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Japanese interpreters are struggling to translate Donald Trump

Truth_hurts

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Truth_hurts Global Superstar

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'If we translated his words as they are, we would end up making ourselves sound stupid.'

 

 

 

Translators around the world are struggling to interpret Donald Trump’s unique speaking style with the Japanese finding it particularly “nightmarish†to translate what they call “Trumpeseâ€. 

 

 

English-Japanese interpreters are reportedly struggling to follow the US President’s speeches, with many highlighting the contrast in style with his predecessor Barack Obama who was recognised as a great orator. 

 

“He rarely speaks logically, and he only emphasises one side of things as if it were the absolute truth. There are lots of moments when I suspected his assertions were factually dubious,†interpreter Chikako Tsuruta told The Japan Times. 

 

“He is so overconfident and yet so logically unconvincing that my interpreter friends and I often joke that if we translated his words as they are, we would end up making ourselves sound stupid.â€

 

Ms Tsuruta, who routinely covers US news as an interpreter for CNN, ABC and CBS, raises the important issue dividing the translation community - whether controversial rhetoric should be toned down by the interpreter. 

 

Some believe inflammatory language should be neutralised while others remain adamant that translators should not interfere with tone or register. 

 

However, the difficulty of translating Mr Trump does not necessarily arise from the language he uses. 

 

A Carnegie Mellon University Language Technologies Institute (LTI) “readability analysis†of presidential campaign speeches revealed last year that the former real-estate mogul’s lexical complexity was the lowest of any of his rival candidates or past US presidents. 

 

Experienced broadcast interpreter Miwako Hibi said it was “very hard†to follow Mr Trump’s train of thought as he speaks. 

 

She told The Japan Times of her feeling of dread while she was translating Mr Trump’s victory speech live in November 2016.

 

“When he suddenly said ‘Reince is a superstar,’ I was literally thrown off. Only after the camera zoomed in on the face of a ‘Reince’ did I realise who Trump was talking about, and I hastily added, for the sake of the audience, that it’s actually ‘Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman,’†Ms Hibi said.

 

“The convenient thing about the Japanese language, however, is that it tends to do away with a subject in a sentence, so in this particular case, I first translated ‘superstar’ without clarifying who Trump was referring to, and carried on like this until I got a fuller picture.â€

 

However his reference to “secretariat,†threw her, thinking he was referring to Mr Preibus by another name. 

 

“I mistranslated that one,†she said. “It didn’t even occur to me that he was talking about a race horse. … It’s really hard to follow his train of thought.â€

 

For retired interpreter Kumiko Torikai, when a subject is making racist or misogynistic comments a translator’s job becomes complicated - one of the reasons she decided to leave the profession in the 1980s.

 

“As an interpreter, your job is to translate the words of a speaker exactly as they are, no matter how heinous and what an outrageous liar you find the speaker to be,†she said. 

 

“You set aside all your personal emotions and become the speaker yourself. It’s a really tough thing, not being allowed to demonstrate your own judgement about what is right and what is wrong. And that’s why I quit.â€

 

However, she insisted: “If Trump is not making sense, you don’t get to make sense, either. If his language is coarse, that’s the way you translate him."

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-interpreters-donald-trump-translate-struggle-us-president-white-house-speech-talking-style-a7596986.html

 

 

Japanese student translates Trump’s tweets to practice English, accidentally gets 60K+ followers

 

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2017/02/04/japanese-student-translates-trumps-tweets-to-practice-english-accidentally-gets-60k-followers/

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throwaway account Trainee

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Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

 

Who wouldn't have trouble translating this?

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whoinside Idol

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LOL I bet they're thinking "I didn't sign up for this..." I feel the same when my family and I are watching the news and my mom asks "What did he say?" and that's probably the only time I don't wish I didn't understand English. Japanese as well as many other languages just don't have Trump's style of 'speech'.

 

The tweets of the Japanese guy translating Trump's tweets don't even sound as stupid as Trump does even if tries to dumb it down xD

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Hizu Legend

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Who wouldn't have trouble translating this?

 

tumblr_o9llm9B4po1r9f1l9o10_400.gif

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Frogurt Global Superstar

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Source

 

Some things get lost in Trumpslation.

 

Donald Trump says things that can defy description—and that’s proving a challenge for translators around the globe.

 

Tokyo-based translator Chikako Tsuruta told the Japan Times that translating the president into Japanese is a challenge, what with the lack of logic or concern for facts.

 

“[Trump] rarely speaks logically, and he only emphasizes one side of things as if it were the absolute truth,†Tsuruta said. “There are lots of moments when I suspected his assertions were factually dubious.â€

 

Tsuruta, who has worked for CNN, ABC and CBS, says Trump’s hyperbolic rhetorical style puts her and translators like her at risk of a kind of guilt by association.

 

“He is so overconfident and yet so logically unconvincing that my interpreter friends and I often joke that if we translated his words as they are, we would end up making ourselves sound stupid,†Tsuruta said.

 

Another challenge interpreters face: rendering Trump’s disjointed speech patterns.

 

Try to make sense of this word salad dished up by the president when he was campaigning last summer:

 

Here is a transcript: 

 

"Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT. Good genes, very good genes, OK? Very smart: the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart. You know, if you’re a conservative Republican—if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican, they try—oh, do they do a number. That’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune. You know, I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged. But you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me: it would have been so easy—and it’s not as important as these lives are. Nuclear is so powerful. My uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power—and that was 35 years ago—he would explain the power of what’s going to happen, and he was right. Who would have thought? But when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners— now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three. And even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger: â€œFellas,â€â€”and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so you know it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so ... And they, they just killed, they just killed us."

 

 

As EuroNews.com points out, it’s enough to make frustrated interpreters throw up their hands and just write, â€œthe Iranians talked rings around us at the negotiations.â€

 

French interpreter Bérengère Viennot said Trump is not easy to translate because he seems “not to know quite where he’s going.â€

 

“He seems to hang onto a word in the question, or to a word that pops into his mind, repeating it over and over again,†she told the Los Angeles Review of Books. Even if you understand his point, you still have to express it another language.

 

“You realize, at that moment, that you have written something very unpleasant to read. Trump’s vocabulary is limited, his syntax is broken; he repeats the same phrases over and over, forcing the translator to follow suit,†she said. “The translator has to translate the content and the style. So that is what I do, and reading Trump in French, which is a very structured and logical language, reveals the poor quality of his language and, consequently, of his thought.â€

 

For all the challenges interpreters face in translating Trump into other languages, the fact remains that understanding him in English is no cakewalk either.

 

Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke recently came up with a cheat sheet to help Americans understand what certain key phrases favored by the president really mean:

 

Bad
: Generally means “good,†particularly when applied to something good that Trump considers bad.

Good
: Not good at all. Trumpglish synonyms of this word include “
the best
,†“
the greatest
,†“
spectacular
,†“
amazing
†and “
so amazing
.â€

Fake news
: Real news that makes Trump look bad.

 

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