Solidarity in four different languages: tricky terms to translate.
In December each year, the BBC runs a series of lectures by leading figures. These are called the Reith Lectures, after Lord Reith, the BBC’s first director-general.
The joy of the accidental discovery
In December 2023, it was Professor Ben Ansell of Oxford University giving these lectures. This year I came across the lectures by chance, tuning into Radio 4 in the car while taking my dog to her grooming appointment. The glamorous life I lead!
This chance discovery reminded that, when we carefully curate and filter the content we consume through podcasts and streaming services we sometimes miss out on this joy of discovering something by chance.
What is the true mean of ‘solidarity’ in languages other than English?
This year’s lectures were entitled ‘Our Democratic Future’, and the episode I tuned into was ‘The Future of Solidarity’ – the third in the series. I quickly reached to turn up the volume, because when I heard ‘solidarity’ it got me thinking about the word itself and what it really means.
‘Solidarity’ is not a term I hear much among English speakers, except when someone is expressing their backing or sympathies for someone or something. To me, the word ‘solidarity’ also has quite strongly political connotations.
There are terms that look very similar to ‘solidarity’ in other languages, for example ‘solidarité/solidaire’ (French), ‘solidariedade/solidário’ (Portuguese) and ‘solidaridad/solidario’ (Spanish). In my experience, these are used more often in those languages than in English, where a different word is usually more appropriate. Especially in the international development field.
For translators, these terms are notoriously tricky to translate and, when it comes to deciding on the English word that fits best, that decision is guided by the context. So what we English speakers think of as ‘solidarity’ is not necessarily what French speakers think of when they say ‘solidarité’. Or is it?
Narrow definitions need to be ‘unpacked’ to fit their context
What I found so interesting about Professor Ansell’s lecture was that he seemed to me to be proposing a definition of solidarity. One that gets closer to the meaning of the equivalent term in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Or am I wrong about that? Let’s see what my trusty bilingual and monolingual dictionaries say.
Compared and contrasted definitions
The table below compares the meanings of roughly equivalent terms in French, Spanish, Portuguese and English. It’s worth noting that a dictionary definition is just a starting point for a professional translator – the definition can rarely just be inserted into a text as is; context is everything.
Translators do their research
What do you notice about the English definitions and examples, compared with those in the other languages? Some sources provide quite a few different examples from specific contexts and sectors. One glaringly obvious thing is that we don’t often use the word ‘solidary’ in English. Well I don’t!
Perhaps you also notice subtle differences in nuance, or perhaps you don’t think they differ much at all. What I notice is that it’s those examples in context that really tell you what the term might actually mean.
You’ll also notice that not all of the examples I’ve quoted are from conventional dictionaries. One is a corpus, and another is Wikipedia. This shows how, though the dictionary is often a translator’s starting point, things get REALLY interesting when you dig deeper than that.
I find it intriguing that the Wikipedia articles in French and English, and the parallel language corpus, offer the most context (I use Sketch Engine on most days for that reason). Perhaps because language is always evolving.
More real-life translation examples
Whichever the source language, it’s generally true that English prefers more concrete language. Over the years, this has often required me to ‘unpack’ the intended meaning behind a French, Spanish or Portuguese term to pinpoint the right English word for the context.
Depending on context and register, I’ve used some of the following words and phases to express the concept of ‘Solidaire/solidario/solidário’:
Community/community outreach
Supporting good causes
Pulling together
Inclusive
Close-knit (if talking about a team)
Socially responsible (referring to funds)
Standing shoulder to shoulder
(Re)connecting with others (when talking about people)
Charitable initiatives
For the common good
Caring (education)
As a translator, my task is to successfully communicate across cultures in a way that someone who simply ‘speaks the language’ cannot. Intercultural communication is about more than simply replacing words with other words; it recognises that our understanding of words is forever shaped by our (changing) social and cultural contexts as humans.
Over to you
Going back to the Reith Lectures, what I believe Professor Ansell was proposing was a revival and almost a repurposing of the term ‘solidarity’ that I think fits more closely with the French, Spanish and Portuguese concepts. He talks about solidarity as the ‘social glue’ that binds us together in our polarised societies.
The lecture distinguishes solidarity – a shared feeling of ‘us’ – from charity, which is more an act of a fortunate ‘us’ giving to an unfortunate ‘them’. And Ansell argues against seeing ourselves through a binary lens – us and them.
What do you think about the various meanings of the term ‘solidarity’?
Would you agree it has subtle nuances and differences between languages?
Have you found any other definitions, or have you used any other translations of these terms in your work?
