Response to Commentary: Bush's translator in Romania

[Scott McGinnis]

FW: Response to Commentary: Bush's translator in Romania
From: Aldrich, Ray L Mr DCS, G-2 
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 7:40 AM

        The sound and fury! 
        I would postulate, up front, that we are dealing with an interpreter, rather than a translator. 

        Seems to be a reasonable "diplomatic" policy.  It does, however, address neither the choice of "translator" nor the quality.  It seems as tho' we're back in the Carter era where the errors of an improperly selected Polish speaking native English speaking "translator" were blamed on the "translator".  I've always maintained that the wrong person was chosen for the job and that the blame should have been assigned to the chooser or to the process.  This appears to be a repeat of the same scenario.  We're supposed to be knowledgeable language people, how can we choose someone to translate into a "foreign" language?  What ever happened to the general understanding that one translates best into one's native language?  I will accept the very rare exception, Nabokov comes to mind, but there are not enough of this quality translator to deviate from the practice of relying on official translations only when they are performed into the interpreter's native language.

Ray Lane Aldrich 
Language is Power 
Army Foreign Language Proponency Office 
phone:  (703) 695-1379, DSN 225-1379 
! ! NEW ! ! 



 

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