No laughing matter: Translation snafus can offend, cause lawsuits, even hamper war on terror

AUSTIN -- With so many people speaking a language other than English at home these days, it's not surprising that government agencies, politicians and private businesses are communicating in foreign tongues like never before.

From the subways of New York to the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters in downtown Austin, bloopers abound -- some of them harmless, some just irritating and some possibly dangerous.

Mead Johnson had to recall 4.6 million cans of its Nutramigen baby formula last summer after discovering faulty and possibly hazardous mixing instructions in Spanish. A class-action lawsuit is pending.

Interpreter errors have also deprived defendants in criminal proceedings of their rights to understand their court proceedings, records have shown. And in some cases, according to published reports, language snafus have hampered the war on terrorism.

In one government translation of a bomb-making manual, for example, "al-Qaida" was translated as "The Basic Rule" instead of "The Base;" "1989" was translated as "1982"; and "Afghani-stan" was translated as "Jordan," according to The New York Times.

Experts said a proper translation might have established an earlier link between the first World Trade Center attack and Osama bin Laden.

In some cases, a lack of resources can explain why professional translations are not provided. But many linguists say there is a general lack of awareness that translating and interpreting require special skills that even fluent speakers of two languages do not necessarily have.

"To be bilingual doesn't mean you can do interpreting any more than having two hands means you can play Chopin," said Linda Haughton, an interpreter at the federal court in El Paso and a former college professor of Spanish literature.

In Texas, the need for accurate translation and interpreting has grown alongside the explosive growth in the number of people who speak a language other than English. Recent Census Bureau figures show that a third of Texans speak a language other than English at home -- mostly Spanish.

That demographic shift has not been lost on politicians, who have begun reaching out to Spanish speakers in their campaign literature, speeches and commercials. But voters are not understanding all of what they're saying, experts say.

A Republican Party flier sent to Spanish speakers a few weeks ago was so awkwardly done that the head of the University of Houston languages department could not decipher its full meaning.

There were also problems with a clumsily translated welcome letter from Democratic Party Chairwoman Molly Beth Malcolm. Fort Worth translator Juan Jimenez, rating the document on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the best, gave it a one.

"Holy cow!" Jimenez said upon reading the Spanish version. "If these people would only realize that to us they sound as idiotic as this text ... they might not publish these poor translations."

To prove his point, Jimenez retranslated the first paragraph of Malcolm's letter, including comparable spelling errors:

"The Texas Democratic Party are making the history in the top of a resurgement which at the same time they will extend to them the victory in the 2002 and in the next years. We are supporting our words with concrete acions with which we get ahead of ourselves in our mission to develop public schools, an acesible and economic medical assistance, and government policy toward jobs that ensure good labor posts with fair salaries."

Mike Hailey, spokesman for the Democrats, acknowledged that the translations, which he said were provided by volunteer college students, contained errors.

"It's important to try and do it as best we can. I think that we've had a lot of encouraging words and calls from people who, regardless of whether or not it's perfect, they appreciate us making the effort," Hailey said.

Even the Internet site of fluent Spanish speaker Tony Sanchez, the Democratic candidate for governor, contained sloppy translations, including overly literal translations, the nearly nonexistent use of accents in some passages and awkward word choices, Jimenez said. Sanchez's spokesman Mark Sanders said any errors were "unacceptable and will be fixed."

Of course, translation boo-boos are nothing new. Recently, ballots prepared for use in California translated "sheriff-coroner" into "low-level officer who examines dead bodies" and the New York subway had to apologize early this year for laughably erroneous signs in Spanish.

But translation errors are not always funny. In the court system, for example, records show that numerous appeals have been filed because of allegations of interpreter error, although overturned convictions are rare.

In 1991, a man convicted of murder in Corpus Christi appealed his conviction on the grounds that an unqualified court bailiff was used to translate when his interpreter left for a medical reason. But because the defendant didn't object at the time, the appeal was denied, records show.

More recently, a Honduran man sent to prison for murder in Kentucky saw his conviction overturned because of seriously botched interpreting. At one point, the interpreter translated the word "life" as "libra," or "scale."

