June is Pride Month, and this year we happened to have the\nchance to work on an interesting and appropriate project: we translated a\nsurvey on transgender identity. Translation of a survey itself requires special\ncare, technical skills and linguistic awareness, and this is especially so when\ndealing with such a sensitive topic. So what is so challenging about surveys\nand questionnaires?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Technical challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Usually an online survey is written in HTML, where placeholders\nand other non-translatable units abound, and the file is exported to an .xls\nformat. The preparation of such files can be time-consuming and requires some\nknowledge of coding and HTML itself. With cutting-edge software technologies\nand an experienced team this is not a problem for us. As always, it is\nessential to ask the client for detailed instructions about non-translatable\nitems (e.g. abbreviations, programme titles, organisation names), character\nlimits and the context in which the survey will be published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linguistic challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Surveys and questionnaires have a relatively well-defined\nstructure, and the linguistic differences are also more striking and immediate than\nin the case of a general text. Grammatical gender<\/strong>, for instance, especially\nin Romance languages, such as French or Spanish, can pose a dilemma for\ntranslators, as the gender of the noun actively affects other elements of a\ngiven noun phrase. This can result in unusual solutions \u2013 for example, in the\ncase of shorter answers where the translation follows a linguistic structure different\nfrom English, and translators sometimes have no other option but to use four\nforms (sing. masc.\/sing. fem.\/plur. masc.\/plur. fem.)<\/em> of a word or expression.\nWhen the target audience and the subject of the survey is the LGBTQ+ community\n– whose grammatical gender representation is part of an ongoing social debate –\nthis requires greater care on the part of the entire translation team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In surveys even repetitions<\/strong> do not work the same way.\nResponses in rating scales (e.g. Good\/Fair\/Poor) can be translated one way in\none context and another way in another context, depending on the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Numbers replaced with placeholders<\/strong> can also pose added complications. In some languages, like Polish, the number itself can modify the gender and the number of the noun phrase which means, again, that several forms of the same noun have to be included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, questions discussing present\/previous experiences of the respondent often need to be completely rephrased when a grammatical tense<\/strong> simply does not exist in the target language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In English, you<\/em><\/strong> is a general pronoun, but in\nmany languages, there is an informal (tutoiement<\/em>) and formal (vouvoiement<\/em>)\nway of addressing others. Another problem to deal with. This is where\nbackground documents (screenshots or additional information) can help the\ntranslator, while taking the target audience into consideration, and\ncommunication with the client can also provide further reference points to\nensure an accurate translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To sum up, survey translations provide a platform for us to show our technical and linguistic expertise and ability while requiring flexibility and creativity in translation. The management of such projects is time-consuming and complex: it needs an experienced and proactive team and continuous communication with the client. If your translator does not ask questions, it\u2019s time to get suspicious! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Get a first-hand experience on how our language services can contribute to your success! Get in touch with us for a quote<\/a> if you need translation or any relevant services.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To stay updated with our latest <\/strong>SPECIAL OFFERS<\/strong><\/a> and to receive our regular newsletter, please <\/strong>subscribe here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" June is Pride Month, and this year we happened to have the chance to work on an interesting and appropriate project: we translated a survey on transgender identity. Translation of a survey itself requires special care, technical skills and linguistic awareness, and this is especially so when dealing with such a sensitive topic. So what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-casestudies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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