Consistency matters, but…

Translation databases cannot do translators’ job

Keeping a consistent terminology while translating (and writing), has always been a great challenge. Translation software with TM (Translation Memory) and glossary (terminology database) take a load off our memory, but they bring up another challenge: using these tools wisely, and not automatically.

Context matters more

 

Once a term is set in the glossary, it means we should translate it the same way whenever possible. It doesn’t mean we should force the glossary translation when it’s not contextually or culturally appropriate.

Take, for instance, the term ‘view’ which is used in UI and thus, almost always, finds its way to the translators’ glossary. ’View’ can be used as ‘show’ or ‘see’ in English and the source may use this term in both ways, letting the context determine how it should be read. Yet, when we translate ‘view’ to Hebrew, it can only be translated as ‘see’ or ‘show’ (not both). When ‘view’ is set in the translation glossary as ‘show’ or ‘see’, it’s often automatically translated according to its glossary’s translation. Hence Hebrew users get ‘show’ when they should be getting ‘see’, and vice versa.

When I was starting this blog at Google’s Blogger, using the Hebrew interface, I got the following message (in Hebrew):

Apparently, Google’s Hebrew translators have set the Hebrew translation of ‘view’ as ‘show’, in their glossary. And the result was I read this sentence as ‘’The profile that readers will see when they show your posts is shown below’’. Obviously, I stopped right there, trying to figure out why readers would want to show my posts, and more importantly, who would they show them to?

So, using terms consistently, is very important, but using the right term for the context, is even more so. And that’s where TM and glossary stop working for us, and force us to use our judgement.

Tone also matters

Open code software translators have created a global translation database called Consistency Matters. Its goal is to have software terminology used consistently by all translators, no matter what brand or company it’s used for.

The cross-brand translation vision reflects another consistency conflict. On one hand, consistent cross-brand software terminology would certainly be helpful for users. If we consider our use of browsers, for example, it could have been nice if Explorer users wouldn’t have to search in vain for ‘favorites’ in Firefox or Chrome browsers that use ‘bookmarks’ instead. But on the other hand, each global brand has its own tone, and translators and translation editors are required to reflect the brand tone in their translations. And while ‘favorites’ reflect an innovative tone, stating that online browsing is different than old fashioned book browsing, ‘bookmarks’ reflects a nostalgic tone that wants to make web browsing as simple as book browsing.

Tough the difference between ‘favorites’ and ‘bookmarks’ is in the source, it reflects similar translation conflicts. Some of the term we translate can be translated in more than one way, and each way reflects a different tone. In these cases, it’s often better to reflect the appropriate tone for the brand, than to have a translation consistent with terms used for other brands.

Consistent errors don’t make it right

What happens when terms are consistently mistranslated by leading brands? Should translators who know better translate them correctly, or should they follow for the sake of consistency?

The term ‘tab’ (as in browsers ‘new tab’), for instance, has been mistranslated by leading high-tech brands, including Microsoft and Google. These brands have translated ‘tab’ as כרטיסיה (kartisiya), which means small index cards used in library catalogs before the digital age. The correct well known Hebrew term for ‘tab’ is לשונית (leshonit), which was set by The Academy of The Hebrew Language to indicate the digital version of the library catalog card.

Obviously, when leading brands set the wrong translation for commonly used terms such as ‘tab’, others may be tempted to follow them, especially when they hold on to the cross-brand consistency vision.

Thankfully, most of the Hebrew open code translators are also Hebrew ‘Apasionados’, so if we check the ‘tab’ instance on Consistency Matters, we’ll see that most of them have been using the correct Hebrew term ‘leshonit’, as in Firefox.