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Real life Examples: See for Yourself Whether a Professional Translation Is Worth It
Real life Examples: See for Yourself Whether a Professional Translation Is Worth It
This series of posts is for you if:
You think translation should be a fairly simple, fast, and inexpensive process of exchanging a few words in Italian for a few words in English
You're starting to think that it might be worth it to hire a true professional, but you're not 100% convinced that it'll be worth the money
You're just curious to learn more about the art of making sure that an Italian passage not only has the same meaning in English, but is rendered in a way that sounds flawlessly beautiful in English
We've all read or listened to a bad translation at some point in our lives. It's usually a funny experience, but have you ever stopped to think about how it distracts you from whatever meaning the words were attempting to convey? In some cases, we can't even figure out what the intended message was.
But even in cases where we can mostly get the idea, instead of focusing on the intended message, our minds get pulled away. We might chuckle to ourselves about the word or phrasing choices. We might start thinking about how we could've worded it better ourselves. We might wonder who did the translation, or how it was possible that no one else caught the error before it was published.
The bottom line is: bad or mediocre translations pull the reader out of your story or message. It doesn't matter how brilliant your plot is, how well-written your characters are, or how compelling your message is. Your readers' minds will drift. They may be straight-up confused about what you're trying to say, or they may be distracted by why certain words or phrases were used. Not convinced? See this real-life example, including Amazon reviews, from an author I worked with.
In this series, I'll take real examples of bad translations from Italian into English, discuss briefly why they don't work, and then show you how a professional translator can turn awkward, confusing, or just plain wrong text into something fluent, natural, and true to the original meaning.
Some of these mistakes might not seem like a big deal, but imagine an entire book full of them. It's death by a thousand papercuts. These "papercuts" add up quickly, becoming a constant distraction for your readers.
My hope is that you'll see why hiring a professional translator is an investment worth making!
EXAMPLES
EXAMPLES
THE ORIGINAL
THE ORIGINAL
Con la coda dell’occhio, trovai Carter intento a sfogare la sua vena artistica sulle confezioni di biscotti da colazione: sembrava averle imbrattate con un sole a otto raggi e qualche stella.
OTHER TRANSLATION
OTHER TRANSLATION
Out of the corner of my eye, I found Carter intent on venting his artistic streak on the breakfast cookie packages: he seemed to have daubed them with an eight-ray sun and a few stars.
MY TRANSLATION
MY TRANSLATION
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Carter channeling his artistic side on the boxes of granola bars: he seemed to have smeared them with an eight-rayed sun and a few stars.
Comments:
"Found" is the wrong word. In this context, it conveys more of the sense that you were looking for someone and then discovered them. The Italian original simply means that you happened to see someone, which is perfectly conveyed by the English verb "to spot."
We rarely need to translate "intento a" to "intent on" as this meaning is often implied by context. Using it often makes a sentence sound stilted. In this case, it sounds out of place, and the verb "channeling" is strong enough by itself to convey the same meaning.
"Venting" is the incorrect choice. In English, it has a narrower meaning of complaining to someone about someone else. To let out something that's more like an urge or instinct within yourself, you "channel" it.
While "vena artistica" can indeed be translated as "artistic streak," it doesn't work here. When we "channel" something, it's usually a "side"—an artistic side, a wild side, etc.
Changing "breakfast cookies" to "granola bars" here is a little taste of what we call localization, or adapting the content a bit to better resonate with the audience. The story above takes place in the United States, where "breakfast cookies" are extremely uncommon, if not almost unheard of. Working with the author, we decided together to change it to "granola bars," a treat that is much more common in the U.S. Keeping the original "breakfast cookies" would have been an unnecessary distraction as many readers might take a moment to wonder, "What are breakfast cookies?"
While "daubed" could technically work here (the strict dictionary definitions of "daub" and "imbrattare" are basically the same), English speakers would rarely use that verb in this context. "Smear" sounds more natural here and, more importantly, matches the character's casual voice in this passage.
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Note: "Other Translations" in this series are taken from real translations, whether by AI tools such as ChatGPT or DeepL, or human translators.
If you find the posts from my "From Garbled to Graceful" series to be helpful, you can receive the new posts by email. I'll send them to you once or twice a month and you can unsubscribe whenever you'd like. Subscribe here!
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