1 00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:06,320 Did any of you translate Erin McKean's talk? For those who haven't, here's a small extract. 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:10,160 'Lexicographical' is the same pattern as higgeldy piggeldy. 3 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:12,360 Right? It’s a fun word to say, and I get to say it a lot. 4 00:00:12,360 --> 00:00:17,080 I would add to that: higgeldy-piggeldy is also a fun word to translate. 5 00:00:17,080 --> 00:00:21,320 In Dutch, I used 'olleke bolleke', as in… 6 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:24,000 Olleke bolleke, rubisolleke, 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,240 olleke bolleke, rubisolleke, olleke bolleke, knol! 8 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:30,880 Luckily, this nursery rhyme is known 9 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:33,640 in both of the major regions where Dutch is spoken. 10 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:37,600 Dutch is the mother tongue of 23 million people, 11 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:40,280 of whom 16 million live in the Netherlands, 12 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:44,720 6 million in the Northern part of Belgium, also known as Flanders, 13 00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:48,480 and 400.000 in Suriname, in South-America. 14 00:00:48,480 --> 00:00:51,840 We have an official 'Dutch Language Union'. 15 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:53,920 So where's the problem? 16 00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:57,200 Dutch from the Netherlands and Dutch from Flanders 17 00:00:57,200 --> 00:00:58,880 sound very different. 18 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:01,680 If you meet Johan Cruyff in the morning, 19 00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:06,080 and if you're lucky, he will say 'Goeiemorgen' to you. 20 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:09,160 Kim Clijsters will say 'Goeiemorgen'. 21 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:12,280 In subtitling, this is of course irrelevant. 22 00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:15,560 So once again: where's the problem? 23 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:18,120 We also use different words. 24 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:20,880 A Dutchman will call this a 'klokkromme'. 25 00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:23,760 In Flanders we call it a 'Gauss-curve'. 26 00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:28,560 Last but not least, each group has their set of 'typical doubts', 27 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:30,920 or deviations from Standard Dutch 28 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:33,800 that occur more in one or the other region. 29 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:37,720 Over the years, the Dutch have lost their sensitivity 30 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:39,520 to the gender of Dutch nouns. 31 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:42,840 And so only a Dutchman might wonder 32 00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:45,040 whether a cow is male or female 33 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:47,800 … or so we teasingly say, in Flanders. 34 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:51,720 In Belgium, on the other hand, whether we like it or not, 35 00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:55,920 our language is influenced by our French-speaking fellow countrymen, 36 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,920 leading to sometimes awkward constructions borrowed from French. 37 00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:02,760 So there's the problem: 38 00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:04,760 if a reviewer from the Netherlands 39 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:07,320 reviews the work of a colleague from Belgium, 40 00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:10,000 she might see a text which she herself 41 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,080 would never have written that way, 42 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:13,720 and the other way round. 43 00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:15,720 If she starts correcting it, 44 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:17,840 before she knows it, she will be caught up 45 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:19,640 in an endless yes-no-discussion. 46 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:22,800 It happened to me in my early TED days. 47 00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:26,560 I even confess that for my very first translation, 48 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:29,840 I made sure I asked a translator from my own country 49 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:32,640 to review it, because I felt uncomfortable 50 00:02:32,640 --> 00:02:34,640 with a review from the 'other side'. 51 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:37,120 But I quickly learned that if you stick 52 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:39,320 to a limited number of ground rules, 53 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:42,200 you can easily overcome this difficulty. 54 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,520 This is what I want to share with you today. 55 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:49,240 The best way to stop discussions about 'who is right', 56 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:51,720 is to agree on the standards you use. 57 00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:53,920 For Dutch, that is quite easy. 58 00:02:53,920 --> 00:02:56,760 The official thesaurus, the main dictionary 59 00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:00,520 and the standard grammar are all accessible online. 60 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:03,400 All three are widely used and accepted 61 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:05,080 in the Netherlands and in Belgium. 