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Translating "You"
By Danilo and Vera Nogueira
(Professional translators, editors, consultants, trainers)
Brazil
danilo.tradutor@uol.com.br
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The PM was a bit green. And when the client asked for a few changes,
he asked me, with pointed irony "There must
be an agreed translation for a simple word like
contact. Don't you think so?"
The language in Brazil is changing
so fast that grammar books cannot keep
the pace and what they recommend is
not what sounds acceptable to many.
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Oh, well, when you translate a list of unconnected
sentences, without any context whatsoever, which
someone else is to feed into some existing translation,
done by someone you never heard of, there is no
telling whether a particular instance of contact
should be treated as a noun (contato) or
as a verb. In addition, if it is to be
treated as a verb, we still must decide between
infinitive (contatar) and imperative (contate).
I know it could not be a present indicative, because
there was no pronoun. But if it is an imperative,
it can be singular and plural (contate/contatem).
And, if it is an infinitive and the translation
into Portuguese, there is a good chance we should
use an inflected infinitive (infinitivo flexionado,
which, in the case of regular verbs, is identical
to the future subjunctive) - for Portuguese infinitives
can change for person too, which is more than
they can do in many other famous and excellent
languages. That gives you quite a fistful of possibilities
and does not take into account the fact that all
those words may be spelt with ct, too:
contacto, contactar, contacte,... an option
preferred by many even in Brazil.
I explained this to the PM (not that he understood
one tenth what I said) and added that things are
not so straightforward as he would like them to
be. For instance, any self-respecting English-Portuguese
dictionary would give him at least a dozen different
translations for you, which is an even
"simpler" word, a statement that may
have driven him to desist from the career as a
PM to become an MFV (mobile food vendor). PMing
is not for the weak-hearted. I might have added
that more often than not, none of the 15+ translations
found in dictionaries will be of any use to the
translator. Translation begins after the dictionary
ends, and you seems to be good proof of
that.
A question of style
The first question regarding the translation
of you is how to style the people you are
addressing. In Brazil, tu is regional,
vós has all but disappeared and
the only practical use of Senhoria is to
refer to soccer referees. So the practical choice
is between você and o senhor.
Voce is considered informal, o senhor is
considered formal. The difference is often compared
to the du/Sie, or tu/vous distinctions
found in German and French, but in fact we use
você for a lot of people who would
be addressed as vous/Sie.
Not many years ago, senhor was considered
the better alternative: o senhor may be
a bit stiff for certain occasions, but você
might be considered a bit too intimate by
certain persons. However senhor is now
often avoided as sexist, because it refers only
to males. The female form is senhora. When
addressing the general public, we can go it o(a)
senhor(a), but it is very awkward and has
the additional disadvantage of placing the women
as a parenthetical appendix to men.
We have accounts with three banks and all of
them dump truckloads of junk mail on us where
we are always addressed as você - although,
when we go to the bank, our account manager may
address each of us as o senhor or a
senhora as applicable, among other things
because she could easily be our daughter.
Você is also a wonderful solution
when the name of the addressee does not tell us
whether we are dealing with someone in the macho
or distaff side of this world.
So, that matter is settled. Você it
will be - unless we have some very good reason
to use o senhor. Meaning it is not settled
at all, but unsettled matters are an integral
part of the translation game: nothing is ever
settled. That, at least, is settled.
A question of number
Then we have the question of number. You
is both singular and plural. One can say you
all or you guys, but that is
very colloquial and not often found in texts to
be translated. In most of the stuff we translate,
you has to do for both singular and plural.
The frequent use of you all, you guys
and you people and similar forms in the
spoken language may be good indication that native
speakers of English now may be regretting the
day when they dumped thou on the grounds
that one second-person pronoun would be quite
enough. But, of course, correct as this observation
may be, it does not lighten the burden of the
translators, who must still find for themselves
how many yous the writer had in mind.
We do not want to go into the matter of hermeneutics
now and expound rules concerning the logical number
of you, but we must remember that Portuguese
has a plural for both você and o
senhor and both can and should be used as
required.
