ПРАКТИЧНІ ЗАВДАННЯ

1. Прочитайте і перекладіть текст українською. Висловіть свою

думку: чому Ви вирішили обрати професію перекладача? Що саме
приваблює Вас у професії перекладача?

What is a translator?
In a nutshell, a translator is a human being who changes written words from one
language to another. If this sounds obvious, take another look! First, it’s important to note
that although computers play an important role in translation, professional translators are
humans, not computers. Second, a translator works with written words, unlike an
interpreter, who works with spoken words. If you’re new to the industry, you’ve learned
something important right here; that the phrase “speaking through a translator”
contradicts itself, since translators work in writing. While some people work as both
translators and interpreters, most concentrate on one or the other.
Translators are also, by definition, fluent in more than one language. In the
industry, these are referred to as the source, or “from” language(s), and the target, or
“into” language, which is almost always the translator’s native language. So for example,
a translator who is a native English speaker and learned Portuguese and Spanish might
translate from Spanish and Portuguese into English. If you work in the most common
language pairs, such as English paired with French, Italian, German or Spanish (known
as FIGS in the translation industry), chances are that you will never translate into your
second or third language. If you work in a less common language pair, you might find
yourself as the exception to this rule. A client might need a document translated from
Thai into English, a job that would usually be handled by a native English speaker who
has Thai as a second or third language. However in practice, it’s often easier to find a
native Thai (or Lingala, Malayalam, Fulani, etc) speaker who has English as a second
language since there are many more native Thai speakers who also speak English than the
other way around. In this case, the job might be handled by a native Thai speaker, and
then proofread by a native English speaker.
In the United States, most translators work from one or two source languages; it’s
extremely common for translators to have only one working language pair, like Spanish
into English, or Japanese into English. In other areas of the world where foreign
languages are more widely studied, most translators work from at least two source
languages, and often many more. It’s not at all unusual to find Europe-based translators
who work, for example, from English, Spanish and French into German, or from
Norwegian, Swedish and English into Danish.
From McKay C. How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, 2006. – P. 17-18.

2. Прочитайте вірш та висловлювання відомих людей про переклад

та перекладачів. Поясніть, як Ви розумієте ці висловлювання.

Many critics, no defenders,

translators have but two regrets:
when we hit, no one remembers,
when we miss, no one forgets.
(Anonymous)

Переклад – це автопортрет перекладача (Корній Чуковський).

Переклади як жінки: якщо вірні, то непривабливі, а якщо красиві, то невірні
(автор невідомий).
Немає нічого такого, що не можна було б перекрутити поганим перекладом
(Теренцій Публій).
Думати, що ви можете бути перекладачем лише тому, що ви знаєте дві мови,
– це все одно, що вважати, що ви можете грати на фортепіано лише тому, що маєте
дві руки (Пітер Трент).
Переклади дуже схожі на зворотний бік вишитих канвою узорів (П’єр Буаст).
Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties. (Voltaire)
Translation is at best an echo. (George Borrow)
A good translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it’s there when
there are little imperfections— scratches, bubbles. Ideally, there shouldn’t be any. It
should never call attention to itself (Norman Shapiro).
The translation of a poem having any depth ends by being one of two things: either
it is the expression of the translator, virtually a new poem, or it is as it were a photograph,
as exact as possible, of one side of the statue (Ezra Pound).
Western Europe owes its civilization to translators. (Kelly Louis)
The translator's task is much harder than that of the original author. (Theodore
Savory)
Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it (Ludwig
Wittgenstein).

3. Прочитайте і перекладіть текст українською. Як Ви уявляєте собі

робочий день перекладача? Вискажіть свою думку англійською
мовою.

A day in the life of a translator

Each day is different since a translator, particularly a freelance, needs to deal with
a number of tasks and there is no typical day. I usually get up at around 7 in the morning,
shower, have breakfast and get to my desk at around 8 just as my wife is leaving to drive
to her office. Like most freelances I have my office at home.
I work in spells1 of 50 minutes and take a break even if it is just to walk around the
house. I try and take at least half an hour for lunch and try to finish at around 5 unless
there is urgent work and then I will perhaps work in the evening for an hour or so. But I
do the latter only if a premium payment is offered and I wish to accept the work. If I were
to analyse an average working month of 22 possible working days, I would get the
following:
My average monthly output for these fifteen and a half effective days is around
28,000 words. If this is spread out over effective working days of six working hours (8 x
50 minutes in reality), my effective hourly production rate is 300 words an hour. This
may not seem a lot but it may be worth considering that to expect to work undisturbed on

1
spell – here v. trans., american informal to do someone’s work for a short time, so that
they can rest e.g. I’d better go spell Mitch for a couple of hours
translation eight hours a day, five days a week, is unrealistic. There may also be times
when you are physically or mentally unable to work – how do you take account of such
eventualities as a freelance?
From G. Samuelson-Brown. A Practical Guide for translators. – P. 3-4.

