Thursday, November 07, 2024

The curious case of Eyder Peralta's Spanish translations on NPR

You constant readers know that I am a pedantic Virgo who often pokes fun at the Googletranslatization of America - this 2004 example is perhaps one of the funniest ones.

However, every once in a while one comes at what can best be described as an intellectually dishonest translation - that is, when the translator purposefully "slides" the translations around to drive home a point or position or opinion.

And thus my most recent case submitted for your evaluation.

This morning, as I've done for the past 20-30 years, I listened to NPR from about 7AM - 8AM.

At around 7:28AM, on WAMU I listened to NPR's Mexico City correspondent Eyder Peralta deliver a report on NPR's Morning Edition with the subject of "Mexico's leader says don't fret Trump's win, but Mexicans say they are worried."

You can listen to it here.

At the point in the report where Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum speaks in Spanish for the second time in the clip, Peralta translates it as:

"To our brothers and sisters who live in the United States, to the businesspeople, there is no reason to worry."

Is this translation is purposefully mistranslated?, I note that because Sheinbaum did NOT say "hermanos y hermanas" which is Spanish for "brothers and sisters", but "paisanos y paisanas" which means "countrymen and countrywomen", and there's a HUGE familial and political footprint on the meaning of those words.

Error? Intellectual dishonesty? A stretch of the translation?

No tengo idea... cough... cough...

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