Are you an orangtua or an orangutan?

Parent? or Gorilla?

I was translating an at Asian conference last week. At one of the track sessions, the speaker began his presentation with a question. This is nothing unusual, but the three of us translators in the back of the room had a big problem from the start.

You see, the speaker is a white American with a Javanese wife. He has lived in Indonesia for almost 30 years. He is fluent in the local language. Since the conference was held in his "home ground", he was very comfortable speaking in a mixture of English and Indonesian, switching effortlessly between the two languages. The translator into Indonesian standing beside him had a hard time keeping up. I could follow along fairly well, but the Thai and Japanese translators often had no clue what was going on. They do not understand Indonesian at all! Their job is to translate from English to their language.

Here's the opening question as presented by the speaker both orally and on a slide:

Are you an orangtua or an orangutan?

The speaker then proceeded to translate the question into English as:

Are you a parent or a monkey?

The original question uses the Indonesian equivalents of "parent" and "monkey" because it is a play on words. Anyone who understands Indonesian would immediately laugh at the question. In English, the question is neither funny nor sensible. I am sure it will be the same in Thai and Japanese, since the original question will have been translated from English. Humour is very often lost in translation.

So, if you are speaking through a translator, here's some tips that I have compiled to help you get your message across clearly:
1. Speak in complete sentences, using a simple sentence structure.
2. Use simple words.
3. Do not use puns or play of words. These do not translate well.
4. Do not crack jokes that are unique to a specific culture e.g. telling a joke from an American sitcom. No one will know what you are talking about.
5. Use short sentences and pause so that the translator knows when it is his turn to speak.
6. Keep your entire message with translation to a maximum of 45 minutes. Listeners tend to fall asleep when they only understand half of what is being said.
7. Use visual aids as much as possible. A picture speaks a thousand words.

You may never be a translator, but the advantage of being multilingual will allow you to appreciate everything that is being said in another language. You may even be able to explain what is being said to another person. You have an advantage because you will get the full meaning of what is being said. No loss in translation for you.

Have fun learning a language!

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