We can now proceed with the business at hand.
The demands of English grammar and current
stylistic fashion
English grammar is adverse to ellipsis of the
subject, or, in less unctuous terms, most English
sentences require a clear and visible subject.
Vejo uma vela ao longe, is I
see a sail yonder, but the Portuguese
needs no pronoun and in fact omitting the pronoun
is considered a contribution to style, whereas
the English would look odd without the "I".
Portuguese cannot simply drop the pronoun in all
cases, but when writing we tend to prefer sentences
where the pronoun can be done without.
In addition we have the fact that many of the
documents translated nowadays avoid impersonal
sentences and insist "second-person"
wording. However a text with too many yous
in Portuguese will give readers/listeners
the idea that we are referring to them in very
pointed way and may be considered a bit rude.
Mix all of this together and you will see that
translating all the yous in a text will
usually make it quite unpalatable in Portuguese
and, if you turn all of the above inside out,
you may derive a few suggestions on how to deal
with the problem.
- Do not translate all of them, but...
All yous are candidates for Translation
Procedure # 0, that is, nontranslation.
When in doubt, do not translate. In fact,
we recommend searching the whole text for
você and vocês and
considering deletion of each instance.
However, there is no doubt that a few of
the yous should be preserved in translation.
In some cases for no clear reason at all.
One of the frequent explanations is "because
it is demanded by Portuguese rhythm",
which does not explain much, in the absence
of any good definition of what Portuguese
rhythm may be or may require. In any case,
a you-less text would look strange. However,
there is no rule as to which of the yous
should be kept and different people would
keep different instances: it is a matter of
taste. Not really a problem, unless you are
dealing with editors who strike off half of
your pronouns only to add them back somewhere
else for no purpose other than convincing
a naive PM that the agency would be dead without
their precious help.
- Do not translate the second consecutive
you
When you appears as the subject of
two consecutive sentences, drop the second
instance:
You don't have to return the book
today; you can return it tomorrow.
Você não precisa devolver
o livro hoje. Pode devolver amanhã.
In fact, both instances could be dropped,
but dropping the second is certainly more
necessary. Incidentally, notice that we do
not have to translate the it in the
second sentence. Pode devolve-lo amanhãis
correct, but a bit too affected in the context.
Many translations from English into Portuguese
are longer than the original because people
insist on translating every translatable word,
including stuff that English requires and
Portuguese can do very well without.
- Better translate literally
However, in other cases, translation is almost
mandatory: for example, where the pronoun
is used emphatically, something that the original
often indicates with italics:
You have to wash the dishes,
not me.
Você tem que lavar a louça,
não eu.
- Translate literally, with a bit of added emphasis
Emphasis in Portuguese,
however, would be better expressed by splitting
the original sentence into two:
É você quem tem que lavar
a louça, não eu.
As a side comment, we might point out
that in both cases the first-person object
pronoun of the original (me) must be
translated as a subject pronoun in Portuguese
(eu), a procedure that renders the
translated sentence a bit less ambiguous,
we believe.
An alternative would be:
É a você que compete
lavar a louça, não eu.
The construction is absolutely correct, but
a bit too formal for dish-washing. Could fit
in a legal environment, though:
You must buy ...
Compete a você comprar
...but it is not very likely that a lawyer
would use você without
being forced to. The average lawyer would
probably say
Compete-lhe adquirir
Notice that the comprar became adquirir,
to go with the higher level of formality
of the sentence. Lhe is rather formal
in Brazilian Portuguese and should not associate
itself with simple words.
- Use an Impersonal Construction with se
Because you often means you and
everybody else as well, it may be translated
by se in an impersonal sentence.
You should not use grease to...
Nao se deve usar graxa...
The problem here is the endless discussion
about whether the se should come before
or after the verb and whether the verb should
be singular or plural. There are rules about
those things, but they are often unclear and
misunderstood and, besides, we are not sure
all grammarians agree on this - and many other
things, for that matter. So that you and the
client may end up brandishing grammar books
with opposite opinions and this is not good
for either of you. In addition, the language
in Brazil is changing so fast that grammar
books cannot keep the pace and what they recommend
is not what sounds acceptable to many. This
is especially true in connection with the
use of se. A bit of care is thus required.
