Where are we with English – Vietnamese translation services in the U.S.A?

Vietnamese is the fourth most spoken non-English language in the US, after Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin + Cantonese), and Tagalog, according the US Census Bureau. Millions of dollars is spent each year on translation and interpretation services for Vietnamese Americans with limited English proficiency. The market is sizable, the competition is tough, but the general quality of the translated materials is clearly not quite where it needs to be. In this article, we will try to understand why it is the case.

We have not heard of translation errors from which someone died (like when a patient misunderstood a prescription). However, critical errors found in materials presented to the public that make the translated version look unprofessional (and sometimes laughable) are quite common. For instance, in a guide on how to dispose of old meds with kitty litter. The Vietnamese translation called for mixing old meds with cat shit (literally) and throw it in the trash. In case you don’t find this humorous, kitty litter is a product people use at home for their cats to poop in (not the poop itself). I am glad that the agency grew suspicious of the quality and sent it over to us. We found this error before it went out, among many others. Another example is a communication from a school district to their community about a “Spirit Day”, in which students would exhibit their “spirit” against bullying, racism, etc. It was translated as “Day for Alcohol”. Other common errors that undermine the end-clients’ professionalism include wrong meaning, word--word translation, lengthy sentences that make no sense, font distortion, typos, and poor formatting.

These quality issues resulted from two common practices (mistakes in our view) of the industry: hiring translators residing in Vietnam, and hiring American born Vietnamese living in the US.

Regarding the former, due to the huge difference in cost of living between the two countries, it seems the way to go is to hire Vietnamese translators residing in Vietnam. Not only their rates are lower, but they are also translating into the language that they use and update every day. This approach, however, has two significant issues. First, the work culture in Vietnam isn’t quite the same as in the US. Translators from there tend to be a lot more “relax” with deadlines and details, while clients in the US often demand hard deadlines and professional quality. Second, they might not possess the contextual knowledge necessary to get the job done properly (as shown in the “cat shit” and “Day of Alcohol” examples above), not to mention that their understanding of the English language could be inadequate. About 20 years ago, most Vietnamese Foreign Language teachers in the public school system switched to English from Russian in response to the political/foreign relation shift then. They themselves had to learn English overnight in order to teach their kids. As a result, a whole generation of students was affected. Recently, English centers in large cities start hiring teaches who are native speakers, which improved the quality greatly, but the cost is often prohibitive, making it inaccessible to the majority of people. It might take another 20 years for it to get to the quality we can expect for the US market.

Regarding the latter, it seems that hiring American born Vietnamese residing in the US takes care of the contextual knowledge and professionalism issues mentioned above, but a bigger problem is Vietnamese isn’t their first language. Kids born in the US all have a hard time learning Vietnamese because everything presented to them is in English. Most of them find it difficult to read Vietnamese with all the tones and complicated rules, let alone translating documents. They might be able to speak Vietnamese fairly well, but struggle when it comes to writing something out or translating some terms (ones that are not that technical).

So how do we go about it? The answer is simple, actually. We find working with translators who earned a college degree in Vietnam and did their postgraduate degrees in the US yields the best outcomes. They are highly proficient in English and have a good idea of how things work in the US. They are also used to meeting deadlines and the level of attention to details American clients like to have. A degree from a Vietnamese University often means a great command of the Vietnamese language. Coming to the US after college also means that they would still keep regular contact with their friends and families in Vietnam via social media. A lot of them still read Vietnamese online newspapers daily. Our experience with them shows that their Vietnamese is often nothing short of excellent.

Having said so, translation is an art and a trained profession, requiring trained minds and trained eyes. Therefore, even the translators who had a college degree in Vietnam and spent years in the US would still need a lot of coaching and mentoring from more experienced translators in order to do their job well.

Questions and comments? Feel free to email project@usaviettranslations.com