Hi everyone, it’s Black Friday in the USA, and believe it or not, that makes me think about best practices in translation. The French translation of Black Friday in Quebec is “Vendredi fou”, which means “Crazy Friday”. Here in Canada, the stores are crazy too at this time, so it’s quite appropriate!
As a recap of the 9 best practices in translation we’ve been discussing over the past few weeks, let’s see how they come into play in the French translation of “Black Friday” in Quebec, as a test case.
- FIDELITY: Pursue Excellence — In our quest for excellence in translation, we consider both language rules and common usage. Pick up a U.S. store flyer in late November and it says “Black Friday”. Pick up a flyer in Quebec, and it says “Vendredi fou”. That’s common usage.
- FIDELITY: Ensure Accuracy — A translation needs to be an accurate match to the original text. “Vendredi fou” is an accurate choice if you are translating a document about Black Friday for Quebec, because it is the expression that is actually used in a matching context.
- FIDELITY: Check your Logic — This expression is perfectly logical to Quebec readers, because that’s what they see in store ads.
- READABILITY: Turn off Autopilot — Translating “Black Friday” literally as “Vendredi noir” in Quebec would not work! We need to avoid automatically translating word-for-word.
- READABILITY: Respect Context — Context is more than just the words surrounding a word in a document. Context can refer to geography and a reading audience. “Vendredi noir” has previously been used in France, but a translator in Quebec needs to consider that context.
- READABILITY: Be Idiomatic — In French, adjectives typically go after the noun. So we can’t say “Fou vendredi”, we have to say “Vendredi fou”; that way, it is idiomatic.
- CONFORMITY: Use the Right Tools — A website focused on French expressions used in France would not be an appropriate choice in this case. We need to refer to a Quebec dictionary.
- CONFORMITY: Verify Your Verbs — French uses the definite article (the equivalent of “the”) much more frequently than English does. So in a sentence that uses a verb before Black Friday, you would likely need to say “le Vendredi fou” or “au Vendredi fou” if a certain preposition is needed.
- CONFORMITY: Take Care of the Details — Under strict language rules, you would not capitalize “Fou” because French tends to only capitalize the first word in a title.
Thanks for sharing CRAZY FRIDAY with me! I hope you have enjoyed our discussions of translation best practices over the last few weeks.
Have a crazy day!
Liane 🙂
