A reporter for the German TV channel Phoenix was caught on a hot mic expressing his frustration during live coverage of Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday.
I’ve heard it’s actually really difficult, because a good translator doesn’t do it literally.
They’re supposed to say something which gets the same meaning across, which often isnt what you’d get just by translating each word.
That leaves people translating trump with a problem: you can’t generally turn his long rambling speeches into something with a clearly understandable meaning without putting words into his mouth, or summarising so aggressively that you’d only say a couple of sentences for every few minutes of speech
I’ve read that deaf or non-English speakers don’t really get to understand just how stupid trump really is because it’s impossible to accurately translate his nonsense babbling.
Kind of true if you just read news headlines as well. Lots of sane washing occurs around Trump where he’ll say something absolutely batshit insane and the media picks it apart to make it sound like a cohesive policy.
This is not just an issue in translation. Anybody who summarises his speeches in English will struggle to extract the meaning. Reporting should always mention this issue in the first line. A disclaimer like: «it’s difficult to make heads or tails from Trumps speech do to his incoherent speech. Below is our best attempt.» should be a preface to all reporting.
I know this is a joke, but as someone fluent in two languages, trust me when I tell you that translating anything Trump says effectively is borderline impossible, and that’s a huge problem. It plays in his favor because people in non-english speaking parts of the world don’t get to fully see how ridiculously incoherent he actually is; they only get the sanitized version of his ramblings.
Personally, it’s been REALLY hard these past few years hearing and seeing the shit coming out of his mouth in its original language and at the same time not being able to at least share my worries with other people in my country without sounding crazy. It’s very easy to underestimate the gravity of the situation from the other side of the world if you can’t grasp how low the standards have sunk and still believe DT is just an average Republican president, and not living proof that the actual meaning of words has no value anymore.
The daily show did a segment on this. Basically translators can’t bring themselves to speak as embarrassingly as trump. They will think audience will assume them to be bad at translating if they tried for a more true representation. Especially if they try to imitate how the words are spoken as well as what words are spoken.
why, it can’t be that hard to produce ridiculous gibberish in any language.
And we will make America great again. I tell you, great. Great as it has never been before. We will make the Mexicans pay for it. And we will make the Panama Canal american again. American. Yes. Like it was when our constitution was founded. Great. Great Constitution. Great, I tell you. Have a nice day.
You can’t produce the same ridiculous gibberish. Translation isn’t just replacing each word with the exact equivalent word. It’s hard enough just making sense out of what he’s saying when he starts saying one thing and the dementia kicks in and he starts saying a different thing. Imagine trying to translate it into a language with a different sentence structure while still capturing the incoherence and limited vocabulary. Even if you manage it, people will think it’s a bad translation.
Translating for him must be a cakewalk. You only have to know, what, 25-30 words at most?
I’ve heard it’s actually really difficult, because a good translator doesn’t do it literally.
They’re supposed to say something which gets the same meaning across, which often isnt what you’d get just by translating each word.
That leaves people translating trump with a problem: you can’t generally turn his long rambling speeches into something with a clearly understandable meaning without putting words into his mouth, or summarising so aggressively that you’d only say a couple of sentences for every few minutes of speech
I’ve read that deaf or non-English speakers don’t really get to understand just how stupid trump really is because it’s impossible to accurately translate his nonsense babbling.
Can’t many deaf people read? I think the trancripts often make the rambling seem even worse.
Hah, yes, I meant usually newspapers make him seem coherent in print. You’re right, I have read some transcripts that are just undecipherable.
Kind of true if you just read news headlines as well. Lots of sane washing occurs around Trump where he’ll say something absolutely batshit insane and the media picks it apart to make it sound like a cohesive policy.
I’m Deaf and I don’t need much to see how stupid he is. However I can’t say the same among some folks in the Deaf community though.
Haha how do you feel that he could actually come across as even stupider than that
Nothing he could do would surprise me about his stupidity.
Subtitles would be easier
“Because I know that [incoherent blathering] [nonsensical mouth noises] and then we”
This is not just an issue in translation. Anybody who summarises his speeches in English will struggle to extract the meaning. Reporting should always mention this issue in the first line. A disclaimer like: «it’s difficult to make heads or tails from Trumps speech do to his incoherent speech. Below is our best attempt.» should be a preface to all reporting.
I know this is a joke, but as someone fluent in two languages, trust me when I tell you that translating anything Trump says effectively is borderline impossible, and that’s a huge problem. It plays in his favor because people in non-english speaking parts of the world don’t get to fully see how ridiculously incoherent he actually is; they only get the sanitized version of his ramblings.
Personally, it’s been REALLY hard these past few years hearing and seeing the shit coming out of his mouth in its original language and at the same time not being able to at least share my worries with other people in my country without sounding crazy. It’s very easy to underestimate the gravity of the situation from the other side of the world if you can’t grasp how low the standards have sunk and still believe DT is just an average Republican president, and not living proof that the actual meaning of words has no value anymore.
It would have to be translatable into english first.
The daily show did a segment on this. Basically translators can’t bring themselves to speak as embarrassingly as trump. They will think audience will assume them to be bad at translating if they tried for a more true representation. Especially if they try to imitate how the words are spoken as well as what words are spoken.
why, it can’t be that hard to produce ridiculous gibberish in any language.
And we will make America great again. I tell you, great. Great as it has never been before. We will make the Mexicans pay for it. And we will make the Panama Canal american again. American. Yes. Like it was when our constitution was founded. Great. Great Constitution. Great, I tell you. Have a nice day.
You can’t produce the same ridiculous gibberish. Translation isn’t just replacing each word with the exact equivalent word. It’s hard enough just making sense out of what he’s saying when he starts saying one thing and the dementia kicks in and he starts saying a different thing. Imagine trying to translate it into a language with a different sentence structure while still capturing the incoherence and limited vocabulary. Even if you manage it, people will think it’s a bad translation.
If only they could literally say “incoherent rambling” then take a five minute break. Alas, that’s not how it works.
It’s difficult for them.
From 2017:
https://theconversation.com/trumpslation-why-donald-trumps-words-give-translators-so-much-trouble-81968
Yeah, but then they have to repeat them for 4 hours straight without breathing