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We hope you had a happy International Translation Day!

Translation Day, 30 September, is a day for us to celebrate translation's long history of bringing cultures and ideas together.

Translation is as old as the development of writing itself and even today, it fuses technological developments with the ancient art of interpreting and transferring meaning from one culture to another.

Through history, translations from the Rosetta Stone through to Pali and Latin scriptures have provided inspiration and guidance to generations while a lack of good translations still leaves us in the dark about the thoughts of other cultures and generations. As translators today, like our ancient predecessors, we still wrestle with the age-old issue of providing trustworthy and reliable communication that people have confidence in.

It's the translators who keep the voices of the past and present alive so they can speak when they need to be heard. It's the translators who provide clarity and confidence where there would otherwise be doubt, mistrust, misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Translation has a long and rich heritage and it is a profession we can all be proud of!

This month's issue will introduce Carlee Reid from the Authentication Unit, a small government office that the Translation Service works with to help prepare New Zealand official documents for use overseas. The mysteries of this office are explained later in this newsletter along with a discussion of the translation issues such as the evolving issue of capitalisation in English and some further information about selective translations.

Best wishes and happy translating

Q.R.

This newsletter is written for you. As such, we want you to tell us what or how we could improve its content. What would you like to read? Give us your feedback.

Carlee is the current team leader of the Authentication Unit, which works very closely with the Translation Service. After about 8 years at the helm of the unit – she’s very vague about the number of years she spent here, she has developed a one-person office into a three-women show, and raised the unit’s profile on the international stage – the Authentication Unit has been invited to attend a conference in Uruguay in October for instance. She’s now decided to take one year off to pursue other interests and will soon be volunteering for the Department of Conservation on an island up north, before going back to school to find out all the ins and outs of museum information management. We will all greatly miss her laughter and high spirits, but wish her all the best in her environmental and museological endeavours.

Luckily, she’s kindly agreed to answer our questions before she leaves. You can also find out more about the Authentication Unit in the interview below.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Living in a tiny eco kitset house filled with books, on a tiny piece of land somewhere up north, and reading in the sunshine.

What is your greatest fear?

Oh, so many. Heights, planes, a lifetime of unrequited love, rising oceans and climate change, just to name a few.

Which person do you most admire?

I admire Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher who started the Life You Can Save movement.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Self-consciousness.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

I dislike negative people.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Straight out of university I purchased a $200 ‘laminated’ denim jacket. I had never owned such a shiny or expensive garment.  Since then most of my money has gone towards trips overseas. I spent hundreds of dollars to see polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, on the spur of the moment.

On what occasions do you lie?

I’m dropping lies all the time! To make friends feel better about decisions they have made, people they have married, books they have read, clothes they are wearing, etc. Just the usual social lies. And especially in restaurants. No matter how average or even bad the meal I was, I say it was good.

What makes you happiest?

Exploring new places. I won’t say travelling as I hate the actual travelling involved. I want to be teleported to places.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would like to be really good at one thing, instead of mediocre at lots of things. I regret not becoming really great at rollerblading, or playing soccer, or running.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Work-wise this is easy to answer – turning a small one person office in an insignificant country into a world leader in the field of issuing Apostilles. I hope my greatest personal achievement is still to come!

If you died and came back as a person or thing, what would it be?

One of the early female explorers, like Isabelle Eberhardt or Isabella Bird or Nellie Bly. Or perhaps as the fictional character Miss Fisher – independently wealthy lady detective.

What is your most treasured possession?

My books.

Who are your heroes in real life?

I aspire to be like people who live simply and slowly, and spend a lot of time involved in their communities.

What is it that you most dislike?

I dislike a thousand things! Right now I particularly dislike the lazy and superficial info-tainment website Stuff. Wellington deserves better.

What is your motto?

I wish I lived by a motto. I am sure my life would be different if I did.

We feature a staff member or one of our freelance translators every month. The featured profile includes a picture, a small biography and the person’s answers to a light version of the Proust Questionnaire.

