On translating TEDTalks into Dutch

Els De Keyser's contribution to the TED Global 2011 Translators Workshop.

Subtitles:

Dutch:
Translator: Els De Keyser

English:
Transcript: Els De Keyser
Review: Krystian Aparta

French:
Translator: Hugo Wagner

Greek:
Translator: Dimitra Papageorgiou

Italian:
Translator: Elelena Montrasio

Polish:
Translator: Krystian Aparta

Did any of you translate
Erin McKean's talk?

For those who haven't,
here is a small extract.

'Lexicographical' is the same pattern
as higgeldy piggeldy.

It’s a fun word to say,
and I get to say it a lot.

I would add to that:

higgeldy-piggeldy is also
a fun word to translate.

In Dutch, I used "olleke bolleke," as in…

Olleke bolleke, rubisolleke,

olleke bolleke, rubisolleke,
olleke bolleke, knol!

Luckily, this nursery rhyme is known

in both of the major regions
where Dutch is spoken.

Dutch is the mother tongue
of 23 million people,

of whom 16 million live
in the Netherlands,

6 mln in the Northern part of Belgium,
also known as Flanders,

and 400.000 in Suriname
in South-America.

We have an official
"Dutch Language Union."

So, where's the problem?

Dutch from the Netherlands
and Dutch from Flanders

sound very different.

If you meet Johan Cruyff
in the morning,

and if you're lucky, he will say
"Goeiemorgen" to you.

Kim Clijsters will say "Goeiemorgen."

In subtitling,
this is of course irrelevant.

So once again: where's the problem?

We also use different words.

A Dutchman will call this a "klokkromme."

In Flanders we call it a "Gauss-curve."

Last but not least, each group has
their set of "typical doubts,"

or deviations from Standard Dutch

that occur more
in one or the other region.

Over the years,
the Dutch have lost their sensitivity

to the gender of Dutch nouns.

And so only a Dutchman might wonder

whether a cow is male or female

… or so we teasingly say in Flanders.

In Belgium, on the other hand,
whether we like it or not,

our language is influenced

by our French-speaking fellow countrymen,

leading to sometimes awkward
constructions borrowed from French.

So there's the problem.

If a reviewer from the Netherlands

reviews the work of a colleague
from Belgium,

she might see a text which she herself

would never have written that way,

and the other way round.

If she starts correcting it,

before she knows it,
she will be caught up

in an endless yes-no-discussion.

It happened to me in my early TED days.

I even confess that
for my very first translation,

I made sure I asked a translator
from my own country

to review it, because I felt uncomfortable

with a review from the "other side."

But I quickly learned that if you stick

to a limited number of ground rules,

you can easily overcome this difficulty.

This is what I want to share
with you today.

The best way to stop discussions
about "who is right,"

is to agree on the standards you use.

For Dutch, that is quite easy.

The official thesaurus,
the main dictionary

and the standard grammar
are all accessible online.

All three are widely used and accepted

in the Netherlands and in Belgium.

If you indicate from the beginning

that you will use these as a standard,

you can avoid a lot of tension
and discussion.

But even if a word exists,

it may be highly unusual
in one of the two regions.

Take the "klokkromme."

It's a word hardly any
Belgian would use,

but on the other hand,
it is not difficult to understand

especially not in context,

as is the case in TED Talks.

There's really no point in replacing it

with a term that no Dutchman
would ever use.

I much rather treat it

as a "word worth spreading."

Of course, if the unusual word
is difficult to understand,

the story is different.

But then again,

rather than replacing the word
with a Flemish one,

I invite my translation partner

to look for an alternative
that is acceptable to both of us.

I would like to end with a few words

about what I try to to keep in mind

when reviewing or translating into Dutch.

First of all, I keep my audience in mind.

I'm writing for people
from different regions.

I might as well try
to step into their shoes

and avoid words or expressions

that I know are confusing.

Secondly, I keep in mind
my translation partner,

especially when reviewing.

In one of my early reviews,

I made the mistake of marking
the translation as reviewed

without having contacted my partner.

After all, I thought I had only

corrected some obvious mistakes.

Since then, I always contact
the translator

and invite them to let me know

whether they agree with my proposals.

Thirdly, I keep in mind
that I translate for TED

in order to help spreading
the interesting ideas of the speakers.

It's not about “winning” discussions
with other translators,

it's about working together

to provide access to TED

to as large an audience as possible.

Last year, a TED Translator
from the Netherlands

asked me whether I thought we should

have separate sets of translations

for Dutch from the Netherlands
and from Belgium.

I told him that to me,

that made no sense at all,

since it would only double the effort

to spread the ideas.

It did spur me to get better

at finding common ground
across the regions.

Last but not least, I can tell you

that translating for TED has been

an immensely enriching experience to me.

My closing thoughts are therefore

for my fellow TED Translators.

I would have liked to create

some kind of "Hans Rosling graph,"

but you will have to do
with a wordle,

in which the size of the name

represents the number of times
I worked with them.

I wish all of you an excellent workshop

and an exciting TED Global 2011.