{"id":338,"date":"2020-10-17T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box2369.temp.domains\/~patentt1\/?p=338"},"modified":"2020-10-18T13:54:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T11:54:45","slug":"translate-the-meaning-not-the-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patenttranslationblog.com\/?p=338","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes the Small Words are the Most Difficult to Translate…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It was November 18, and my secretary came to me in a bit of a panic. We had just received a new order for filing a patent application from one of our Japanese clients, which included the following English instructions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please file this application in the middle of November!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My secretary was worried, because the instructions seemed unclear and ambiguous to her and we were already 18 days into November. What does “middle of November” mean? November has 30 days, so the middle is exactly Nov. 15, isn’t it? But that day was already in the past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Or maybe, if we divide November into beginning, middle and end (in Japanese, that’s called \u4e0a\u65ec\u3001\u4e2d\u65ec and \u4e0b\u65ec), then it could mean a certain period around the 15th. But how long? The 18th is probably still included, but what about the 19th and the 20th? Should we make it a rush job and file the application on the same day, just to be on the safe side?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the reason why all this mattered is that it is of utmost importance to observe filing deadlines set by the client, so if a client instructs you to file something by a certain day, you better follow those instructions. Maybe the client wants to disclose the invention at a conference or so, in which case it may be fatal if no patent application has been filed by then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I had a sneaking suspicion that the actually intended meaning was entirely different and that the original Japanese (or what the person who wrote the instructions had in mind) was something like the following, as I could confirm in a quick phone call with the client:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u672c\u51fa\u9858\u309211\u6708\u4e2d\u306b\u51fa\u9858\u3057\u3066\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\u3002<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meaning is, of course, entirely different and more along the following lines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease file this application by the end of November!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease file this application by Nov. 30!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease file this application before December!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease file this application in November!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any of those renderings would have been better than “middle of November”. So what’s going on here? The stumbling block is, of course, the character \u4e2d, which taken by itself can indeed mean “middle”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So on the surface, we have a perfect correspondence between the character \u4e2d and “in the middle.” Here, however, \u4e2d modifies the preceding 11\u6708, so that the meaning becomes “within<\/span> November.” Now let’s compare this to the four better translations above:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the first example, the offending character \u4e2d has been “translated” as “by the end of”, something you surely won’t find in any dictionary. Also in the second and third example there is no good correspondence between the lexemes in the source and the target. Only the last example can be said to maintain a correspondence between source and target lexemes. And yet, the first three of these translations are clearly superior to the “middle of” translation for the simple reason that they mean the same thing as the original<\/span>, whereas “middle of” doesn’t<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there you have it, folks. The degree of correspondence of lexemes between source and target text is no measure for the accuracy, and hence the quality, of a translation. Or in short: Translate the meaning not the words!<\/strong> But there are a few more things we can learn from this simple example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n