| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183] > | Should “native language” claims be verified? Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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Nicole Schnell 
United States
Local time: 04:07
English to German
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In memoriam | I am wondering | Oct 2, 2012 |
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
The reputation of the building profession is not at stake either because there are a (large) number of cowboys on the market.
What exactly is the (British?) meaning of "cowboy"? I am not sure what animal herders have to do with translation. In the US, being a cowboy is a profession, not a term of abuse.
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Nicole Schnell wrote:
What exactly is the (British?) meaning of "cowboy"? I am not sure what animal herders have to do with translation. In the US, being a cowboy is a profession, not a term of abuse.
Found this online (my bold):
American Heritage Dictionary:
cow·boy
n.
- A hired man, especially in the western United States, who tends cattle and performs many of his duties on horseback. Also called cowman, cowpoke, Also called cowpuncher, ; also called regionally buckaroo, vaquero, Also called waddy.
- An adventurous hero.
- Slang. A reckless person, such as a driver, pilot, or manager, who ignores potential risks.
Maybe these are cowboys especially in the eastern United States.
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Nicole Schnell wrote: Kirsten Bodart wrote:
The reputation of the building profession is not at stake either because there are a (large) number of cowboys on the market. What exactly is the (British?) meaning of "cowboy"? I am not sure what animal herders have to do with translation. In the US, being a cowboy is a profession, not a term of abuse.
They're referring to the informal meaning.
It's isn't just British.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Cowboy
... a person who is an irresponsible or unscrupulous operator in business.
B
[Edited at 2012-10-02 18:19 GMT]
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 04:07
English to German
+ ...
In memoriam | One of those nelogisms | Oct 2, 2012 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote: Nicole Schnell wrote: Kirsten Bodart wrote:
The reputation of the building profession is not at stake either because there are a (large) number of cowboys on the market. What exactly is the (British?) meaning of "cowboy"? I am not sure what animal herders have to do with translation. In the US, being a cowboy is a profession, not a term of abuse. I think they're referring to the informal meaning. B
Created during the Bush presidency. However, he was a Texan, not from the East coast.
Sorry if this all sounds off-topic. But this a neat example to prove that a translator is not an AE speaker.
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| Regardless of what anyone would prefer, or what they would love to check, or veryfy | Oct 2, 2012 |
the bottom line is that it is absolutely against the law to conduct any kind of nativeness investigations or tests of anyone applying for work, or any other purposes in fact, in the US. I think it may be illegal in many other countries as well -- some people may just not realize it, especially in such countries as France, which also recognizes only one nationality for all its citizens.
It is as simple as that -- point blank.
You are only allowed to test someone's language pr... See more the bottom line is that it is absolutely against the law to conduct any kind of nativeness investigations or tests of anyone applying for work, or any other purposes in fact, in the US. I think it may be illegal in many other countries as well -- some people may just not realize it, especially in such countries as France, which also recognizes only one nationality for all its citizens.
It is as simple as that -- point blank.
You are only allowed to test someone's language proficiency -- not nativeness.
[Edited at 2012-10-02 20:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:07
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | I just can’t quite believe some of the stuff I’m reading | Oct 2, 2012 |
Which can roughly be summarised as follows:
"Who cares if there are crooks?"
"Who cares if someone's house falls down because of a cowboy builder? Cowboys in the business are good news for me."
"I don’t care what happens in the profession as long as it means $$$ for me."
Yep, who cares, eh? They were jolly well asking for it.
Remember all of the above next time one of you falls foul of an unscrupulous “professional”.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule |
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:07
Hebrew to English
| Please don't put words in my mouth | Oct 2, 2012 |
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
Therefore my $50-dollar question is:
Which would be more desirable, if only these two options were available:
1) a competent, experienced, professional translator whose native language is the source language; or
2) a bilingual individual, oftentimes posing as a fledgling translator, but whose native language is the target language?
Here is basically our difference:
You* and Bernhard would prefer #2, while I'd prefer #1.
First of all, the artificial "either/or" situation you describe above is one we have been trying to demonstrate as pointless for about half of this thread. You aren't comparing like for like.
