Response to Commentary: Bush's translator in Romania

[McGinnis, Scott]

From: Kathryn_Good at brown.edu [mailto:Kathryn_Good at brown.edu]
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 11:44 AM

Many thanks for this email.  Before heading off to ACTFL sessions in
Salt Lake, I watched the broadcast of the President's speech.  I noted
that most of the young Romanians in the crowd reacted to Bush's words as
he spoke them in English.  It was a credit to English language
instruction in Romania and a stark contrast to the preceding minutes
when the Romanian hosts had spoken at length welcoming Bush, etc. SANS
translation.  Since I do not speak Romanian, I am left with no
translation.  I am certain that Bush's word were not the only important
ones spoken this day, and ashamed of the American press and government
for so blatantly disregarding their host nation's remarks.  It surely
would have been interesting to hear what Romania had to say as they
entered a new alliance.  Perhaps the skills of Bush's translator would
have been stronger going from Romanian to English.  It is a shame he
wasn't asked to try.

Kathryn Good
Director
Intensive English Language Programs
Brown University
>
> From: "smcginnis at nflc.org" <smcginnis at nflc.org>
> Date: 2002/12/01 Sun AM 10:44:07 EST
> To: heritage-list at Glue.umd.edu
> Subject: Commentary: Bush's translator in Romania
>
> From: Dumitrescu, Domnita ddumitr at exchange.calstatela.edu
> Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 17:15:04 -0800
>
> I felt the need to share with you my frustration, and that of many
> Romanian-Americans, who listened to the speech Bush gave in Bucharest
last
> Saturday, and to the monumental errors the translator made. I was
indeed
> puzzled, and furious, because Romania has plenty of very skilled
conference
> translators fluent in perfect English, but I was told that the Bush
> delegation brought its own translator from the States. I don't know
who he
> was, but if there is any way to let somebody up there know about the
kind of
> job he did, please let that person know it was just terrible! My
> ex-colleagues at the University of Bucharest cannot stop wondering how
this
> could happen and laughing at translations like: going to war "hip to
hip"
> instead of going "shoulder to shoulder", just because the sounds of
the
> English word "shoulder" are similar to the sounds of the English word
"hip".
> And there are many examples of impossible syntactic constructions and
> undertranslations, like when Bush says that he is "honored" to be
there, in
> that "great" country, and the translator says that he wanted "to be
there in
> that country." I have a full list of things like that.
>
> I am telling you this just because Romanian is another heritage
language in
> America, and it's a shame that "the most powerful country in the
world"
> cannot find a decent translator to do the job, just like when they did
not
> have Pashto translators for the documnents before 9/11.
>
> Thanks for listening,
> Domnita Dumitrescu, PhD
> Professor of Spanish Linguistics
> Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
> California State University, Los Angeles
> 5151 State University Dr.
> Los Angeles, CA 90032
> Phone: 323-343-4235
> Fax: 323-343-4234
> E-Mail: ddumitr at exchange.calstatela.edu
> Web Page: www.calstatela.edu/faculty/ddumitr
>
>
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