Lost in translation …

We’ve all heard the story about how many politicians it takes to change a lightbulb.

But how many experts does it take to translate just four English Words into Welsh?

According to a recent news story, the answer was an incredible 61.

They were given all day to translate eight words, but managed only four.

Ten government translators from Cardiff produced a first draft, followed by a two-hour workshop attended by 13 civil servants.

Their findings were sent for review by five researchers from University College London. And finally, there was an ‘away-day’ at the government offices in Cardiff, featuring 30 government translators as well as three Welsh language scholars from Cardiff University.

So far, no one has owned up to footing the bill for that little lot, but it’s a nailed-on certainty that there must have been a lot of noughts on the end of the final bill.

And that was only after completing half the exercise.

I asked our resident first-language Welsh speaker to take a look, and he managed it in five minutes.

But why so much fuss?

Shakespeare invented almost 2,000 words in his lifetime, and no one batted an eyelid.

But this is serious stuff.

We print many bilingual documents during a working week and see at first-hand how easy it is to fall into an elephant trap of your own making.

Get it wrong, and the fall-out can be catastrophic.

Many years ago, an English-speaking photographer produced a bilingual leaflet advertising family photo shoots.

Unfortunately, the translated text invited people to bring their families to him to be shot.

He didn’t realise the dreadful mistake until someone had a quiet word in his ear.

The moral of the story: if you’re producing something bilingual, get it checked by a professional translator first.

But if it’s a small project and budgets are tight, we’d be delighted to help.

Until next week.

Alec