Do you wish to be featured in one of our newsletters? If so, write to Stefan for more details.

The English language, or rather, English speakers love their uppercase letters. Usage of capital letters is evolving rapidly, and differs from one region to another, but from a general point of view, it is fair to say that uppercase letters are proliferating in English texts. Does that necessarily mean that you should keep them in your translation?

The mere fact that I am asking the question probably gives the answer away… The use you make of uppercase letters in your translations should be guided by the way they are used in the target language only. For example, some language commissions or national printing offices have issued specific typographical rules that anyone wishing to publish a text should follow. You can also do a search in Google – for example, the search ‘uppercase letters + rules’ returned this page which gives a set of guidelines on using capital letters in English. Another solution is to look at what a leading and respected newspaper published in the target language does, and follow its lead. If you wanted to find out about the way capital letters are used in Spain, you could have a look at El País for instance; for Argentina, La Nación or Clarín could be useful resources.

The crux of the matter is that you should assess the need for uppercase letters in your translations critically. Don’t simply reproduce them because they are in the original!

Feel free to ask us questions if anything is unclear, or share your tips and tricks with other TTS translators.

S.G.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PHDs, six languages… and he hardly earns the minimum wage. Find out more about Mox’s adventures on his blog.

The Translation Service, the Authentication Unit, and Births, Deaths and Marriages work very closely to offer a streamlined service – in the form of a one-stop-shop – to clients in need of documents to be used overseas, such as birth, marriage and death certificates. Some of the documents that you translate into foreign languages for us are issued by BDM, and will be either ‘apostilled’ or ‘authenticated’.

We also translate a number of documents which aren’t issued by BDM, and hand over to the Authentication Unit. Any document issued by a government agency or a Notary Public can be processed by the Authentication Unit. Many of those documents are powers of attorney, notarised copies of foreign birth or marriage certificates etc.

Carlee – who took the Proust Questionnaire in this issue of our newsletter – kindly agreed to answer all our questions and tell you what happens to some of your translations.

Good afternoon Carlee. As you know, our translators do a lot of translations that end up on your unit’s desks. But before we go into more details about the secret workings of the AU, could you tell us what your unit actually does?

With pleasure Stefan! Our job at the Authentication Unit is to verify NZ issued documents that people need to use overseas. Often an overseas authority will require this verification as they are unable to tell whether a foreign document is genuine or not. We can verify all original NZ government issued documents, as well as any document that has been notarised by a Notary Public. We are able to verify the signatures and seals on these documents as we hold a vast database with the signatures and seals of government officials and notaries in it. Once we have verified that the document is genuine we attach one of two kinds of certificate to it – either an Apostille certificate or an authentication certificate. These certificates have the official seal of the Department and are recognised overseas.

What’s the difference between an Apostille and an authentication? And why is one more expensive than the other?

What kind of certificate you require depends on what country you are using your document in. If the country has signed the Apostille Convention (Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents) then you need an Apostille certificate. Once we attach an Apostille to your document you can use it overseas without further ado. However, if the country requesting your document is not party to the Apostille Convention then you need an authentication. This is a longer and more expensive process as once we have attached the authentication to your document the documents must be stamped by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then stamped by the foreign embassy of the destination country.

What’s all the rage about the e-Apostille?

An e-Apostille is an electronic version of an Apostille. Basically it’s a scan of your document attached to an electronic Apostille certificate, which we email to you. e-Apostilles are great as you can email them overseas, saving time and money, since NZ is far from most overseas countries. It also has more security features than a paper Apostille.

Is there a legal requirement for documents to be translated if they are to be Apostilled or authenticated and used overseas?

We don’t require people to translate their documents when they submit them to us for an Apostille or authentication – we don’t need to be able to read the document so we can accept documents in a foreign language. However, the overseas authority requesting the document may require a translation, either into their language or into English. Some foreign embassies here in NZ require translations - for example the Italian and Russian embassies.

