Lost In Translations – The Dangers Of Being Misled By Them

The issue of errors in translations, innocent as well as intentionally misleading ones, may soon become an even bigger issue. The U.S. Congress is providing money to produce many more of them:

The House bill introduced by Democratic Representatives Joaquin Castro and Bill Keating and Republicans Mike Gallagher and Brian Fitzpatrick would provide for the establishment of a federally funded Open Translation and Analysis Center (OTAC) focused on China.

It would be based on the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which provided translation and analysis of Soviet bloc and other foreign government media during the Cold War.

The bill calls for funding of $80 million for fiscal 2022 and that same amount annually for each fiscal year through 2026 as well as “such sums as may be necessary for each fiscal year thereafter.”

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Referring to the acronyms of the People’s Republic of China and its ruling Communist Party and armed forces, the aide said OTAC would “systematically translate PRC/CCP/PLA speeches, documents, reports, strategies, news articles, commentaries, journal articles, procurement contracts into English and publish them freely online.”

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Castro said that for the United States “to effectively both compete and cooperate with” countries like China and Russia it needed a better understanding of them.

“A nuanced understanding of foreign countries is impossible without reading how they communicate in their own languages,” he told Reuters.