On retrial a few weeks ago, the man's murder conviction was downgraded to reckless homicide and he was released from prison because he had already served his sentence, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.

"Out of ignorance, all assumed one who speaks Spanish or is born in a Spanish-speaking world can interpret," wrote Judge Mary Noble, who ordered the retrial. "This case reveals that this is a false assumption."

In Texas, a law that took effect in January tightens standards for interpreters, but advocates for tougher requirements complain of loopholes: Existing court interpreters were given a waiver from testing requirements through Jan. 1 of this year, and a licensed interpreter is not required if either side or the judge doesn't ask for it.

"Literally, I bought my license," said Jorge Dieppa, a federally certified interpreter and linguistics lecturer at the University of Texas at El Paso. "I sent them the money. They gave me the license."

He said he would prefer to go through the stress of testing to acquire a more meaningful certification.

Dieppa and other experts can only guess at how seriously errors have affected court decisions. That's in part because so many mistakes go unnoticed -- after all, it's Greek to most observers. And if there is no objection, there is generally no cause to review the case.

Virginia Benmaman, director of the legal interpreting program at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, said one cure is better training for interpreters and higher awareness of the problem in the legal profession.

But she also favors the use of tape recorders when interpretations are conducted so that errors are preserved for appellate review.

"There are very few controls and very few ways of determining the amount and the degree of error primarily because there is no record of both languages," Benmaman said. "The record is in English."

How about we do everything in English in this country, and if any of these jackasses don't like it they can hire their own damn interpreters. Better yet, go to night school and learn English already!

-ccm

Sounds reasonable to me. However, I will pin the tail on the jackass and wonder why the bureaucrats and politicians don't insist on the English language being used rather than bending to the foreigners language for business. Sort of makes you wonder who the jackasses are.

But it's not always pretty -- or even comprehensible.

But it can be hilarious: http://www.engrish.com/

There is a story which is well-known among the deaf ... it must date back at least 20 years. Some guy had raped a deaf girl, and when the girl was on the witness stand testifying in Sign Language, the court's Sign interpreter decided to use a euphemism. Whenever the girl used the Sign for "rape" (which I believe would be rather crude, "forced" + the F word), the interpreter said the guy "made love" to her......

I've lived more than 22 years in Latin American countries; I speak Spanish and understand it reasonably well. That being said, Spanish is an amazingly imprecise language and it is compltely normal for a New York-born person of Puerto Rican heritage to be absolutely clueless as to what a Salvadoran or Bolivian might be saying. A word which in Venezuela describes a certain sort of hairstyle may mean a specific species of owl in Argentina; a word which will lead to a knife-fight in Colombia will be a term of endearment in Mexico. I suggest all immigrants (illegal and otherwise) learn English - when it comes to medical, political or technical terms, English is usually quite precise.

Spanish is an amazingly imprecise language... English is usually quite precise.

I'm not so sure... when my mom was on her honeymoon in England she was quite distressed to have the desk clerk ask her what time she'd like to get "knocked up" in the morning.. and more so when someone asked her to "lay the table."

It sounds comical to American ears to hear the stereotypic Englishman talk about some "bloody" thing or another, but we don't realize that "bloody" is (or at least was) pretty coarse language over there. In my parents' day you would not hear it from female lips or in polite company-- about equivalent to "G*dd*mn" here.

-ccm

There's the case of computer translators, too. I recall the phrase "the boys were suspended for childish pranks" was translated into Chinese, and then back into English. The computer displayed, "the children were hanged for juvenile delinquency".

My High School French teacher married an American GI during WW2. Knowing that food was scarce in France during the war, he gave her some of his K Rations. She took them to her family, and helped them translate the labels. The first tin was "peanut butter". She told her mother she couldn't help with the first word, but she was sure the second one was butter. They opened it, and figured this must be American butter. They spooned it into a hot frying pan so they could finally enjoy some eggs fried in butter.

When she came to the states on a ship of immigrants, the first thing she saw was a large sign on a store saying "lingerie sale". Of course, that is French for "dirty underwear". She said she just started crying, wondering what sort of demented land she had come to.

Dan Day,

That site is great. I split a gut on the first page.

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