Lost in translation

When my colleague told me of a free Arabic translation service from Google I was immediately interested as I have been elected to teach my son the rudiments of the language.

She said it was a boon for her as her Arabic is as rudimentary as my son's. "Let's try it out," she said, as she copied a press release from the police and pasted it into a box and clicked, ‘translate'.

After a few moments the translation appeared: "The question in question is that …" it said, and went on spewing pure gibberish.

The police cannot be faulted over this. Arabic is a flowery language and its strength lies in its beautiful imagery, its poetry and the clever turn of phrase. To report a mundane thing as a break-in by a gang of thieves when the tenants are away, requires a language as bland and matter-of-fact as English.

And when a journalist picks up such news (after translation), it has to be turned even more lacklustre and must only state the facts, right in the first paragraph. The gurus of journalism tell us that readers do not have time to read everything in a newspaper (which is not exactly true for the readership here. A PR person told me the other day that her father reads the Gulf News from page one to the end).

We have been taught to tell the story in a breathless first paragraph that includes all the 5 Ws and an H. It's not that obscene as it sounds, but 5 Ws and H are Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

Who committed the murder? What did she cook that day? When did the murder occur? Where? Why did he kill? (we know it was because of the food). Of course, we cannot forget the grisly details, like How did the murderer go about his business?

If you catch the reader in the first paragraph with all this, he or she will be tempted to read the rest of the story, we are told. It's writing to formulae, but sometimes it works, and sometimes readers abandon you after the first paragraph and go on to the sports page.

Desperately short of time as my son's Arabic test was in a week and my Arabic requires hours of research at a library, I turned to my other colleague, who is a Khaleeji, which loosely translates as a ‘Gulfie'.

Moralistic tale

But first I checked out the free translation and typed in the word ‘Farhana', which I thought meant ‘Glad'. It translated it as ‘Eargh'.

Despite my tutoring, my son earlier always managed to get at least a C+ without knowing a single word of Arabic. "I make a good guess," he said proudly, when I asked him his secret.

The story I was supposed to teach was about a hardworking ant and a laidback grasshopper. It was a moralistic tale about how important it is to slog and not goof off like the grasshopper who played on his harp (I learned the teacher had translated that harp into a guitar) while the ants slaved all spring for their bossy queen.

"How beautiful is the field in the spring as the ants lift heavy loads to take to their homes to store for the harsh winter, while the locust sits under the golden threads of the Sun and plays wonderful melodies on his musical instrument," was the translation by my colleague.

"That's ridiculous. Hasn't anyone heard about not working too hard or you can die of stress and hypertension," I told my son. "You got to chill, man," I told him trying to speak in his language.

After hearing about my version of the silly fable, my wife thought I should relax and de-stress and plans to look for an Arabic tutor for my son.