005 3:49 PM)
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attitudetravel
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12#
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Rank:none
Score:1237
Posts:1237
Registered:07/15/2003
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(Date Posted:02/11/2007 12:48 AM)
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com
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