WBMFM

I translate software programs, and the associated help files and manuals, for a living. Most of these programs (and manuals) are American and I translate them into French. And they are not obscure little programs. No. They are created by big international companies, like Microsomething, and HAL, etc.

The best of them are not inspiring literature, and the worst of them are horribly written. But they share common features, in that they are written by « anglo-saxons » for « anglo-saxon » readers.

And therein lies the rub. Many years ago, I attended a seminar on international management. The objective was to raise awareness of the fact that people from different cultures have different unconscious assumptions when they interact with others. For instance (I was told), Brits rarely say « no ». They’ll say « that’s an interesting idea. I’ll take it under advisement ». You get the idea.

I have yet to see any evidence that the american tech writers whose “works” I translate have any clue about cultural differences.

I’m not referring to the frequent use of baseball metaphors. Or amusing generalizations like “In a world were bridges collapse and water mains explode, where brown-outs and black-outs are common, you need to backup your precious files with our wonderful software”. (This would be incomprehensible to a French reader, because our infrastructure is much sounder).

I’m referring to something else entirely.

The US unconscious assumption is that it would be rude to assume that the reader knows anything, so one must start from the beginning and spell everything out.

The French unconscious assumption on the other hand, is that it would be rude to assume the reader is a total ignorant moron, so one must treat him like a reasonably intelligent adult and skip the basics when they are thought to be self-evident.

Here’s an example. Let’s say we have something that goes like this (pretty typical, I swear!):

« Double-clic on the XXX icon to launch the application. The application lauches. Once the application is launched, the application window appears. Once the application window has appeared, clic on the YYY button that appears in the window » etc, etc.

A French tech writer would write:

« Double-clic on the XXX icon to launch the application, then clic on the YYY button ».

From the French perspective, the reader will automatically deduce that once the application is launched, there will be an YYY button one can click on, somewhere obvious.

But if I condensed the above US example to the above French version, my clients (translation agencies in remote places of the world like China) would not be pleased. I’m paid to translate everything, or they’ll assume I’m cheating (and besides, the translation software tools I have to use pretty much force me to translate sentence-by-sentence…).

So all I can do, is try to avoid repeating the words « application » and « window » five times each, but most of the time, the French translation will still appear to be « written by morons, for morons » (WBMFM)…

While this example is a bit extreme, the problem rears its head in more subtle ways all the time.

Take something seemingly innocuous like « Create a new blog post » (or « Create a new user » or « Type Ctrl+N to create a new document »).

Can you see the problem?

Can you « Create an old blog post » or « Create an existing blog post »?

Duh. « Create a blog post » is quite sufficient, but I never, and I mean NEVER encounter that formulation.

But at least it is easy to fix it in the French to minimize the WBMFM effect on French readers…

And it goes on, and on:

« In the Login window, type your name in the Name field and your password in the Password field ».

« Click on the Next button to go to the next screen »

« Click on the Quit button to quit the application »

« Click on Continue when you are ready to continue ».

« Click on Finish when you are finished »

Aaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I could go on and on (so I will, for a bit).

Americans write « Our software is the absolute best », « Our company is the world leader in ZZZ software ». Well, in French, you would say « among the best » or « one of the world leaders ». It’s a little less boastful and shows a little more decorum and restraint and etiquette (besides, legally, you can’t make such claims unless you can prove them).

And then, there’s the EULA (or « fucking EULA » is I always seem to refer to them). These End User Legal Agreements are obnoxious in so many ways, but the point I want to make here is that I’ve translated tens of thousands of words worth of EULAs, even though they refer to US law, and are for the most part totally inapplicable and unenforceable in other countries under different judicial systems.

You would think the software publishers would catch on and at least not spend their money on having their EULAs translated, but no.

So there you have it. If you’re French and have read one of the manuals I’ve translated, I truly and sincerely apologize if you felt repeatedly insulted, but there’s only so much I can do.