Next week will be Steve Stanley’s first translation check. He has finished drafting the 200 or so verses of the Joseph story from Genesis, checked that it is communicating clearly in Kovol and has gone through it with a fine-tooth comb, looking for parts added or omitted. Now it’s time for an expert to take a look.
NTM PNG has several translation consultants. These are missionaries who are a significant way through their own language’s translation project and have received extra training to quality control other translation projects. A consultant will be visiting Kovol for two days to check that the translation draft is accurate to the original, is natural in the Kovol language and is easily understood by Kovol language speakers. This is where using back translation comes into play. When Steve first finished the draft, his co-worker Philip took a look at it and literally translated the Kovol back into English.
Looking at the back translation, the consultant can get a window into the translation decisions that were made. Steve has been emailing back and forth with the consultant working through the pre-check. The pre-check is all about improving the accuracy of the draft. The consultant compares the source language to the back translation. This is a step that the team has done once already. They read through both the Kovol and the back translation and carefully checked to see if they had accidentally removed or added anything.
It turns out they weren’t thorough enough! Their consultant found many, many things for them to correct (50+ pages of comments!) Changes are requested or suggested based on the back translation. Steve then made the changes, rechecked the changes with Kovol helpers and sent it back to the consultant.
As a new translator, Steve keenly feels his inexperience, lack of ability in the Kovol language and lack of a keen eye for detail. Having the safety net of a consultant to help improve the draft as much as possible is very reassuring.
Through the process, Steve has already learned that he tends to drop details in favour of streamlining the Kovol version. I often sacrifice accuracy to make the Kovol more easily understood.
Working through the pre-check, though he is seeing that omitting detail is not a good option. He may need to use several sentences followed by a recapitulation of the main idea to get back on track. Hopefully, he will get a better feel for how to include more and more detail into the Kovol language.
What’s next?
The translation check starts on Tuesday. The consultant will arrive by helicopter, and Steve sit with him and three Kovol helpers to go through the whole Joseph story. The helpers will not have previously heard the story. The consultant will then ask comprehension questions in Tok Pisin to see how well the helpers catch the big idea and all the details. That will check how easily they understood the draft.
There will also be further comments and discussion on some of the details that are missing. Once they are done and the consultant has left, he will email a write-up. The write-up will list all the recommended changes and improvements. Upon making those and getting a thumbs up from the consultant, the Joseph story will be marked as consultant checked, and then Steve can start to translate something else.
Steve is getting excited to having the first part of Scripture officially translated into Kovol!