I played myself
I'm a technical Japanese-to-English translator. "Fuzzy" stuff is OK once in a while, but I really prefer technical documents to translate. Technical documents have a precise meaning, so it's possible to translate them in a precise way. As long as I know the subject area, can understand the original, and can write authentically in the target language, I can do this. Not that any of these skills is easy to acquire, and I have a lot of room to grow in each of them, but there's still something comforting in knowing there's a correct translation in there somewhere.
Fuzzy stuff, like corporate social responsibility (CSR), has no such guarantees. There's all kinds of icky, soft stuff in there like nuance, and spin, and emotion. It can be an interesting exercise, but it's like subsisting on cotton candy compared to the stick-to-your ribs beef bowl that is technical translation. Cotton candy is fine at the carnival once in a while, but not every day.
So I'm always trying to figure out ways to back gracefully out of offers to do translations on fuzzy subjects. I got a request to do a trial for a CSR type document a few weeks ago, and I thought I'd be very clever. You see, the end client is a big tech company, for which I do a fair amount of technical translation — so I didn't want to annoy them by refusing point blank to do it.
Along with the trial (paid, natch) came the prior year's Japanese and English versions as "reference samples." The English was one of those monstrosities that big Japanese corporations seem so fond of creating. And here's where I got too clever for my own good: I completely disregarded the reference, creating an extremely native-like English translation that I was confident would make whomever approved those lame originals very displeased.
I didn't hear anything back for a few weeks, and figured I was in the clear. This week, however, like the Ghost of Christmas Past the agency coordinator contacted me again. She said that the client was extremely happy with my trial, and wanted me to not only translate the original document, but to re-translate a whole slew of CSR materials as well — about 150 pages total. D'oh!
I accepted the job because I figured it was my own damn fault. But now I know not to get too smart for my own good. From now on, I'm going with the tried and true, "When do you need it by? Sorry, I'm busy then. When else can you set the deadline? Sorry, busy then too. A week after that? Sorry, busy then. But I really would have liked to help you. Best of luck!"
Although I also prefer straight-up technical material, CSR generally isn’t all that bad, in the greater scheme of things.
Working in-house probably gives me a higher tolerance for spin, but nuance is really something that has no place in corporate communication. The goal, after all, is to communicate, right? Subtlety is probably not the right approach in that case. Emotion? Can’t say that I’ve seen much in the way of emotional CSR, but I don’t doubt that it exists.
In terms of backing out gracefully, do you ever offer to introduce someone else for jobs you would rather decline? I generally try to, and it is generally well received–both by the client and by the translator who gets the introduction. This approach requires a bit of caution, though. I wouldn’t recommend introducing just anyone. That could end up being worse than being too smart for your own good.
You’re right that emotional probably isn’t the right word. How about fluff, spin, PR?
I do introduce other translators when I can’t take a job or don’t want to. That’s been a mixed bag, because if the translator doesn’t work out then I feel responsible. If this particular agency starts sending me much more CSR work, though, then I’ll definitely be doing some introducing…
I suppose that could be dangerous if the agency likes the other translator more than me, but so far it’s been my experience that although there are translators who are better than me, they also charge a lot more
Nuance plays a very important role in corporate communications. It’s the whole “we had a terrible fiscal 2007″ versus “we’re working hard to position fiscal 2007 as the springboard to growth in the medium term” thing.
Anyway, give me the fuzzy stuff every time. I prefer dealing with things that actual human beings wrote, and that are meant to be read by actual human beings (investors, or shareholder rights activists, or whoever might be the intended audience for the document at hand), to straightforward repetitive text churned out by the guy with tape on his glasses.
It’s a good thing there are translators who like to work on these various sorts of things, since there are clients who want them all worked on!
@Durf
“we’re working hard to position fiscal 2007 as the springboard to growth in the medium term”
Yes, that’s exactly the type of text I’m talking about. It’s OK once in a while to exercise my translation muscles, but not all the time. Glad to know that some people like it.
However, I want to point out that technical translation isn’t always repetitive, and the most interesting kind is quite challenging. I don’t mind being forced to think when I translate, I just like to think about content rather than form.
I think about both. I don’t know of many types of texts, technical or non, that are content-free.
@Durf
I agree. I think it’s more a matter of proportion than all-or-nothing.