Saying "would you prefer a highly competent [+ a whole bunch of other positive adjectives] non-native speaker or a bumbling idiot who is a native speaker?" is not a valid choice, it's pretty obvious which is preferable.
...And I'm not sure what it's meant to prove, the fact that there is a rightful place for non-native translation was conceded somewhere in the first 10 pages or so.
A fair question is: with all else being equal / ceteris paribus (or however else you want to phrase it) with the only difference being native language, which might be preferable then?
So, you can keep your $50.
*No, I wouldn't.
[Edited at 2012-10-02 19:51 GMT]
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Empty post. | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | | Reputation of the industry? | Oct 2, 2012 |
That thread is IMO more damageable to the reputation of our industry than a handful of black sheeps claiming to be who they're not (which is a problem that applies to specialty fields, competencies, sources languages and in any industry, in any job.)
The violence of some replies, the bitterness and the behaviour of some colleagues here (on a public board, indexed by Google, visible by the entire Web with your own names), wow, that's not only "ouch" for the image of the industry but,... See more That thread is IMO more damageable to the reputation of our industry than a handful of black sheeps claiming to be who they're not (which is a problem that applies to specialty fields, competencies, sources languages and in any industry, in any job.)
The violence of some replies, the bitterness and the behaviour of some colleagues here (on a public board, indexed by Google, visible by the entire Web with your own names), wow, that's not only "ouch" for the image of the industry but, more importantly, these colleagues hurt themselves and their own (online) reputation by giving a very negative image of themselves.
What do you think non-industry people stumbling accross this thread after a Google search will think of our profession after reading some of the posts here? What do you think potential clients will think when they see how violent, unfair and bitter some can be? What image of yourselves and of us do you think you're giving?
I personally think that locking this thread is long overdue because clearly, apart from insults, I fail to see what the next step in that discussion is. Besides, locking it might save whatever remains to save from the reputation of some colleagues.
PS: can I expect an apology for having been publicly, unfairly and arbitrarly called a liar or would that still be too much to ask? ▲ Collapse
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Oliver Walter
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:07
German to English
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| Could or couldn't | Oct 2, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
Secondly, yes, I could really care less if someone called himself or herself a native speaker of Polish, or Lithuanian, or some other languages that had played some role in my family heritage.
Typical American non-understanding of English that becomes part of American English as it is often used! In England (notice the similarity: England, English ?) we say "I couldn't care less", which, taken literally, says "I care so little, that even if I tried, I could not care less than that.". For some reason that I don't quite understand, the Americans, knowing that it meant "I am really not concerned by this." decided that the words were "I could care less", which is in fact the exact opposite of what they mean!
Oliver
[Edited at 2012-10-02 21:14 GMT]
| | | | | Yes, I absolutely agree with Anne. | Oct 2, 2012 |
The only reason why I got interested in this thread was because it seemed so shocking to me -- some of the ideas, and the biases of some people who are apparently professional translators -- usually highly educated people, with a lot of understanding of the protocol, various discriminations issues, and professionalism, in general.
That was the only reason why I started writing in this thread. The discussion was interesting, but I don't really know what bystanders may think about so... See more The only reason why I got interested in this thread was because it seemed so shocking to me -- some of the ideas, and the biases of some people who are apparently professional translators -- usually highly educated people, with a lot of understanding of the protocol, various discriminations issues, and professionalism, in general.
That was the only reason why I started writing in this thread. The discussion was interesting, but I don't really know what bystanders may think about some of the posts here. I hope the clients don't read some of them. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 04:07
English to German
+ ...
In memoriam | Please don't generalize, Oliver :-) | Oct 2, 2012 |
[quote]Oliver Walter wrote:
LilianBoland wrote:
Secondly, yes, I could really care less if someone called himself or herself a native speaker of Polish, or Lithuanian, or some other languages that had played some role in my family heritage.
The colleague you quoted is not an American native speaker. The colleague is from Poland.
Please refrain from generalizing and simply because some non-native speaker made a grammatical mistake please do not jump to conclusions that all Americans speak like that.
Typical American non-understanding of English that becomes part of American English as it is often used!
This is highly insulting.
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