62 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:07,400 If you indicate from the beginning 63 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:09,640 that you will use these as a standard, 64 00:03:09,640 --> 00:03:12,400 you can avoid a lot of tension and discussion. 65 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:14,480 But even if a word 'exists', 66 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:16,920 it may be highly unusual in one of the two regions. 67 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:19,480 Take the 'klokkromme'. 68 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:22,040 It's a word hardly any Belgian would use, 69 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:24,760 but on the other hand it is not difficult to understand 70 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:27,160 -- especially not in context, 71 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:29,480 as is the case in TED Talks. 72 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:31,840 There's really no point in replacing it 73 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:34,280 with a term that no Dutchman would ever use. 74 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:36,280 I much rather treat it 75 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:38,400 as a 'word worth spreading'. 76 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:41,240 Of course, if the unusual word is difficult 77 00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:43,520 to understand, the story is different. 78 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:44,720 But then again, 79 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:47,600 rather than replacing the word with a Flemish one, 80 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:50,120 I invite my translation partner 81 00:03:50,120 --> 00:03:51,360 to look for an alternative 82 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:53,840 that is acceptable to both of us. 83 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:55,880 I would like to end with a few words 84 00:03:55,880 --> 00:03:57,480 about what I try to to keep in mind 85 00:03:57,480 --> 00:03:59,920 when reviewing or translating into Dutch. 86 00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:03,160 First of all, I keep my audience in mind. 87 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:05,880 I am writing for people from different regions. 88 00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:08,360 I might as well try to step into their shoes 89 00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:10,280 and avoid words or expressions 90 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:12,400 that I know are confusing. 91 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:15,280 Secondly, I keep in mind my translation partner, 92 00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:17,160 especially when reviewing. 93 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:18,880 In one of my early reviews, 94 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:21,720 I made the mistake of marking the translation as reviewed 95 00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:24,440 without having contacted my partner. 96 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:27,080 After all, I thought I had only 97 00:04:27,080 --> 00:04:29,680 corrected some obvious mistakes. 98 00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:32,720 Since then, I always contact the translator 99 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:34,040 and invite them to let me know 100 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:35,800 whether they agree with my proposals. 101 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:39,320 Thirdly, I keep in mind that I translate for TED 102 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:40,720 in order to help spreading 103 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,000 the interesting ideas of the speakers. 104 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,280 It's not about “winning” discussions 105 00:04:45,280 --> 00:04:46,360 with other translators, 106 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:48,760 it's about working together 107 00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:50,600 to provide access to TED 108 00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:52,960 to as large an audience as possible. 109 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:56,520 Last year, a TED Translator from the Netherlands 110 00:04:56,520 --> 00:04:58,560 asked me whether I thought we should 111 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:00,440 have separate sets of translations 112 00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:02,920 for Dutch from the Netherlands and from Belgium. 113 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:04,920 I told him that to me 114 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:06,400 that made no sense at all, 115 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:08,600 since it would only double the effort 116 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:10,320 to spread the ideas. 117 00:05:10,320 --> 00:05:12,480 It did spur me to get better 118 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,200 at finding common ground across the regions. 119 00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:17,360 Last but not least, I can tell you 120 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:19,200 that translating for TED has been 121 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:21,600 an immensely enriching experience to me. 122 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:23,760 My closing thoughts are therefore 123 00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:25,280 for my fellow TED Translators. 124 00:05:25,280 --> 00:05:27,440 I would have liked to create 125 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:29,440 some kind of ‘Hans Rosling’ graph, 126 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:30,840 but you will have to do 127 00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:32,120 with a wordle 128 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:33,840 in which the size of the name 129 00:05:33,840 --> 00:05:36,800 represents the number of times I worked with them. 130 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:40,520 I wish all of you an excellent workshop 131 00:05:40,520 --> 99:59:59,999 and an exciting TED Global 2011.