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Should I contact a former client for work ?
Thread poster: Geordi IVORY
Angela Malik
Angela Malik  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:19
German to English
+ ...
Recipes Aug 12, 2016

Lingua 5B wrote:

If I leave those measurements:

a) Nobody will have a clue about them (unless they research additionally)
b) The recipe will not be able to be officially published, in case there as an editing team around. They can't possibly publish something nobody will understand, especially something so critical for this type of content

And for this reason, I suggested something like double forms, or translator's note (ie. mentioning both variants), if applicable.

Btw, I don't really translate recipes, I was only giving an example.

And of course it depends on the readership and target group. My main source language is English, and I never received a native English copy that contains any metric measurement (so it's definitely not so common), minus perhaps some very specific areas (ie. scientific), but I am talking about average and broad audience here. It will only happen if the English content had been created by someone in continental Europe, ie. non-native speaker.

[Edited at 2016-08-11 20:33 GMT]


I have translated recipes before and I was faced with exactly your problem. It was for the US market. I have noticed recently that the US market is shifting more towards using metric units in recipes because it is a lot more accurate, but in general the US market would not be that comfortable with recipes with metric measurements. But using double forms is almost impossible unless you are in the test kitchen with the recipe writer, making measurements in parallel, because no two ingredients are really alike when it comes to what fits in a cup versus how much it weighs.

So instead of potentially causing the client's lovely recipes to be unusable in the US market (because the measurements weren't converted properly or something), my solution was to warn the client that metric units were unsuitable, suggest double measurements, and tell them they were responsible for ensuring the measurements were correct and I would be happy to implement them in the translation once they provided the correct ones. I would not put a translator's note in a recipe.


 
Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:19
Member
English to French
OT: Aussies Aug 12, 2016

Lingua 5B wrote:
... I never received a native English copy that contains any metric measurement ...

If I remember well, Australians are very metric-friendly. They talk kms, celsius, kg... in their daily life. Whereas when I lived in the UK 20 years ago, I never got used to ounces, stones, feet, fahrenheit and all that. I only knew that 6 pints were already a lot. And the general public wasn't comfortable at all with metric units at the time, however "official" they may have been.

But the funniest is the "metrication" of imperial units, like "7.3 feet", meaning 7 feet plus 3/10th of a foot. As a foot is a weird number (not 10, too easy) of inches, and an inch an undisclosed number of halves of halves of halves..., decimal separators are an heresy.

Fortunately, the British pound is now worth 100 pence. During my first visit to this island with my parents around 1976 (not long before HM the Queen's Silver Jubilee), I seem to remember people still talking shillings, which was a story in itself to us Continentals.

Philippe


 
Gabriele Demuth
Gabriele Demuth  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:19
English to German
Age related Aug 12, 2016

Lingua 5B wrote:

Susannalangs wrote:

@ Lingua 5B
Here in GB we certainly understand both metre (a measure of length) and meter (a measuring device), provided they are spelt correctly in context
I would not insult a reader by offering an explanation in inches!


I have met a few Brits who didn't have a good perception of meters (US Spelling) unless explained. Just like I don't think in "inches". But again it may depend on context and readers group. Is it really common to express your height in meters? If I expressed my height in meters, an average Brit would get an automatic image of it? I am talking about an average reader, not about you/someone who accidentally knows about other measures.

[Edited at 2016-08-10 14:14 GMT]


Older Brits have grown up with inches, they like inches and maybe have to do a quick conversion in their head when faced with meters. Younger people will have learned to think and calculate in meters and cm as this is what is taught in schools.


 
Lincoln Hui
Lincoln Hui  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 22:19
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Metric & Impe...American Aug 12, 2016

I grew up with metric and had no concept of imperial measurements, while Mother is actually more familiar with imperial than metric. I only really learned imperial measurements when I went to school in the US.

I can convert mile and feet/yard fairly accurate (though not inches, strangely). I still have no concept of what an ounce is.


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:19
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Reference. Aug 12, 2016

Here is a good reference, pretty much reflects my thoughts:

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-America-use-feet-for-measurement-instead-of-meters

It says while US/UK people (especially UK) have some introduction to metric system, it's not intuitive and automatic to them.

For instance, if I described a person 170 cm, 50 kg
... See more
Here is a good reference, pretty much reflects my thoughts:

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-America-use-feet-for-measurement-instead-of-meters

It says while US/UK people (especially UK) have some introduction to metric system, it's not intuitive and automatic to them.

For instance, if I described a person 170 cm, 50 kg, you should be able to automatically visualize the size of this person in nanoseconds, without research.

But you could probably do it faster in feet and stones, so why make it hard on the readership (average reader)?
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Rosalind Haigh
Rosalind Haigh  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:19
German to English
+ ...
Just as confirmation Aug 13, 2016

In the last 7 days I've had an annual medical checkup (height and weight duly noted in metric units) and made two birthday cakes (recipe ingredients on the BBC Good Food site in metric units, all ingredients labelled in metric units). It is certainly the case that (very much) older people may still hanker for the days of imperial measurements, but the metric system has been taught in schools for decades, and in reality Britain is metricated for just about everything except miles... See more
In the last 7 days I've had an annual medical checkup (height and weight duly noted in metric units) and made two birthday cakes (recipe ingredients on the BBC Good Food site in metric units, all ingredients labelled in metric units). It is certainly the case that (very much) older people may still hanker for the days of imperial measurements, but the metric system has been taught in schools for decades, and in reality Britain is metricated for just about everything except miles
Interestingly this discussion has become polarised between native English speakers stating much the same as the above, and a non-native speaker not resident in the UK persistently claiming the opposite. Hmmm.
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Ilan Rubin (X)
Ilan Rubin (X)  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 17:19
Russian to English
Sounds familiar Aug 13, 2016

Susannalangs wrote:

Interestingly this discussion has become polarised between native English speakers stating much the same as the above, and a non-native speaker not resident in the UK persistently claiming the opposite. Hmmm.


In the Rus>Eng Kudos discussions it's quite similar - many non-natives telling us natives that we don't know English...


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:19
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Reference. Aug 13, 2016

I provided a reference detailing the matter, with opinion by native speakers (US)?

Everything but the miles? Why is UK shoe size different than that in the US or Europe then?

I think we are digressing largely, seriously (several pages of off-topic). I think that if you want to discuss the measurements further, you should open a separate topic.


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 14:19
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
But it isn't Aug 13, 2016

Lingua 5B wrote:
Why is UK shoe size different than that in the US or Europe then?

I did know my shoe size as 5 in the UK. But by the time I left London in 1993 it was more normal to ask to try on a size 38. And 38 is what I've stayed as - in the Netherlands, France and here in Spain.

I have no idea what my shoe size would be in America.


 
Diana Coada (X)
Diana Coada (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:19
Portuguese to English
+ ...
My thoughts exactly. Aug 13, 2016

Susannalangs wrote:
... in reality Britain is metricated for just about everything except miles

Interestingly this discussion has become polarised between native English speakers stating much the same as the above, and a non-native speaker not resident in the UK persistently claiming the opposite. Hmmm.


 
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