David, I had to learn French just work and do everyday functions in Switzerland, canton de Vaud. But the company I worked for realized this an proved free French lessons which helped a Great deal.
Scott On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 11:00 AM David Boyes <[email protected]> wrote: > > I once had a customer say "PLEASE DON'T translate your manuals. We are > used to technical materials in English and know > > what they mean. If you translate it into [French? German? I don't > recall] we will have no idea what you are trying to say." > > Which only shows how prevalent really rotten translations done by people > who don’t understand the material are. Il traduttore è un traditore, as the > Italians would say. > > The translation people that Fuji Xerox had were really good (the German > version of the Alto and D-machine docs were both readable and > understandable), but I think Epson takes the prize for the manual for the > MX80 printer. I teach technical writing occasionally, and that 25+ year > old manual is still the one I use examples from (IBM ID materials are 2nd > in line – thanks, IBM). > > Translation lives and dies by how well you understand what the author was > originally intending to say, which is why machine translation – and > translation done by the lowest bidder -- is still so poor. You get what you > pay for. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- Scott Ford IDMWORKS z/OS Development ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