4. Прочитайте і перекладіть текст українською. Сформулюйте і

запишіть основні етичні принципи перекладача. Спробуйте разом
змоделювати ситуації з професійного життя перекладача,
якому/якій буде необхідно робити етичної вибір в професійній
ситуації.

How to be an Ethical Translator

By Clint Tustiso
Ethics? Translators don’t need to worry about ethics, do they? When most people
think of ethics and professionals, they tend to focus on people like accountants, doctors,
lawyers, or other high profile jobs. However, everyone that deals with other people in
their business has the duty and responsibility to be ethical. Translators are no exception.
It is easy for people to point out unethical behaviour in certain professions, but
what about translators? It might not be as apparent. However, unethical activities do
occur and it's important to know what some of these are and ways to keep them from
being a temptation to you.
Unethical behaviour in the translation profession can take many forms. For
example, translators are usually on deadlines with clients and it’s important to be truthful
to your clients in terms of what you can accomplish in a given timeframe. If you come to
terms with a client and agree to finish a job by a certain deadline, it is unethical to decide
not to do that job or not finish it on time without informing the client. They usually have
deadlines as well, and not respecting those is not only bad for business, but is also
unethical.
Another major way that translators can be unethical is by not keeping their clients’
information confidential. Translators are privy to all sorts of information, and some of
this information is private and confidential to the client that requested the translation. It is
definitely unethical for a translator to disclose this information to anybody.
Another way that translators can be unethical is by purposely overcharging a client
when a price has already been quoted. Many translators’ clients are first-time clients and
might not know or understand how translators calculate their fees. Translators must not
give into the temptation to overcharge a client when they know that the client is a little in
the dark. Taking advantage of this ignorance is unethical. Earning a few more dollars off
of a client is no way to increase your translation business, and in fact is the perfect way to
ruin your translation career.
Ethical issues and situations can appear in any profession, and the translation
profession is no exception. Translators should be aware of the ethical issues that can
come up so that they know how to avoid them as well. Being ethical is a responsibility
that every translator has.
From http://www.becomeatranslator.com/
 5. Прочитайте і перекладіть текст українською. Оцініть з етичної
точки зору приклади невірного перекладу, що надаються у тексті.

Interpretation Errors and Abuses

On and off in history there have been concerns about whether or not interpreters
faithfully reproduce in the target language what the speaker said in the source language.
Verdicts in court cases have hung on such questions, and rumours of interpreters
deliberately manipulating or massaging meaning persist, despite high ethical standards
and practical safeguards.
In important negotiations, each side usually brings its own interpreters, who
monitor the work of the other side’s interpreters in addition to doing interpretation
themselves. Interpreters often work in tandem, especially when the stakes are high, so as
to prevent errors and omissions, as well as intentional misdirection. Also, proceedings are
recorded, and often reviewed by third parties later for accuracy.
Nonetheless, rumours of misbehaviour persist, especially after a United Nations
interpreter famously launched an F-bomb at a speaker. The speaker having finished his
remarks, the interpreter finished the interpretation, then, with his microphone still on and
his finger off the cough button, expressed vigorously and vulgarly what thought of the
speech.
One famous rumour: Decades ago a Swiss interpreter was challenged by the
diplomat he was working with to explain why an irate accusation was received so calmly
and warmly by his counterpart. When the diplomat asked: “What exactly did you say?”
the interpreter supposedly told the diplomat: “What you should have said.”
More recently, at a conference in Europe, an interpreter handled a wordplay-based
humorous story from the speaker by telling the audience to laugh because the speaker had
just told a funny tale, rather than try to reproduce the humour in another language.
Most infamous, however, is the story of Lieutenant Colonel Ryoichi Naito, an
English speaker in the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II who served as an
interpreter for the investigation of Unit 731, the Japan’s biological warfare group during
that war. On August 28, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Murray Sanders, an American
microbiologist attached to Fort Detrick (then called Camp Detrick), arrived in Japan to
begin the investigation, which focused more on Japanese capabilities than war crimes,
and eventually led to the “Report on Scientific Intelligence Survey in Japan September
and October 1945.” However, Naito, a protégé of the head of Unit 731, gained
considerable influence over Sanders, and managed to mislead him into believing that
human experiments had not been conducted by the Japanese Imperial Military, thus
saving himself and others in Unit 731 from prosecution as war criminals and burying a
very ugly part of Japanese history.
The moral of the story is: trust but verify. In other words, as Mohammed said in
the Hadith: “Trust in Allah, but always tie up your camel.”
From http://www.languagerealm.com