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#Post#: 16201--------------------------------------------------
Question about Japanese translation, one about Polish translatio
n
By: SHL Date: May 26, 2019, 11:58 pm
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I haven‘t seen Chizuko for awhile but I hope she‘s still around.
Perhaps she can answer the question. I‘ll try sending her a
private message and see if she can help.
I heard this on YouTube and the YouTube guy is normally pretty
good about his facts, but one of the comments someone left said
he was wrong.
This had to do with a message sent at the end of WWII to the
Japanese about surrendering and that the US had a weapon of mass
destruction it would use if they didn‘t (the first of two
nuclear bombs used).
The original message went out as „Will you surrender?“
The Japanese responded with the message „Mokusatsu“ or maybe
it‘s „moku satsu“.
The actual translation of the response supposedly means „We are
withholding comment pending discussions“ , but the translation
allegedly got botched and went through to Washington as „We are
treating your message with contempt.“
As the story goes, the allegedly mistranslated message got out
and Truman just decided to order the first atomic bomb dropped.
Someone in the comments section wrote, „I don‘t know where this
BS came from but in Japanese `mokusatsu‘ means ´ignoring, taking
no notice of, or refusing event to comment on‘ so there was NO
misunderstanding. Another person wrote, „Or just ´I choose to
remain silent on this issue.´“
So, I was wondering who is right?
On the subject of poor Polish translations, this has to do with
President Carter on a State visit to Poland in December 1977.
Supposedly they used the services of $150 /translator who was
allegedly a professional.
Carter said at first he wanted to learn of the Polish people‘s
desire for the future“. The comment was mistranslated as saying
the President „desired the Poles carnally.“ How anyone could
get that one so far off is hard to believe.
Then Carter said he was simply glad to be in Poland. This got
mistranslated as he was „happy to grab Poland‘s private parts.“
Then Carter spoke of his departure from the US, which was
supposedly mistranslated as he had „abandoned the US forever.“
Finally, Carter said, he praised the Polish Constitution of
1791, which was mistranslated as „the Constitution was to be
ridiculed.“
Apparently the story is true and the US State Department
supplied the translator, who was actually well-respected. Part
of the article I found read:
„There are a lot of cruel and untrue jibes about Steven Seymour
on the internet. So let’s start by noting that SS was not, by
any means, an incompetent. He was and is a fine translator of
Polish and Russian and French texts into English and has a
particular reputation for translating poetry: something which
should earn him the respect of anyone who knows anything about
writing. However, there were two problems. First, Polish was
Seymour’s fourth language and it stood behind Russian, a
language that is worryingly close on some points, inviting
confusion; Seymour was Russian born. Second, SS was not only
translating into English, but from English into Polish. In
Russian he was more than capable of doing that: the man
translated Auden into Russian and published the results for
God’s sake! However, in Polish he wasn’t as sharp. The US State
Department had hired a gold-medal shot-putter and then asked him
to do the pole vault. If you have any doubts look at the Seymour
in late middle age, he exudes professionalism and charisma…“
HTML http://www.strangehistory.net/2013/12/21/carter-poland-and-the-translator/
HTML https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/12/31/president-praises-poland-on-rights/c89d995e-9890-46f0-a49e-4b716676f74e/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9b00a9a8f775
One person wrote that he ran a translation business supplying
translators for various jobs and they mess up things like this
all the time. He said the first rule of thumb in spontaneous
oral translation is that if something doesn‘t sound like it
could possibly be right, it probably isn‘t and the translator
should ask permission for further clarification. Sounds like a
reasonable rule to follow. But, he said some translators are
either too sloppy or embarrassed to act like they didn‘t
understand something.
#Post#: 16205--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question about Japanese translation, one about Polish transl
ation
By: MartinSR Date: May 27, 2019, 7:16 am
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Since politics is a dirty business... one never can be sure what
was a real translation mistake, and what has been done on
purpose. Looking for articles about Carter's translator I found
many cases of 'mistakes' which started wars.
I don't know how it was with Mr. Carter's interpreter, but I
doubt they have no Polish interpreters available. Do they have
to use one who had to translate English to Polish via Russian?
And these types of mistakes - I'm not a teacher but I think this
kind of mistake could have been done by a beginner (or by G.
