Simultaneous translation is a difficult job. And then he has to translate words without any meaning. That's tough. I feel for him.
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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I did it for 4 years, and it was pure insanity.
Some people say about Trump, "I like him because he's brave enough to say what we're all thinking". I say that about this translator.
Just take jews out and add Mexicans, and you'll be good
Boring speech from a boring public speaker. You can tell from how he rambles he’s an old, boring man
It’s even worse because he thinks he’s charming, so he’s smug and cringe while being old and boring.
How dare you impugn "the weave"? 🙃
Translating for him must be a cakewalk. You only have to know, what, 25-30 words at most?
I've heard it's actually really difficult, because a good translator doesn't do it literally.
They're supposed to say something which gets the same meaning across, which often isnt what you'd get just by translating each word.
That leaves people translating trump with a problem: you can't generally turn his long rambling speeches into something with a clearly understandable meaning without putting words into his mouth, or summarising so aggressively that you'd only say a couple of sentences for every few minutes of speech
I've read that deaf or non-English speakers don't really get to understand just how stupid trump really is because it's impossible to accurately translate his nonsense babbling.
Can't many deaf people read? I think the trancripts often make the rambling seem even worse.
Hah, yes, I meant usually newspapers make him seem coherent in print. You're right, I have read some transcripts that are just undecipherable.
Kind of true if you just read news headlines as well. Lots of sane washing occurs around Trump where he'll say something absolutely batshit insane and the media picks it apart to make it sound like a cohesive policy.
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I think just translating word by word what he says is the best way to bring across what he is trying to say anyways. its not like there is deeper structures that need to be conveyed.
I understand though, that it is difficult to do, if you are used to turning eloquence into eloquence.
But you then need to unlearn a lifetime and career of pattern recognition.
I think this is honestly how Trump gets people who haven't learned critical thinking. It's all vibes and insinuation, so it sucks you into finishing his thoughts for him. And you think, "well actually that sounds reasonable", because of course it does, because it sounds like you.
It exploits your natural impulse to meet the other person halfway and do the work for them. But Trump isn't trying at all, he's just doing pure word-association, and he's not your friend. I think anyone who's prone to unhealthy parasocial bonding is especially vulnerable to it.
I remember hearing his speeches when he was first coming to power and realising how seductive that pull was. I was constantly having to slap my own hand away from taking charge of where the sentences were going, and really pay attention to what he was actually saying, and it was always nonsense with a healthy dose of hatred, but usually couched in language that sounded vaguely personable, like, "Hey, we're all friends here, you get it, what I'm saying, right?"
If you already agreed with him, it would be easy.
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Subtitles would be easier
"Because I know that [incoherent blathering] [nonsensical mouth noises] and then we"
This is not just an issue in translation. Anybody who summarises his speeches in English will struggle to extract the meaning. Reporting should always mention this issue in the first line. A disclaimer like: «it’s difficult to make heads or tails from Trumps speech do to his incoherent speech. Below is our best attempt.» should be a preface to all reporting.
I know this is a joke, but as someone fluent in two languages, trust me when I tell you that translating anything Trump says effectively is borderline impossible, and that's a huge problem. It plays in his favor because people in non-english speaking parts of the world don't get to fully see how ridiculously incoherent he actually is; they only get the sanitized version of his ramblings.
Personally, it's been REALLY hard these past few years hearing and seeing the shit coming out of his mouth in its original language and at the same time not being able to at least share my worries with other people in my country without sounding crazy. It's very easy to underestimate the gravity of the situation from the other side of the world if you can't grasp how low the standards have sunk and still believe DT is just an average Republican president, and not living proof that the actual meaning of words has no value anymore.
It would have to be translatable into english first.
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Excuse me but the PRESIDENT knows many words, he is like a real big word book. One time a tall book, strong book, tears flowing down its pages said: sir, you are the man that knows most words of all, the wordest. It's true, it's true.
The foreword of that book had a scholar, the best one actually, very wise, very smart, he wrote the classic words used around the world:
"EY BB U WAN SUM FUK"
I've been told this scholar is Indian, dot not feather, and he writes the best forewords, absolutely the best forewords those Indian guys, possibly the best foreskin too, who knows?
If only they could literally say "incoherent rambling" then take a five minute break. Alas, that’s not how it works.
It's difficult for them.
From 2017:
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For the German translation, couldn't they just play one of Hitler's old speeches? Might not be exact, but it would have the right feel.
Hitler had his faults, but spouting the baby talk shit this jackass does every day wasn't one of them.
Sounds like the start of a new Onion article. "Media giant Fox News accidentally broadcasts historical Hitler footage instead of the presidential inauguration."
"the error wasn't noticed until 15 minutes in, when the footage ended"
Just replace "Germany" with "America" and "Jews" with "woke."
I mean, depending on the far-right group in the US, replace "Jews" with "Jews."
4 years. Hopefully.
Or less if nature takes her course.
I can only hope more disgruntled citizens will attempt to make that timeframe even shorter.
I don't know; Vance is even slimier and has more devout and regressive religious beliefs, so Trump dying actually might make things worse (as satisfying as it might be)
I hear ya. But Vance is ineffective with no real charm. He won't be able to rally the rubes like Trump does. I also don't think Vance is nearly as slimy as Trump. But that isn't credit to Vance, it's an indictment of Trump. HE is still worse than we can possibly imagine. Vance really did at least grow up poor and then serve in the military and THEN shit all over them; but he knows. Trump has no idea and more ego and delusions of superiority than imaginable.
I could be wrong, reasonable people can disagree. Love and respect!
Yeah, but from a translator's point of view, he's probably less frustrating
Hope he gets a raise
Four years, sadly...
hopefully only four years
Alternative source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTj7K0gqdcw
(Taken from the c/ich_iel post: https://feddit.org/post/7039865.)
Also for more context, phoenix (the tv channel) was transmitting this bullshit event for over 5 hours already at that point (see ARD program on that day (idk if geoblocked)).
The 2025 version of will you shut up, man.
“Word salad, a few words, word salad, bigly bigly, word salad.”
you gotta respect the person who had to listen to this whole damn speech in German to catch this. Honestly it did just go on and on and was boring as hell.
It shouldn’t be difficult to replace the translator with an appellation d'origine neo-Nazi, or, at least, an AfD party member.
It must have been his first time. Trump with teleprompter used, it won't take that long. Trump with no teleprompter, buckle up and settle in because it is going to be a long one.
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