The other day I was asked by a translation agency to "evaluate" / examine an online questionnaire, supposed to be done among foreigners (in Japan) trying to find certain restaurants. My job was to find out, how "easy" to use several different search sites are.
Tasks (in an Excel file) were formulated for example like:
★Use the restaurant search website "XXX" to search for a single restaurant offering food you would like to eat.
★Once you find a restaurant offering food you would like to eat, please complete the following survey.
So far, so fine.
BUT ...
People were supposed for certain (specific) restaurants and then asked:
"Based on your experience using all the sites, which provided an easy-to-understand display of restaurant information?"
Well ...
Let's say, you were looking for a Chinese restaurant in Osaka, that has the name:
"中国料理北京 ホテルグランヴィア大阪店"
Assume for a minute, that those foreigners (supposed to be tourists) do NOT speak/read Japanese.
In that case it is unlikely that they ENTER the above term in the search field.
But MAYBE they would enter the name of the restaurant, which is displayed in roman letters like:
"CYUUGOKURYOURIPEKIN HOTERUGURANVIAOOSAKATEN"
All foreigners here, who either CAN read the above, or would even ENTER that mumble jumble to search for the given restaurant ... please raise your hands.
Nobody???
Strange .................
Is it not absolutely clear to EVERYBODY, that:
* "CYUUGOKU" stands for China, pronounced in Japanese "chuugoku"
* the terms "ryori" (cuisine) and "Peking" are TWO (not one)
* everybody who is NOT Japanese would expect "Hotel" instead of "HOTERU"
* again: GURANVIAOOSAKATEN is at least THREE different words, that should appear as such when written in roman letters!
* this last thing glues "guru navi" (search site), Hotel, Osaka and Branch together to give the hillarious: HOTERUGURANVIAOOSAKATEN
PLEASE ... Japanese people!
If you want to communicate with the world / or have the world communicate with you ....
you have to do better than that!!!
6/22/2014
WHO Standard Terminology
The WHO has edited and published what it calls a "Standard Terminology" (sort of a dictionary) pertaining to oriental medicine:
"WHO International Standard Terminologies On Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region"
That is just fine. AND all the listed editors are without question highly decorated academics. THEY are surely better educated and much more knowledgeable than I will ever be.
Nevertheless .. I cannot help but feel somewhat disappointed by this work - at least regarding some terms.
Example.
"1.6.84 瘀血 = STATIC blood = a pathological product of blood stagnation, including extravasated blood and the blood circulating sluggishly or blood congested in a viscus, all of which may turn into pathogenic factor, the same as blood stasis or stagnant blood."
The rendering of what the Japanese pronounce "oketsu" as "static blood" is to my taste highly inappropriate. EVERY persons working in the medical field and MANY laymen know perfectly well what happens, when the blood STOPS (completely) to move = becomes "static" (static means NOT moving).
The tissues deprived of their blood supply will quickly develop functional disorders and not much later DIE!!! Typical example: myocardial infarct.
But ... THAT is NOT what is meant when people talk in oriental medicine about "oketsu"!
I myself are not an academic and definitely not qualified to argue with these editors and propose a more suitable term.
Yet, I think, these people SHOULD come up with something more appropriate and as it is, all those academic decorations have produced unsatisfatory results.
In particular when one considers what is being attempted here: facilitation of communication between completely different cultures and concepts.
I expect, I will make myself many new enemies with this statement ...
"WHO International Standard Terminologies On Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region"
That is just fine. AND all the listed editors are without question highly decorated academics. THEY are surely better educated and much more knowledgeable than I will ever be.
Nevertheless .. I cannot help but feel somewhat disappointed by this work - at least regarding some terms.
Example.
"1.6.84 瘀血 = STATIC blood = a pathological product of blood stagnation, including extravasated blood and the blood circulating sluggishly or blood congested in a viscus, all of which may turn into pathogenic factor, the same as blood stasis or stagnant blood."
The rendering of what the Japanese pronounce "oketsu" as "static blood" is to my taste highly inappropriate. EVERY persons working in the medical field and MANY laymen know perfectly well what happens, when the blood STOPS (completely) to move = becomes "static" (static means NOT moving).
The tissues deprived of their blood supply will quickly develop functional disorders and not much later DIE!!! Typical example: myocardial infarct.
But ... THAT is NOT what is meant when people talk in oriental medicine about "oketsu"!
I myself are not an academic and definitely not qualified to argue with these editors and propose a more suitable term.
Yet, I think, these people SHOULD come up with something more appropriate and as it is, all those academic decorations have produced unsatisfatory results.
In particular when one considers what is being attempted here: facilitation of communication between completely different cultures and concepts.
I expect, I will make myself many new enemies with this statement ...
Suspicious
I have been critisized in the past for assuming that a certain job offer might well be fraud, because its details were almost textbook style scam.
Well, today I received another of those things, that look at least TO ME very suspicious.
"Hello ... have a project extended of 2 Lakh words where we need german & swedish native speakers with good experience for long term.
Project Details
Language : German & Swedish
Words : 2 Lakh
Domain : Business
People who can do Sample to be done of 900 words apply here."
A "sample" of 900 (???) words?
Nobody who anything about translation (the people who are supposed to "evaluate" those samples ...) needs almost 5 pages of text to assess the capabilities of a potential translator. I can tell from experience!
So, if these people insist on their 900-word sample, place their job offer worldwide, get maybe 100 people to do such "sample", the company in questions already gets 450 pages of translation done for free!
Am I really the only one, to whom this sounds strange?
Well, today I received another of those things, that look at least TO ME very suspicious.
"Hello ... have a project extended of 2 Lakh words where we need german & swedish native speakers with good experience for long term.
Project Details
Language : German & Swedish
Words : 2 Lakh
Domain : Business
People who can do Sample to be done of 900 words apply here."
A "sample" of 900 (???) words?
Nobody who anything about translation (the people who are supposed to "evaluate" those samples ...) needs almost 5 pages of text to assess the capabilities of a potential translator. I can tell from experience!
So, if these people insist on their 900-word sample, place their job offer worldwide, get maybe 100 people to do such "sample", the company in questions already gets 450 pages of translation done for free!
Am I really the only one, to whom this sounds strange?
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