Three Short Months.

I occasionally scout out translation agencies. Partly out of curiosity or boredom, but mostly to reassure myself that I’m not getting a raw deal with my current agency clients. One website gave me a particular chuckle the other day. They talk about clients being “stupid” or “smart”. I stopped cold, though, when they said that 98% of their native-language translators live in their mother countries. They paraded it around like it was a real benefit. And here’s their reasoning:

“How long do you think it takes a person to start to lose their mother-tongue fluency after they have left their mother-country?

• A year?
• Two years?
• Five years?

The answer is three months. Just three months.

Language is fluid. It changes quickly. Both style and vocabulary evolve relentlessly. In the last decade, for example, more than 30,000 new words entered the English language. That's 3,000 new words a year. More than 8 new words every single day. One new word every 3 hours.

No surprise then that a translator living outside of their mother-country finds it difficult to produce contemporary texts - using appropriate style and terminology. So, whenever possible, we work with translators that live and work in their mother-tongue countries - something made possible by our investment in high-speed data and telecommunications technology.”

Did I resent that? Not really. They’re right about the three months, though.

As to their reasoning, here’s some food for thought:

1. Shakespeare is still widely read, despite the fact that, by the above reckoning, 1,164,000 new words have entered the English language since his death. He is also widely misunderstood.

2. Most English native speakers have an active vocabulary of 800 words. Most German native speakers have an active vocabulary of several thousand.

3. In Germany, there are enormous Turkish communities where only Turkish, not German, is spoken.

4. 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides lives in Berlin. Samuel Beckett lived in Paris.

5. The concept of “togethering” was presented and debated at a recent trade show. One of the expert panelists confessed that she didn’t know what “togethering” meant.

6. I don’t know any translators who memorize 8 new words every day. I haven’t memorized vocabulary in almost a decade.