• MartianSands@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I’ve heard it’s actually really difficult, because a good translator doesn’t do it literally.

    They’re supposed to say something which gets the same meaning across, which often isnt what you’d get just by translating each word.

    That leaves people translating trump with a problem: you can’t generally turn his long rambling speeches into something with a clearly understandable meaning without putting words into his mouth, or summarising so aggressively that you’d only say a couple of sentences for every few minutes of speech

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      I’ve read that deaf or non-English speakers don’t really get to understand just how stupid trump really is because it’s impossible to accurately translate his nonsense babbling.

      • Lightsong@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        I’m Deaf and I don’t need much to see how stupid he is. However I can’t say the same among some folks in the Deaf community though.

        • BossDj@lemm.ee
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          13 hours ago

          Hah, yes, I meant usually newspapers make him seem coherent in print. You’re right, I have read some transcripts that are just undecipherable.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        22 hours ago

        Kind of true if you just read news headlines as well. Lots of sane washing occurs around Trump where. Say something absolutely batshit insane and the media picks it apart to make it sound like a cohesive policy.

    • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      This is not just an issue in translation. Anybody who summarises his speeches in English will struggle to extract the meaning. Reporting should always mention this issue in the first line. A disclaimer like: «it’s difficult to make heads or tails from Trumps speech do to his incoherent speech. Below is our best attempt.» should be a preface to all reporting.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      22 hours ago

      Subtitles would be easier

      “Because I know that [incoherent blathering] [nonsensical mouth noises] and then we”