English-to-Vietnamese Translation Tips

I had my first adventure in translating from English to Vietnamese today.  An interesting experience fraught with peril and a lot head scratching. 

I wrote a blog post about steps one can take to protect oneself while online through the use of a good VPN that does not log your activity, the Tor Browser project, a portable OS that fits on a CD or USB drive that has built-in encryption and is pre-configured for Tor support, an encrypted email service in Switzerland called Proton Mail, and GNU Privacy Guard for managing PGP keys.  Being aware is probably the most important thing to staying safe and anonymous.

Since I do not speak or read Vietnamese, I relied on good old Google Translator.  To insure the accuracy of my translations, I used a multi-step process:

1.  Translate the English sentence into Vietnamese.

2.  Translate the Vietnamese sentence back into English.

3.  Does the now doubly translated sentence have the meaning that I am trying to communicate?

4.  Change some English words in the original sentence and repeat the process until the sentence translated from English to Vietnamese and back to English reads correctly and is meaningful.

The process is best done one sentence at a time so as to not needlessly complicate the process.  Short sentences work best.  Long sentences are harder for Google to translate.

Now, when publishing your foreign language blog post or whatever on Minds, be aware that the Minds translator is subtly different from the Google translator and things do get lost in translation.

Translating Example

The title of my original English blog post is "Avoiding Government and Corporate Surveillance."  Seems pretty simple. 

When translated to Vietnamese, Google Translator returns "Tránh giám sát của chính phủ và doanh nghiệp."  Taking that English to Vietnamese translated sentence and using Google Translator again to translate it back into English, the sentence now reads, "Avoid overseeing government and business." 

Wow, not what I was really trying to say at all.  Thanks Google.

Time to try some different words. 

The English sentence, "Stopping Government and Corporate Surveillance" translated into Vietnamese and then back to English reads "Stop monitoring government and business."   

Still not quite what I'm trying to convey as the subject of my blog post.

Back to playing with words. 

Replacing "surveillance" with "spying" and "stopping" with "stop" gets me the title I seek.  Now, the sentence "Stop Government and Corporate Spying" translated to Vietnamese and again back to English returns a proper, meaningful title of "Prevent government and corporate espionage."

Conclusion

I posted the Vietnamese version of my blog and Boosted it for 2,000 views.  With everything happening in Vietnam, I am very concerned for the welfare of the people there and want to help in any way possible.  Repressive regimes suck.

After posting the translated blog, I received the ultimate compliment from a Vietnamese user that I have been communicating with for the last few days.

Gì, bạn là người Việt á?  --> What are you Vietnamese?

No, I am just a geek seeking to change the world.