- Translate it by the First-person Plural Pronoun
Also because you often means you
and everybody else as well, believe it
or not, one of the best translations for you
is nós, which in theory means
we. The point is that you is
often used just as a rhetorical tool to draw
the reader near the writer, whereas Portuguese
goes one step further in the same direction,
by creating a unity between both:
You can achieve
a similar effect ...
Nós podemos também obter
um efeito similar ...
Since subject pronouns can usually be omitted,
this can be further reduced to
Podemos também obter um efeito
similar ...
- Translate by a Gente
We are now entering the realm of very informal
language. A gente is really part of
the spoken language and, when used in writing,
it is either in a very informal and personal
note, such as an e-mail to a close friend
or in a text that purports to reflect spoken
language, such as an add or dialog in a novel.
But it is so prevalent in Brazil that it deserves
a bit of attention here.
A gente is a very interesting quasi-pronoun
which really deserves more attention than
it can receive here. For instance, it can
be used as a "pronoun of modesty":
A gente já é tradutor há
mais de 30 anos, meaning I have been
a translator for more than 30 years. But
what interests us here is the use of a
gente as a translation for you and
we must adhere to the subject. So,
You can achieve a similar effect ...
can be translated as
A gente também
pode conseguir um efeito parecido ...
A gente takes a third-person
singular verb, although its meaning is first
person plural. Also notice that similar
became parecido and obter was
replaced with conseguir, which are
more informal choices. A gente também
poderia obter um efeito similar is perfectly
correct from a grammatical point of view,
but would be like wearing a top hat with sneakers.
- Use an Imperative
Often the indicative with you is used
to disguise an order, principally when must
is used as an auxiliary and
You must oil this machine once a week.
may be translated as
Lubrifique esta máquina uma
vez por semana.
The imperative may be mitigated by the addition
of a por favor in these cases.
Por favor, lubrifique esta máquina
uma vez por semana.
Both are literal translations of
(Please) lubricate this machine once
a week.
and should be set aside to translate this
pattern, but the fact is that they can be
very handy in difficult situations.
- Drop the Pronoun, Move the Meaning of the
Auxiliary Verb to an Adjective
This seems a very complicated operation,
but it is very simple in practice, as the
example will show.
You must oil this machine once a week
É necessário lubrificar
esta máquina uma vez por semana
Notice this is more precise than translating
must as deve, because deve
also means should.
You should oil this machine once a
week
É recomendável
lubrificar esta máquina pelo menos
uma vez por semana
Because there are more adjectives than
modal auxiliaries, this construction affords
a better chance of fine-tuning the sentence
to suit our needs.
- Use the Passive Voice
This is exactly what the writer of the original
was warned against by messrs Strunk &
White, but it is OK in Portuguese, even in
informal contexts:
You must oil this machine once a week
Esta máquina precisa ser lubrificada
uma vez por semana
or, more informally
Esta máquina
tem que ser lubrificada uma vez por semana
This is not recommended, however if the you
is used emphatically. One can say
Esta máquina tem que ser lubrificada
por você uma vez por semana
... but the sentence is too convoluted. Here,
the possible options include:
É você quem tem que lubrificar
Curiously, we can translate the emphasized
you by replacing it with an impersonal
sentence:
É sua obrigação
lubrificar
... where the subject pronoun is actually
replaced by a possessive.
- Replace You+Verb with a Past Participle
This is often a good suggestion when the you
is the subject of a subordinate that functions
as an adjective:
Enter the percentage you want ...
Digite a porcentagem desejada ...
This approach has the additional advantage of
eliminating one que from the literal digite
a porcentagem que você desejar. You
will perhaps agree with us that Portuguese translations
from English often have too many ques and
des and eliminating a few of them usually
helps improving style. In fact we have a little
something to say about that point, but it will
have to wait till the next publication.
This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
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