A reporter for the German TV channel Phoenix was caught on a hot mic expressing his frustration during live coverage of Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday.
I know this is a joke, but as someone fluent in two languages, trust me when I tell you that translating anything Trump says effectively is borderline impossible, and that’s a huge problem. It plays in his favor because people in non-english speaking parts of the world don’t get to fully see how ridiculously incoherent he actually is; they only get the sanitized version of his ramblings.
Personally, it’s been REALLY hard these past few years hearing and seeing the shit coming out of his mouth in its original language and at the same time not being able to at least share my worries with other people in my country without sounding crazy. It’s very easy to underestimate the gravity of the situation from the other side of the world if you can’t grasp how low the standards have sunk and still believe DT is just an average Republican president, and not living proof that the actual meaning of words has no value anymore.
why, it can’t be that hard to produce ridiculous gibberish in any language.
And we will make America great again. I tell you, great. Great as it has never been before. We will make the Mexicans pay for it. And we will make the Panama Canal american again. American. Yes. Like it was when our constitution was founded. Great. Great Constitution. Great, I tell you. Have a nice day.
You can’t produce the same ridiculous gibberish. Translation isn’t just replacing each word with the exact equivalent word. It’s hard enough just making sense out of what he’s saying when he starts saying one thing and the dementia kicks in and he starts saying a different thing. Imagine trying to translate it into a language with a different sentence structure while still capturing the incoherence and limited vocabulary. Even if you manage it, people will think it’s a bad translation.
I’ve heard it’s actually really difficult, because a good translator doesn’t do it literally.
They’re supposed to say something which gets the same meaning across, which often isnt what you’d get just by translating each word.
That leaves people translating trump with a problem: you can’t generally turn his long rambling speeches into something with a clearly understandable meaning without putting words into his mouth, or summarising so aggressively that you’d only say a couple of sentences for every few minutes of speech
This is not just an issue in translation. Anybody who summarises his speeches in English will struggle to extract the meaning. Reporting should always mention this issue in the first line. A disclaimer like: «it’s difficult to make heads or tails from Trumps speech do to his incoherent speech. Below is our best attempt.» should be a preface to all reporting.
I’ve read that deaf or non-English speakers don’t really get to understand just how stupid trump really is because it’s impossible to accurately translate his nonsense babbling.
Kind of true if you just read news headlines as well. Lots of sane washing occurs around Trump where. Say something absolutely batshit insane and the media picks it apart to make it sound like a cohesive policy.
I think just translating word by word what he says is the best way to bring across what he is trying to say anyways. its not like there is deeper structures that need to be conveyed.
I understand though, that it is difficult to do, if you are used to turning eloquence into eloquence.
But you then need to unlearn a lifetime and career of pattern recognition.
I think this is honestly how Trump gets people who haven’t learned critical thinking. It’s all vibes and insinuation, so it sucks you into finishing his thoughts for him. And you think, “well actually that sounds reasonable”, because of course it does, because it sounds like you.
It exploits your natural impulse to meet the other person halfway and do the work for them. But Trump isn’t trying at all, he’s just doing pure word-association, and he’s not your friend. I think anyone who’s prone to unhealthy parasocial bonding is especially vulnerable to it.
I remember hearing his speeches when he was first coming to power and realising how seductive that pull was. I was constantly having to slap my own hand away from taking charge of where the sentences were going, and really pay attention to what he was actually saying, and it was always nonsense with a healthy dose of hatred, but usually couched in language that sounded vaguely personable, like, “Hey, we’re all friends here, you get it, what I’m saying, right?”
Excuse me but the PRESIDENT knows many words, he is like a real big word book. One time a tall book, strong book, tears flowing down its pages said: sir, you are the man that knows most words of all, the wordest. It’s true, it’s true.
The foreword of that book had a scholar, the best one actually, very wise, very smart, he wrote the classic words used around the world:
“EY BB U WAN SUM FUK”
I’ve been told this scholar is Indian, dot not feather, and he writes the best forewords, absolutely the best forewords those Indian guys, possibly the best foreskin too, who knows?
Translating for him must be a cakewalk. You only have to know, what, 25-30 words at most?
I know this is a joke, but as someone fluent in two languages, trust me when I tell you that translating anything Trump says effectively is borderline impossible, and that’s a huge problem. It plays in his favor because people in non-english speaking parts of the world don’t get to fully see how ridiculously incoherent he actually is; they only get the sanitized version of his ramblings.
