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Poll: When translating, how often do you turn one sentence into two, or vice versa?
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Jul 20, 2020

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "When translating, how often do you turn one sentence into two, or vice versa?".

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Alfredo Guerra Fidalgo
 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 13:22
Spanish to English
+ ...
Sometimes Jul 20, 2020

Whenever I think it's necessary. The same as when I'm proofreading/correcting text for publication.

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Liena Vijupe
Jocelyne Cuenin
expressisverbis
Philippe Etienne
Christine Andersen
Jennifer_D
 
Aisha Maniar
Aisha Maniar  Identity Verified
Member
Arabic to English
+ ...
field and language Jul 20, 2020

I would say this is more a question of the field and language you translate into than style. As a legal translator, some of my source texts (in both my working languages) have sentences that are longer than a page, which is perfectly reasonable in those languages but not in English. Translation is after all more than just words and we have to consider all levels of text, such as punctuation. Thus I'm not sure what value the results of such a poll has or is intended to have.

Marta Szkodzińska
Irving Reyes
Jennifer White
writeaway
Rachel Waddington
Kaisa I
Alexandra Speirs
 
Sundar Gopalakrishnan
Sundar Gopalakrishnan
India
Local time: 17:52
English to Tamil
+ ...
Never Jul 20, 2020

I never turn one sentence into two, or vice versa. I am always faithful to the sentence structure of the source texts. But other translators do such things. This means they are not competent.

 
Jennifer White
Jennifer White  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:22
French to English
+ ...
"I'm not sure what value the results of such a poll has or is intended to have" Jul 20, 2020

Agree, but isn't that the case for most of the polls here? They just seem to give a platform to those who like to massage their own egos IMO

writeaway
Aisha Maniar
Elizabeth Tamblin
Josephine Cassar
Kaisa I
expressisverbis
neilmac
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 12:22
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Sometimes Jul 20, 2020

If I feel it flows better that way and in any case it’s much more usual for me to turn two sentences into one than the other way around as in Portuguese we tend to use longer sentences than English do. The same rarely happens when I’m translating from French, Spanish or Italian (my source languages) as they tend to use long sentences too…

Ventnai
neilmac
Mariana Borio
Muriel Vasconcellos
Mario Freitas
Philip Lees
 
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:22
English to Arabic
+ ...
2 into 1, 1 into 2 Jul 20, 2020

a sure recipe for omissions, mistranslations, twisted meanings, messed-up representations of source ideas and, ultimately, a substandard target content.

The concept could be good for hair products, but not for translation.

All the times I saw it while proofreading others, concerned translator was either incompetent or trying to pull a fast one on the client.


 
Elizabeth Tamblin
Elizabeth Tamblin  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:22
French to English
Often Jul 20, 2020

The comma splice is frequently used in the French source texts I translate, so I either use a semicolon or turn it into two sentences.

neilmac
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman
 
Liena Vijupe
Liena Vijupe  Identity Verified
Latvia
Local time: 14:22
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
+ ...
talking about the benefit of the doubt Jul 20, 2020

Jennifer White wrote:

Agree, but isn't that the case for most of the polls here? They just seem to give a platform to those who like to massage their own egos IMO


Geez, people. Sometimes a question is just a question, simply ignore it if it's irrelevant or not interesting to you.

(I've never submitted a poll, I just find it ridiculous that almost every time somebody takes time to complain about it in the comments).


Kaisa I
Ventnai
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Christopher Schröder
Philippe Etienne
neilmac
Kevin Clayton, PhD
 
Ventnai
Ventnai  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 13:22
German to English
+ ...
Just a bit of fun or useful information Jul 20, 2020

These polls can provide useful information or make you consider aspects of translation that you might not have thought about. Or it can just be a bit of fun. I don't think anyone is massaging their ego. I don't feel the need to have it massaged. You can choose to read the poll discussion or not.

Kaisa I
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Christopher Schröder
Liena Vijupe
Barbara Cochran, MFA
Philippe Etienne
Christine Andersen
 
Kaisa I
Kaisa I  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 08:22
English to Finnish
+ ...
Agree with both Jul 20, 2020

Liena Vijupe wrote:

Jennifer White wrote:

Agree, but isn't that the case for most of the polls here? They just seem to give a platform to those who like to massage their own egos IMO


Geez, people. Sometimes a question is just a question, simply ignore it if it's irrelevant or not interesting to you.