Are some foreign authorities harder to work with than others?

Different countries definitely have different requirements when it comes to accepting NZ issued documents. Authorities in some countries require people to provide translated documents, with individual Apostilles, which costs more for the applicant. Some countries even ask us to translate the Apostille certificate itself, which is not required under the Apostille Convention. We’ve had Apostilles rejected in some countries – one common reason is that they look at the person’s document and expect it to look the way the same document looks in that country. This is not a valid reason to reject an Apostille – countries need to take into account that documents are issued differently in different countries. We have also had Apostilles rejected as an overseas authority took issue with the dimensions of our certificate!

Do you think the way AU and TTS work together could be improved? If so, how?

I think we offer a pretty good service. I don’t know of any overseas Authentication Office that offers translations, or one where you can order a marriage certificate, a translation and an Apostille all from one department. I think our service is pretty fast and helpful to customers. We work pretty closely with the Translation Service. We need them to provide excellent translations for our customers so their documents will be accepted overseas without any hiccups. We want to be sending the highest quality documentation overseas so we can maintain NZ’s good reputation for trusted documents, and we rely on the Translation Service to help us with language related issues.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.

Do you have questions for Carlee? Send them through and we’ll grill her again.

S.G.

Archives NZ, which is part of the Department of Internal Affairs, gives the public access to a wealth of historical documents, including the Treaty of Waitangi. Many of the documents held by the institution are charged with emotional value and offer insight into the history of New Zealand and the forging of a nation. Our selective translation of the month uses a marriage certificate issued in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1864, that does just that – the bride and the groom are both ‘settlers’ in the deep South. Their dates of birth aren’t stated, but their ages are. And the certificate wasn’t issued by a registrar, but by a priest. Click the image to find out how to deal with all this when doing a selective translation.

The sample selective translations of this series are here to illustrate our guidelines and help you improve your selective translations. We hope you enjoy these mock translations as much as we enjoy doing them. Feel free to send your comments and questions.

S.G.

Disclaimer: This mock selective translation wasn’t requested by Immigration NZ or Citizenship.

Every year, International Translation Day is celebrated on St Jerome’s Day throughout the world. Established in 1991 by the International Federation of Translators under the patronage of Saint Jerome – the Bible translator, International Translation Day celebrates the important work translators and interpreters do in an increasingly globalised world, and raises awareness on language and cultural issues, and the need for translation.

Did you do anything special to celebrate on Monday 30 September? (If so, let us know.) We certainly did.

The Translation Service invited the rest of the Department of Internal Affairs to an informal afternoon tea. The aim was to raise the profile of TTS within the Department and to discuss potential cooperation opportunities. About ten people from Births, Deaths and Marriages, the National Library, Government Technology Services, and the Authentication Unit came along. We had some interesting conversations, in particular with the National Librarians, which will hopefully open up new possibilities. Our intention is to launch a series of discussions with the rest of the Department to identify language needs and how we can help government to meet them.

S.G.

All translations are not equal. A good translation is one that conveys the same meaning as the source text and sounds natural in the target language (if that is the desired outcome of the translation). Some do just the opposite. Here are some of the greatest howlers found in translation, taken from the website of ITI Scottish Network. We hope you enjoy them.

If you come across funny mistranslations, feel free to share them with us.

1. Turkey? Which turkey?
   
   In French-speaking Quebec, a T-shirt made in Turkey was marked as ‘Fabriqué en Dinde’ instead of 'Fabriqué en Turquie'. If true, this would have been a masterpiece of modern production engineering, since dinde is the sort of turkey you eat at Christmas.
    
2. German cuisine at its best
   
   A restaurant in Lower Saxony offers English-speaking tourists a rather unsettling dish, especially at a time where animal welfare is an increasingly important issue. Who would go for the 'pig miserable little in cream sauce and salads of the season'? It certainly wasn't free-range.

S.G.