Last week, an article in Le Monde newspaper brought to my attention the translator Bérengère Viennot, who has been rendering Donald Trump’s words in French.
My apologies to all those readers who have already seen the interviews with Ms Viennot, but for anybody who has had their head in the sand, like me, here are some links. I find her prose a delight – both in English and in French.
The Los Angeles Review of Books published “Lost in Trumpslation: An Interview with Bérengère Viennot” on 16 January 2017.
The French edition of the online magazine Slate published “Pour les traducteurs, Trump est un casse-tête inédit et désolant” on 14 December 2016.
Last week’s article in Le Monde was entitled ” « Lost in Trumpslation », ou de la difficulté de traduire Donald Trump“, and was published on 19 January 2017.
Those who can read Italian will no doubt enjoy the insights of Licia Corbolante on her blog Terminologia etc.: “Lost in Trumpslation” (ma non è un film)“.
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I then happened upon an article Ms Viennot wrote for Slate.fr in March 2014, about the translation profession, which I think you will love: “Les traducteurs sont des chatons“. Enjoy!
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
Thanks for sharing! We had (‘we’ as ‘in Uruguay’) a similar Trumpslation instance, if you will, with our former President Mujica (otherwise worldwide famous for promoting legal use of marihuana, abortion and same-sex marriage), whose customary speech was, and is, abundantly peppered with slang. When he visited with Obama at the WH, we (‘we’ as in our local community of translators/interpreters) felt absolutely sorry for the poor colleague tasked with interpreting for him. Bérengère’s article entitled “Les traducteurs sont des chatons” was pure delight to read. She summed up all the woes of our profession so well!
Interesting Nelida! And yes, her summary is so good, isn’t it? 🙂
In Italy, we also have abundance of illiterate politicians who cannot put together two sentences that make sense, that are coherent and clear. But we also have some good examples of verbal incontinence worth listening too. The list is long…
🙂 or perhaps rather 😦