Uncanny translating

"[T]ranslation must awaken from its own language the original's echo. This is not to say that translation echoes the original." (Jacobs 1975: 763)

When I was asked to look at the translations of the dating site I thought it was a boring task wich would not be too difficult. I looked over it once and thought there was actually not too much to improve upon. I noticed some conflicting uses of 'je' (informal addressing) and 'u' (formal addressing) in dutch (which isn't even a real translation issue), but I couldn't really find incorrect translations. When I was asked to look at it again, I asked Tanja for some more intellectual power and a fresh mindset. While discussing the various translations they almost all seemed to be correct, except for the part that in some cases the dutch phrases were missing the expressiveness of the english ones.

And even then we didn't get it quite right. Though, in my opinion, we provided some good suggestions --for example we changed "Ik steek mijn neus in plekken waar hij niet thuis hoort" to "Ik steek mijn neus in andermans zaken" as the dutch counterpart of "I stick my nose in places where it does not belong." Or regarding the question "What do you look like?" we changed the translation of the answer "Like shit", from "Niet" to "Ik zie er niet uit" to "Beroerd."-- but perhaps we were too fixated on providing translations. At Willems first look at the overview below, he not only noticed a spelling issue (pseudonym instead of the dutch pseudoniem), but also started to change the contents of the labels. "Your pseudonym" is now changed to "enter a dating name", which is a bit clearer, I can not disagree. From here on I could reformulate the title of this article, because it is no longer about translating dating puns, but about making them clear, friendly and playful.

Uncanny dating puns

Instead of uncanny translations --translations that echo the original instead of awaking the originals echo from its own language-- we are now dealing with uncanny dating puns. Let me explain this with an example. At a certain time it was decided to communicate which fields of the dating profiles were used as match criteria and to make clear which fields are required (for an explanation of match and filter criteria see the article "Finding your perfect match"). This resulted in putting a star behind all the required fields and an infinity sign behind all the match fields. Now there were two signs, but they were both missing an explination. To fix this I started working out the following phrase:

"Fields with a star (*) are required and are used to match your dating profile to other profiles. Fields with a ∞ sign are used to list your best matches as high as possible."

For me this was it. But not quite yet for Tanja, she simply did not understand it. There was clearly something wrong with this phrase. After sending some emails back and forth were I was basicly explaining the functionality and she was trying to understand it and making alternative suggestions at the same time, we finely came up with the following sentence:

"Fields with a star (*) are required and determine the range of profiles that may be matched with yours. Fields with a ∞ sign are then used to find the profiles witch match yours best."

This was it for both of us. The phrase was explaining the function of the different fields in a way which was understandable for both of us. But then Willem read the phrase. And he simply said this: no. No? Tanja and I thoroughly discussed it! We did spend about fifteen emails on this phrase! Actually, we were very pleased with it! But no, the phrase was too complicated. Still. I didn't know what to say. Ok. Then what? I sat back and watched Willem type the following words:

"You should fill in at least all fields with * (otherwise the dating does not work at all). Next: fields with ∞ are used for better matching you with your dates. Don't forget to choose your dating images!"

That's all you need to know. That's all what the user needs to know. And it is said in a way that is respectful to her or him. Just as the translations of the puns seemed to be correct, but were actually lacking some undefinable expression, so did this phrase seem to be correct, but was actually lacking clearness, friendlieness and playfullness. It is clear because it indeed tells all you need to know. It is friendly in its humbleness. You are not doing anything wrong when you are not providing the required fields, but the (stupid) dating service simply doesn't know what to do. And it is playful in its explination, "fields with * / fields with ∞" is an unconventional combination between text and visual symbols. The whole combination also makes it a playful combination of all its constitutive elements.

When I watched the words appear on the screen I felt like a student. Watching the master at work.

Translation overview

Below all the dating puns and texts are listed. The red background indicates all the dating puns and texts that are, or were a bit awkardly translated. Suggestions are added in the 'Alternative' columns. It is also good to know that most translations can be adjusted with Mediamatic's Translation Module, but not the answers that are used as match criteria. Because they are keywords they must be changed in the admin. You can find them under the menu item 'shared metadata'.

Version History

Once texts are changed they are listed in the table below. The version is an indication of when they became replaced.