Some days I am swamped with all of these little jobs. Every English ad comes through me at some point. Either I’m writing it to get trans-created into Mandarin, Cantonese or even Tagalog, or else I am trans-creating it from a translation (making it sound natural).
I also have to proofread, edit and solve some pretty strange English conundrums, such as the period placement in Washington DC, what letters to capitalize in title case, among vs amongst, the British/American spelling thing, hyphens, or whether flights should be pluralized if there is only one flight per day in the subhead ‘nonstop flights to New York daily.’
Did you know straightforward is one word, world-class is hyphenated yet fine dining is not? English can be bizarre. Anyway…
Every language has its weak points when translated into English that gives it away. Polish is excessively flowery, French has its endearing word substitutions (Do you want to listen to a movie? Get your hairs cut, etc.), Swedish uses d’s instead of th’s, Mandarin tends to leave out the article (the, a, etc) and with Cantonese, they have a hard time with plurals, so you will see things like ‘Conventions and Exhibitions Center’ or my personal favourite, ‘arrive at your door’s steps.’
They also like to use the possessive, ‘Las Vegas’ wonderful excitement’, or ‘singing operas’ gondoliers’. I come across these kinds of things all the time and the funny thing is, technically, they are not incorrect, there are many steps leading up to the door they’ve been built for, it’s true.
I’m sure when they see something that has been translated from English they can spot it a mile away too.
My phase of the day: Dim Sun Seen – “How to fix it?”
