"The act of translating consists in carrying a meaning from one set of readers to another, and to make sure that the readers of your words will feel the same as the readers of the original text. For the translator is an author: if the thoughts are not hers, the words definitely are. It is a huge responsibility. If accuracy is essential in conveying the meaning of the discourse, translators have absolute freedom in the choice of words. We select in our own language the lexical field that matches the original text, but since this still gives us quite a lot of leeway, translators of political discourse have to be extra careful. Translating Obama was a real intellectual joy. His thought was clear and his vocabulary was rich enough that it allowed me to write beautiful sentences that could vary ever so subtly according to the tone of his discourse...
In the end, translating Obama’s discourse — or should I say, Obama’s thought — was pleasurable because it was easy to get into his head, or rather, to let him get into my head and speak with my voice...
Trump is not easy to translate, first of all, because, most of the time, when he speaks he seems not to know quite where he’s going. In my essay, I took the example of the interview he gave to The New York Times. He seems to hang onto a word in the question, or to a word that pops into his mind, repeating it over and over again...
here’s the other problem with Trump: even once you’ve understood his point (or lack thereof), you must still express it in your own language. You realize, at that moment, that you have written something very unpleasant to read. Trump’s vocabulary is limited, his syntax is broken; he repeats the same phrases over and over, forcing the translator to follow suit. If she does not, she betrays the spirit of the original piece. The translator has to translate the content and the style. So that is what I do, and reading Trump in French, which is a very structured and logical language, reveals the poor quality of his language and, consequently, of his thought...
Trump, on the other hand, gives the impression of repeating whatever he heard or read on the internet the day before. He is not an ideologue; he’s an opportunist."
I can't imagine having to live in his words - or how jarring it must have been to transition from President Obama to Donald Trump.
FB: "As a translator of political discourse, you also have the duty to write readable texts: so what am I to do? Translate Trump as he speaks, and let French readers struggle with whatever content there is? (Not to mention the fact that I will be judged on the vocabulary I choose — sometimes the translator is blamed for the poor quality of a piece.) Or keep the content, but smooth out the style, so that it is a little bit more intelligible, leading non-English speakers to believe that Trump is an ordinary politician who speaks properly — when this is obviously not the case?"
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