Comments on: Translation bidding systems

By: A.M.Sall

A.M.Sall — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:31:55 +0000

This is from 35+ year veteran translator, living in a “Third World country”. And guess what, I discovered your site through your “friend” Werner Patel(s)’s blog. I owe him eternal gratitude for that .

I’ve just spent hours (yes, HOURS) on your site and it’s quite an exhilarating experience with real cool people (I love Annabel for her candor).

Regarding the possible number of “mother tongues”, I can say I am a living example of someone who has 2 of them: my country’s official language, French, (which is far from being my mother’s tongue, even though she was educated and was even a teacher in that language) and my native “Wolof”. This, I daresay, is the only thing I have in common with Mr Patels (of course apart from the fact that we are both “excellent translators”, that is, if he really IS one, and even though I am from a “Third World country”, which will probably be anathema to him .

Now, on a lighter side, I was born long before my country gained “independence” from France and I clearly remember at shool we used to recite: “Our ancestors, the Gauls… (Nos ancetres les gaulois…)! With such an experience under my belt (a terrible blow on anyone’s “identity”), I certainly don’t feel like calling myself “French”, even after all these years!

Anyway I am so impressed by your site that I’ve immediately added your link to my “Translator Power” blog, in which I advise my younger (and not so young!) colleagues on how to market their services.

My only problem is that you might be “rubbing shoulders” with your “friend” WGP on my list of translators’ blogs and sites (If what Misha says is anything to go by, he’ll probably ask me to remove his link as soon as he reads this comment

BTW, “Patel” sounds more like Gujarati than German, maybe that’s why he insists so heavily on the “s”!

Anyway, you can rest assured I’ll be a regular visitor to this truly awesome site!

By: Lana

Lana — Sat, 19 May 2007 10:45:54 +0000

I went through the entire discussions and can unforunately only agree with Guillermo. I live in Germany for approximately 20 years now. I was born in a country with the only national language English but I am not British, nor American, nor Australian. I speak and write english with proper language syntax. I speak correct German and am a German through nationalisation. I guess it would not have mattered if I were born on Mars, when it comes to my nationality. I was lucky to have had clients as well as friends who are not native English but have studied the language and do a better job at it than most native speakers. Simply because a language is correct, diverse and at the same time rich in its structure. The entitlement “native speaker” does not hold for any of us. We are all the product of our entire experiences and if we have learnt a language and show that we are proficient at it, then we are entitled to say we are native speakers or qualified to translate a document with correctness of the language in all its form.

By: Micha

Micha — Mon, 30 May 2005 15:15:26 +0000

Werner has been found ranting everywhere. He thinks he is the god of the translation world. He is full of hate and anger. He must have not gotten enough love as a child. He was kicked out of ProZ and then Translator Cafe kicked him out because he was so rude and unkind to the fellow translators. I think this sums it all up. He does not like other people and he is the only translator in the world. He is a very sad person.
Look, you had a discussion going and he turned all of you into drug addicts and con-artist.

By: Guillermo

Guillermo — Mon, 16 May 2005 21:22:13 +0000

By the way, english is not my native language and I do NOT translate into it, at least not yet.

By: Guillermo

Guillermo — Mon, 16 May 2005 21:17:34 +0000

First of all, the whole discussion is pointless. It seems to be more important to attack one another than to come up with credible arguments about a particular position. It is a fact that being a native speaker of any language doesn’t make you a translator and even if you are one it is possible that someone who is not a native speaker may be more qualified to do a particular job. How is that? Simply because there are some people that have studied a second language for several years and have accumulated important experience working with it. It is not their mother language, but when they have dedicated their lives to learn it -not like in “I took an eight-month ESL program and I learned English”, but with the dedication of a schollar- they have earned the right to translate into it.

Now, in the case of India, or any African country where an European language became the official language, nationality doesn’t desqualify a professional translator who has learned a language throughly and built up knowledge and expertice in translation, just as a Canadian may still translate into American English or a more international type of English, or a Colombian can do the same with Latinamerican Spanish, a concept rather subjective, using a vocabulary that can be understood in the majority of the Hispanic America.

In conclussion, what really matters is the knowledge that a translator has of he target language, which has to be proven with real and valid credentials. I do believe that it is possible to translate into two and perhaps three languages, but if you do you better have the references that support your CV.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Sat, 07 May 2005 18:35:49 +0000

I think that covers Werner. Hell, there are people who can’t speak any language properly.

By: K in The World

K in The World — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:59:13 +0000

I don’t really buy it though. The language learned at home but foreign to the country lived in will always suffer. It is always a dumbed-down version. I repeat, always. Lacking is the daily exposure to active and passive writing and confrontation scenarios of the language.

Having lived in a German-speaking country as an American for 16 years, I have yet to experience the animal who can read/write/speak/communicate in both languages without some element of being slightly stilted in one on of them and provoking me to voluntarily say “Wow, you really have two mother tongues.” There is of course, the idiot savant category, but no one is that.

I vote for one mother tongue.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 11:19:09 +0000

Werner's being silly. This is John Humpert:

Native speakers spend all or substantial parts of their developmental years (childhood and adolescence) within a particular language-bound geographic area. They acquire the language because they are immersed in it. In everyday home life, in social activities, and at school, native speakers converse with other native speakers. Given substantial exposure to multiple cultures, some children grow up as native speakers of several languages.

There are native speakers of British English in India as there are native speakers of American English in Canada. There just aren't very many of them.

By: K in The World

K in The World — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 15:38:34 +0000

Wow, you guys are really dis-ing him.
What is the story anyway? Is he really so xenophobic?

Anyway, I just think his defining a mother tongue and then claiming to have two was illogical, Mr. Spock.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 14:46:14 +0000

If you were a fridge-enabled cannibal, I don’t see why there’s any reason why you shouldn’t have two mothers’ tongues. I don’t think Werner has a fridge.