Translate when translates from one non-English to another
non-English doing it via English obviously). Being an
experienced translator of poetry and also native speaker of
Russian (as I understood) he had to know these 2 languages are
closely related but not identical.
You may ask Nikola, but Polish and Czech are much closer to each
other than any of them to Russian. I have a friend from Czech
republic and we sometimes write to each other (and even talked
face to face) using only our native tongues. It's easy to
understand but still gives us a lot of fun, because of all these
'false friends' words, differences in grammar and phonetics. But
I doubt anyone would rely on it when translating a business
meeting or a speech of a politician.
Every few months there are rumors about those infamous 'camps'
that are told by some people to be 'ours'. And there are always
protests and diplomatic notes from my country since it's one of
the most sensitive topics for us. But these 'mistakes' return
again and again - I have an impression that someone tries to
play on our nerves and see what happens.
#Post#: 16208--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question about Japanese translation, one about Polish transl
ation
By: Chizuko hanji Date: May 27, 2019, 7:48 am
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SHL,
Thank you for your message. Personally, I wonder if you can
guess that just one mistranslation caused such a terrible atomic
bomb? No, no. Dropping atomic bombs must have been a fatal(to
Japan) big(to the US) decision for all the people who concerned
from Truman and the army to the scientists. They would not have
made a big decision by such one word.
How could the mistranslation change history? No, no. It was not
about the mistranslation.
If you checked the detailed history of the period of decision,
you'll find the fact that Truman had decided to drop bombs
before sending the message to the Japanese government.
HTML https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?documentid=31&pagenumber=1
HTML https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php
The atomic bomb was so horrible and inhuman that Truman wrote
later: "Because Japan never surrendered." I'm not blaming him or
the US at all. It was a war. Any excuses went through after the
things were done. If Japan hadn't been attacked by atomic bombs,
probably the US would have tried it in the Korean war anyway.
Then another excuse would have been made. It is the winning
country's history. (Actually, General Macacecer wanted to drop
the atomic bombs in Korea, but the US government didn't permit
it.)
Japan invaded Korea, China, and other countries, but they said
they fought to protect Asians from Westerners. It was a famous
excuse and most people now never believe the stupid excuse.
Japan committed a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. As for this
attack, I've heard of Japanese excuse that it was the time
difference, but I don't believe it. I know the phrase "Remeber
Parl Harbor". We can't erase the past.
I think "mokusatsu" means to ignore. It means also to reject.
Some people say it means to take time and reconsider it. But
during the war, how do you take time? To kill or to be killed,
that's the war. No time for pending it.
Anyway Japanese prime minister didn't want to surrender. I think
he didn't want to be memorized in school books later as he was
the first prime minister who had surrendered. Besides, he didn't
have the right to surrender, either. so he used the word,
"ignore" instead of "surrender" The emperor should have wanted
to surrender earlier, but the Japanese army was so crazy and
aggressive that they never let the emperor say anything. He was
a just doll sadly. He was not God that all Japanese had believed
in.
As a conclusion, I'd like to say that the argument of
"mokusatsu" is not wise. It doesn't have any values to convey to
the future, either.
#Post#: 16232--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question about Japanese translation, one about Polish transl
ation
By: NealC Date: May 27, 2019, 2:50 pm
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The real miscommunication there was we were telling Japan
'unconditional surrender', but we were willing to accept one
condition -- the continuation of the Emperor.
One of the reasons behind the Japanese willingness to die
instead of surrender was because the Emperor could not be given
over to the enemy. That was solved when the Emperor himself
told the Japanese people it was time for the unthinkable.
There was no mistake in "mokusatsu", the Japanese answer was
that the surrender request was not even given a thought.
#Post#: 16238--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question about Japanese translation, one about Polish transl
ation
By: Alharacas Date: May 27, 2019, 7:53 pm
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Look, here's an article in the New York Times from December 1977
about the incident:
HTML https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/31/archives/interpreters-gaffes-embarrass-state-department-interpreters-gaffes.html
#Post#: 16239--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question about Japanese translation, one about Polish transl
ation
By: Chizuko hanji Date: May 27, 2019, 9:07 pm
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Neal C
I think you are right.
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