Translation Tools
We talk a fair bit on Slaw about translation between French and English, as befits a blog on law in Canada. See, e.g.:
I’ve recently been introduced to a pair of translation tools that I ought to have known about but that for some reason I didn’t. Just in case you aren’t aware of them, let me briefly describe them.
First, and most obvious, I suppose, is Quebec’s Grand dictionnaire terminologique, a clear upside to the Office québécois de la langue française. Here you’ll find terms for pretty much anything, no matter how technological or up-to-date. So, for example, blog / blogue is here — as are something like 40 other blog- terms, many of which I’m unfamiliar with in English. All this expert terminology is a function of the fact that the office of the French language establishes committees to “dentify terminological deficiencies and problematical terms and expressions in their designated field.”
Then there’s the federal government’s Termium. This is a pay-for-use online dictionary which boasts more than 3,500,000 terms — more than I’ll ever be able to use. (And at $225 for a year’s subscription, it’s not unreasonably pricey.) As with the Quebec dictionary, this provides context for various terms, so you know that a particular word is a term of art in, for example, accounting or engineering practice. Here, too, you’ll find blog / blogue — and also blog / cybercarnet and the obsolete (already!) carnet Web and chronique Web.
These are great tools, and given that lawyers need to ply between the two versions of legislation much of the time, they should be links on everyone’s bookmarks bar.
These are great tools to use, we particularly enjoyed the grand dictionnaire terminologique.
One concern though: people should never assume that they can use services like Google Translate to make up for not having a human translator. The Vancouver Sun tried this, little did they know it’s a word-for-word translation which does not necessarily convey the right meaning. Most often their translated stories would not pass as news in any of the dervied languages.
If you are studying French though, these are great tools for putting together the pieces fo the puzzle for any project that crosses your path.
One trick I like to use when translating phrases from French to English or vice versa is by using Google to type the phrase then site:gc.ca to limit my results to Government of Canada sites. Since most content on these pages is available in both official languages, I usually just click on the “English” or “French” version of the page and then scan to find the equivalent phrase.
For example, type in proactive disclosure site:gc.ca. Your first hit should be from the Treasury Board of Canada. Click on “Français” and note that the equivalent phrase is “divulgation proactive”.
I’m not sure if this search will stick in your browser, but this is what I did:
http://www.google.ca/search?q=proactive+disclosure+site%3Agc.ca&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I’m also a big fan of both le Grand dictionnaire terminologique and Termium!
Great tip, Cecilia. Thanks. It’s given me an idea for a bookmarklet.
And congratulations on your new post as Law Librarian at Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, Common Law Section. We look forward to lots of comments from you — and perhaps a post or three when you get your feet on the ground?
Thanks, Simon! I’ll try my best to contribute to Slaw. It is after all, one of my favourite blawgs!