How I use revision clubs for translation skill mastery
CPD focus: translation revision clubs
In the translation industry, revision is a careful comparison of the translated text against the original source to ensure the message and tone of voice have been faithfully and effectively and communicated in the target language.
I completed over 100 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) over the past 12 months. Yay for me, right? Let me explain a bit more about how I passed this milestone.
100 hours may sound like a lot: it works out as three/four working weeks. But when you’re doing regular chunks of CPD as a habit, it’s actually quite easy to hit the 100-hour mark.
One CPD activity I do that really racks up the hours is revision clubs.
What on earth is a revision club, you may ask?
The word ‘revision’ makes it sounds a pretty tedious, I’ll admit. A bit like a club for swotting up before an exam. But no, in the translation world, ‘revision’ means something different. Revision is similar to an editing process, with the important distinction of there being two languages and two texts.
In the translation industry, revision is a careful comparison of the translated text against the original source to ensure the message and tone of voice have been faithfully and effectively and communicated in the target language.
In a real-life translation job, the revision part of the project will be done by a second translator. This follows the ‘four-eyes’ principle, based on the theory that if only one person works on a text, something will inevitably get missed.
In the best-case scenario, the translator and reviser will work closely together to discuss the suggested changes before agreeing on the final version. The best translations will be produced as a collaborative effort by two (or more) translators/revisers.
So now you know.
In CPD terms, a revision club aims to replicate this collaborative work in a more relaxed space.
Three translators – at any stage in their translation career – come together to find a challenging text they can first work on separately, before meeting (online) to discuss the text’s stumbling blocks and to compare notes.
Three seems to be the magic number for revision clubs – I’m in a revision club for French, Spanish and Portuguese and they all consist of three translators. I think it could be unwieldy with a higher number, while with fewer translators there would simply be fewer ideas flowing.
The three of us spend an hour discussing the text’s challenges, sharing the results of our subject and terminology research and comparing each other’s translation solutions. There are scant other opportunities to get your work peer reviewed: they are worth their weight in gold.
Because I translate from three languages, I’m part of three different revision clubs. It’s a lot! But we don’t always manage to meet monthly; sometimes it’s bimonthly if we’re busy and that’s fine. Flexibility comes with the territory when you’re freelance.
But being part of a revision club still means spending many, many hours per year on translation mastery with my peers – honing my craft, discussing solutions and crystallising my own thoughts. Often it means taking a fresh look at my understanding of a phrase, or even a whole text or concept in the source language.
The best things about this form of CPD?
It’s free.
It involves talking to my peers, which adds to a feeling of community.
It exists at the coalface of translation – we get down to the nitty-gritty.
You get to pick the brains of your peers. Sometimes they come up with an incredibly apt turn of phrase, sometimes you do. It’s a virtuous circle.
Even if it’s not a ‘real’ translation project, it is real-life translation in action. And we always make sure we pick challenging texts so that we’re stretching ourselves.
Because I track my time, I can see that in March I spent a total of seven hours on my revision clubs. That’s basically an entire workday! So you can see how these hours add up over a year.
Are you part of a translation revision club? Or a similar type of group within your industry? I’ve love to hear your stories!
Decisions, decisions. How do you make yours?
How do you make your buying decisions?
In our house, it’s secondary school decision time for our eldest child. It feels like a big moment.
Thinking about it, although it feels like a big emotional investment, our decision-making process largely mimics other investment decisions. It’s a lot to do with trust, credentials and benefits.
This is the detective work we’ve done so far:
Explored the different schools’ website to get to know them better (trust)
Followed them on social media to get a feel for their ethos and values (trust)
Read their prospectuses (brochures/portfolios/proposals in the business world) (credentials and benefits)
Spoken to other parents (customers) for word-of-mouth feedback (trust)
Run the numbers – their exam results (credentials)
Explored their range of enrichment opportunities (benefits).
Questions we’ve pondered have included why one school has invested more of a presence on Instagram, while another is more active on Facebook. The posts they share are quite different. Does that say anything about them and about their potential pupils/parents (prospects)?
This decision-making process didn’t start this September; we began thinking about it and getting a feel for our options at least a year ago. But now it’s crunch time. It’s only by going to visit the schools and speaking to people there that we’ll be able to envisage whether they would be a nice place for our child.
Doesn’t all this sound similar to the steps customers take when deciding to invest money in professional services?
When you’re looking for a professional translator or copy-editor, what detective work do you do?
Do you check out their social media presence?
What key information are you looking for?
Are their credentials important?
Does it matter if they seem nice to work with?
If you’re currently deciding who to trust with your content, I’d love to speak to you. Why not drop me an email at philippa@hammondtranslations.com and we can book in a no-pressure chat.