Personally, it’s been REALLY hard these past few years hearing and seeing the shit coming out of his mouth in its original language and at the same time not being able to at least share my worries with other people in my country without sounding crazy. It’s very easy to underestimate the gravity of the situation from the other side of the world if you can’t grasp how low the standards have sunk and still believe DT is just an average Republican president, and not living proof that the actual meaning of words has no value anymore.
It would have to be translatable into english first.
Just play Karl-Heinz Stiegler, MdB, same phraseology.
why, it can’t be that hard to produce ridiculous gibberish in any language.
And we will make America great again. I tell you, great. Great as it has never been before. We will make the Mexicans pay for it. And we will make the Panama Canal american again. American. Yes. Like it was when our constitution was founded. Great. Great Constitution. Great, I tell you. Have a nice day.
You can’t produce the same ridiculous gibberish. Translation isn’t just replacing each word with the exact equivalent word. It’s hard enough just making sense out of what he’s saying when he starts saying one thing and the dementia kicks in and he starts saying a different thing. Imagine trying to translate it into a language with a different sentence structure while still capturing the incoherence and limited vocabulary. Even if you manage it, people will think it’s a bad translation.
I’ve heard it’s actually really difficult, because a good translator doesn’t do it literally.
They’re supposed to say something which gets the same meaning across, which often isnt what you’d get just by translating each word.
That leaves people translating trump with a problem: you can’t generally turn his long rambling speeches into something with a clearly understandable meaning without putting words into his mouth, or summarising so aggressively that you’d only say a couple of sentences for every few minutes of speech
This is not just an issue in translation. Anybody who summarises his speeches in English will struggle to extract the meaning. Reporting should always mention this issue in the first line. A disclaimer like: «it’s difficult to make heads or tails from Trumps speech do to his incoherent speech. Below is our best attempt.» should be a preface to all reporting.
I’ve read that deaf or non-English speakers don’t really get to understand just how stupid trump really is because it’s impossible to accurately translate his nonsense babbling.
Kind of true if you just read news headlines as well. Lots of sane washing occurs around Trump where. Say something absolutely batshit insane and the media picks it apart to make it sound like a cohesive policy.
Can’t many deaf people read? I think the trancripts often make the rambling seem even worse.
Subtitles would be easier
“Because I know that [incoherent blathering] [nonsensical mouth noises] and then we”
I think just translating word by word what he says is the best way to bring across what he is trying to say anyways. its not like there is deeper structures that need to be conveyed.
I understand though, that it is difficult to do, if you are used to turning eloquence into eloquence.
But you then need to unlearn a lifetime and career of pattern recognition.
I think this is honestly how Trump gets people who haven’t learned critical thinking. It’s all vibes and insinuation, so it sucks you into finishing his thoughts for him. And you think, “well actually that sounds reasonable”, because of course it does, because it sounds like you.
It exploits your natural impulse to meet the other person halfway and do the work for them. But Trump isn’t trying at all, he’s just doing pure word-association, and he’s not your friend. I think anyone who’s prone to unhealthy parasocial bonding is especially vulnerable to it.
I remember hearing his speeches when he was first coming to power and realising how seductive that pull was. I was constantly having to slap my own hand away from taking charge of where the sentences were going, and really pay attention to what he was actually saying, and it was always nonsense with a healthy dose of hatred, but usually couched in language that sounded vaguely personable, like, “Hey, we’re all friends here, you get it, what I’m saying, right?”
If you already agreed with him, it would be easy.
This Nerdwriter video helped me understand his approach to speaking. https://youtu.be/_aFo_BV-UzI
Excuse me but the PRESIDENT knows many words, he is like a real big word book. One time a tall book, strong book, tears flowing down its pages said: sir, you are the man that knows most words of all, the wordest. It’s true, it’s true.
The foreword of that book had a scholar, the best one actually, very wise, very smart, he wrote the classic words used around the world:
“EY BB U WAN SUM FUK”
I’ve been told this scholar is Indian, dot not feather, and he writes the best forewords, absolutely the best forewords those Indian guys, possibly the best foreskin too, who knows?
It’s difficult for them.
From 2017:
https://theconversation.com/trumpslation-why-donald-trumps-words-give-translators-so-much-trouble-81968
If only they could literally say “incoherent rambling” then take a five minute break. Alas, that’s not how it works.
Yeah, but then they have to repeat them for 4 hours straight without breathing