Manosky Sarrette
“My sister’s daughter is my niece” –“Ma soeur fille est ma nièce”
French is the only language aside from English that is spoken on 5 continents with more than 280 million speakers around the world, including 68 million native speakers. Surprisingly, French is also the largest donor of words to English such as abandon and age. However, there are numerous loanwords from English such as : chat, buzz, business, news. French is considered an international language of reference. French is one of the working languages of the United Nations alongside English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. Among the 6 official languages of the United Nations, French is the only language used for proceedings of the European Union.
Map from http://www.oneskyapp.com/blog/french-translation-challenges/
However, as with a lot of languages, translation from French to English or English to French can be very challenging. Here are some challenges that some might face when trying to make an accurate translation:
1.- Just as for all languages.There is no One True French- There are multiple.
There are significant differences in the French spoken in France, Belgium, Canada and the Caribbean. These differences are seen not only in pronunciation but also there can be a lot of cultural differences in grammar.
2.- French is a longer language.
Research shows that French translations are about 15-20% longer than their original English text. This difference in length between these two languages French and English can be explained by different styles of grammar and syntax. For example, French requires more prepositions and articles and offers many variations in word order that don’t make sense in English.
3.- Other major grammatical differences:
a)Gender
French is a two-gender language. In French an object can be masculine and another one can be feminine however in English these two objects have no gender example: une voiture et un camion (French). The car and the truck (English)
b) Verbs
There are 5-6 different spellings for each verb tense in French. There are many special cases for conjugating unique verbs differently that must be memorized.
c) Adjectives
English adjectives never change but French adjectives altered by the gender and number of the noun. Since French is a two gender language, a translator has to know the gender of the word since some words in French also use both genders (like le livre-la livre). The point is a native speaker we don’t always know the gender of every word)
No languages can be translated word for word. Not only that there is a difference in grammar, but there are also cultural differences that should be understood. Language entails more than just words–it also comes with historical and cultural baggage.
One example:
Tin Pan Alley refers to an early twentieth-century musical trend that had its roots on New York city’s 28th street. This gave rise to a number of American jazz standards people enjoy to this day.
My translation:
Tin Pan Alley fait reference au courant musical né sur la 28eme rue à New York au début du siècle dernier. Ce qui a donné le jour a un grand nombre de standards du jazz encore appréciés de nos jours
An better translation would be:
Tin Pan Alley ou la << rue des bruits de casserole>>, fait reference au courant musical né sur la 28eme rue à New York au début du siècle dernier, qui a donné le jour a un grand nombre de standards du jazz encore appréciés de nos jours.
The difference in my translation compared to the “correct translation” is that my translation was a word for word translation, which is common among people who don’t study translation or beginners. Also in my translation, I assume that all French speakers knew what Tin Pan Alley was. I didn’t consider the cultural differences that exist.
Remember there are 2 types of translation which are written translation and oral translation, or interpreting. In the video below, we are going to analyze oral translation especially the difficulties of analyzing someone like President Trump who often will change his mind in the middle of a sentence. The interesting part is that some translators would admit to softening the tone of President Trump’s speech, or even lying, in order to ease tension between two countries. Some translators also explained how sentences like “what the hell is going on” doesn’t exist in their culture. In other words the tone that the president used to say that can be translated differently in another language, but also that tone can be different than the tone used by the President.
Languages in Conflict 