Low Cost Travel Cafe

felipebattisti · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 3

Date Originally Posted: 16/11/2005 1:53 AM

Hello everyone,

I'm an italian student (in marketing), and I'm trying to build my own touristic company in Roma.

And I need some help and suggestions from english speaking people (canadians, british, americans, autralians...)

In this company, I want to offer people coming in Roma a romantic experience in a personalized theatre.

But my english is very bad, and I asked to friends of mine to traduct my webpage in english.

I received four proposals, and I don't know wich of them is the most professional, the better for american and british people.

Here is the link of theses traductions :

http://ezaesqf4798.site.voila.fr/thetest.htm

When there is a "?", that's because the paragraph is not yet traducted.

Could you please say me wich of these is better, for me ?

Could you please say me, for each of these, if the traduction is very good, good, poor, bad, or very bad ?

The traduction need to be as "poetic" as it was when I wrote it in italian. The traduction need to be "magic" for my customers. People need to want to buy such an experience, reading the webpage.

I really need your help ! It's very very important for me !

I need to succeed in creating my own job !

Thanks Smile

Felipe Battisti

attitudetravel · Editor of attitude Travel Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 55

Date Originally Posted: 16/11/2005 2:35 AM

Hi Felipe - your question was so good, I set up a new folder for it.

A few things before we get started:

1) I want to offer people coming in Roma.

I want to offer people coming to Rome.

2) a romantic experience in a personalized theatre.

a romantic, personalised experience

3) I asked to friends of mine

I asked friends of mine

4) to traduct my webpage in english

to translate my webpage into English

5) Here is the link of theses traductions

Here is the link for these translations

6) the paragraph is not yet traducted.

the paragraph is not yet translated.

I'll have a look at your link when I have time this week and see what I can recommend.

Know that Alsky, in the Low Cost Travel Cafe is a professional translator and is the best placed to comment on the four proposals you have received.
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

Felice · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 4

Date Originally Posted: 16/11/2005 2:53 PM

It's quite interesting to compare the different versions. Difficult to say which is best without seeing the original, though.

felipebattisti · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 3

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 2:24 AM

Thanks a lot, and sorry for my bad english... ;-)

Alsky · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 15

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 8:34 AM

Hi Felipe,

The words "I asked to friends of mine to traduct my webpage in english" worried me, and my worries were not unjustified. Ask yourself "Do I want my website to be the best?" Actually, it sounds like you already have. You want the translation to be magic. That's the right attitude to have.

The service you're offering sounds great, but people won't bother to read your website if they have to struggle to work out what it says.
To be fair, the translations are by no means that bad, and they're not a struggle to read. But still, each has the odd word that's out of place, the odd phrase that jars.

It's unfortunate that D seems to have put the most effort in, because it's the worst of the 4. I'd put A in 3rd place, slightly behind B. I think C is the one you want to go for. To me it reads best in English. Pace Felice, it doesn't really matter which of the translations most accurately reflects the Italian. Your readers won't care about that. What you're looking for is a text that works in its own right.

It's true that the cost of getting a translation done by a professional can come as a shock to people ("60 Euros for a couple of pages?!! You're having me on!"), and when you're starting a business you probably want to save every cent you can. So if you don't want to get a professional to do it (and if you do you should get a native English speaker -try www.proz.com, www.translatorscafe.com, or www.aquarius.net and you should find someone), get friend C to do it and then get a native English speaker who knows Italian to proofread it (the 3 sites I mentioned should help you there as well).

Best of luck with it -I expect you'll be very busy around February 14th Smile

Felice · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 4

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 9:37 AM

Oh come on Alsky! Of course the translation should read well, but it has to be an accurate translation too!

SG from St P says hi, btw

Alsky · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 15

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 11:51 AM

All right -perhaps "it doesn't really matter" is exaggerating things Smile

But really, if the text says everything that Felipe wants it to say, and says it well in English, it's not that important if it's not that close to the Italian -though of course, certainly in this case, it should be written in the same spirit/style.

After all, the point of translations like this is to get the customer to purchase the product, as well as to convey information that the customer requires, not to prove how good an understanding of the source language the translator has. A good translation reads as if it's the original text, so if the "translation" is an original text (such as a copywriter might provide), I think that's OK.

And don't forget -we're always hearing about things being "lost in translation". The translator can add things as well, to improve the text. There's no reason the translator shouldn't add some more vibrant adjectives, romantic metaphors, etc.

In terms of quality assessment, it's quite clear that D's is the worst text. It matters not a jot that in a translation exam D would probably get the highest mark of the 4, simply by being the only candidate to have completed the job. You don't need the original to see that D's diction and phraseology are not good enough. A, B and C are harder to separate. Though I put A in 3rd place, there are plenty of passages where A's translation is better than C's -in fact, looking at the latter half again, A's translation of it even looks slightly better than C's. C does start off very well though. But in general, the 4 translations are so close to each other in content that the original wouldn't be that much use to us in deciding which is best.

Hi to SG Smile

Felice · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 4

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 12:58 PM

"Adorable motorized red insect"?! Paragraph 3 alone demonstrates A's superiority.

Why do all of them refer to "historical Roma"? Is it a romantic Gypsy break?

Alsky · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 15

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 2:11 PM

Felice · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 4

Date Originally Posted: 17/11/2005 2:42 PM

Ah, but Alsky, I never said that the translation should stick to the original. All i meant was that you have to stay faithful to the original content-wise. Otherwise I could just compose a poetic advert for 'Roma' off the top of my head and pass it off as a translation.

The thing about the motorised red insect clearly sounds daft - maybe it's OK in Italian. Let's call a car a car and Roma Rome.

I'm baffled about the "sublime character of lights" too.

Anyway...

Alsky · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 15

Date Originally Posted: 18/11/2005 11:34 AM

No you didn't, that's true. Point taken.

felipebattisti · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 3

Date Originally Posted: 20/11/2005 1:49 PM

ok, thanks ! ;-)