UN Reprimands Interpreter Over Statement

The UN has officially reprimanded an interpreter responsible for an erroneous statement in a report that said Israel attacked a nuclear facility, and has apologized to Syria's UN mission.

Syria claimed a representative was misquoted and demanded a correction, insisting that "such facilities do not exist in Syria".

That sounds like a verb tense thing to me. Anyway the UN officials claimed the error occurred not when translating from Arabic to French, but in the subsequent French to English translation.

The French, always mucking things up. Well, I think I can handle this with one of those free online thingys, let me give it a shot. Here's the Arabic one:

لا يتواجد هذا تسهيلات في سوريا بما أنّ ال [جو] قصفواهم إلى دبش

(such facilities do not exist in Syria since the Jews bombed them to rubble)

And then the French translation:

De tels équipements n'existent plus en Syrie

(such facilities do not exist in Syria anymore)

Which became in English:

such facilities do not exist in Syria

Pretty easy mistake to make if you ask me.

posted by Dave In Texas at 11:04 AM

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