(I've never submitted a poll, I just find it ridiculous that almost every time somebody takes time to complain about it in the comments).


I often fail to see the point of these polls but end up voting and seeing the results anyway, as I am curious. And that's all it is, a bit of entertainment.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Christopher Schröder
Liena Vijupe
Philippe Etienne
Alix Paupy
Christine Andersen
Paul van Zijll
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Relevant poll... Jul 20, 2020

... because of the results.

I join and split sentences all the time.

I would argue that anyone who doesn’t isn’t doing their job properly as a translator.

But clearly the community in general doesn’t agree.

Is this because of Trados et al? Or has it always been that way?


Chiara Foppa Pedretti
Philippe Etienne
Alix Paupy
Giuliana Maltempo
Christine Andersen
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
neilmac
 
Kevin Fulton
Kevin Fulton  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:22
German to English
Split, join, rearrange as needed Jul 20, 2020

Although the authors of the technical articles I edit or translate may be experts in their respective fields, their writing style is often on a secondary school level. Consequently, 60-word single-phrase paragraphs have to be broken down into more easily understood sentences, or 6-word fragments need to be joined with others to make a complete grammatical construction. I use a CAT tool, thus rearrangement is necessarily performed during a second pass through the document outside the confines of ... See more
Although the authors of the technical articles I edit or translate may be experts in their respective fields, their writing style is often on a secondary school level. Consequently, 60-word single-phrase paragraphs have to be broken down into more easily understood sentences, or 6-word fragments need to be joined with others to make a complete grammatical construction. I use a CAT tool, thus rearrangement is necessarily performed during a second pass through the document outside the confines of the tool which occurs in any event.Collapse


Chiara Foppa Pedretti
Philippe Etienne
Giuliana Maltempo
neilmac
Elizabeth Joy Pitt de Morales
Christine Andersen
Jaime Oriard
 
Barbara Cochran, MFA
Barbara Cochran, MFA  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:22
Spanish to English
+ ...
It Depends Jul 20, 2020

If I happen to be translating a post-modern novel or memoir (and even if I were translating one from the 20th century), I think it's important to reflect, through the translation, the original author's stream of consciousness and not turn the sentence in question into two or more.

For the translation of other kinds of texts, however, such as history books, I have been known to do it.


Elizabeth Joy Pitt de Morales
Sundar Gopalakrishnan
Gina W
 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 13:22
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
It depends Jul 20, 2020

Sometimes a writer in the source text rambles on, linking sentences with ´and´ or ´but´ (og or men in Danish). After ´but´ has been used two or three times, I have to read the passage several times myself just to work out where the argument is going. It is far better style in English to divide the sentences up.

The Danish equivalent of ´however´ is a conjunction, and it often sounds clumsy to write ´but, however, ...´ There are several solutions, but one is
... See more
Sometimes a writer in the source text rambles on, linking sentences with ´and´ or ´but´ (og or men in Danish). After ´but´ has been used two or three times, I have to read the passage several times myself just to work out where the argument is going. It is far better style in English to divide the sentences up.

The Danish equivalent of ´however´ is a conjunction, and it often sounds clumsy to write ´but, however, ...´ There are several solutions, but one is simply to use a full stop, and start a new sentence with: However, ...

It is perfectly acceptable style in Danish to repeat the name of a person or a company at the start of a series of short sentences, but this does not always work well in English. I regularly join two sentences with a relative pronoun instead of repeating the name.

I may join or break up sentences for other reasons too.

My motto is ´translating the message, not just the words´. To me, that means writing good, natural English, so that the reader is not distracted by source-language style. That is one difference between a human translator and machine translation.

And of course, I use a CAT tool that allows me to split or join sentences as needed!


[Edited at 2020-07-20 16:55 GMT]
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Michele Fauble
Philip Lees
Rachel Waddington
Edwin den Boer
Kay Denney
 
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Poll: When translating, how often do you turn one sentence into two, or vice versa?






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