Flanders Today Publication, August 2011
Turning Robbie into Jaap

A Flemish translation agency finds a niche in “localising” products

Though from a country with three official languages and despite a regular influx of foreign invaders, Belgians were not always known for linguistic prowess. The Dutch language was especially resilient to invasion. It survived Latin, Spanish, Italian (when Venetian ducats were fiat) and, for a few years, German.

Even cartoon reporter and world traveler Tintin got by with one language. Relying on interpreters wherever he went, the francophone didn’t bother learning Dutch until several years after his adventures started publishing. But things changed after the Second World War. Borders opened to the global economy and then to economic and political unions; learning other languages – especially those of your neighbors – became increasingly vital to stay competitive. Flemings have thereon demonstrated a unique ability to not only learn foreign languages quickly, but with subdued accents as well.

An Ballekens, owner of Royal Translations is testament to this trait. “We’re such a small country that we’ve had to adapt to other languages,” she says. “We have to be very imaginative.”

Knowing the locals

Royal Translations was founded after Ballekens left a translator in the UK because she thought she could do it better. She and a team of six native speakers combine for expertise in enough languages to host a football tournament: English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Russian and Swedish.

They began with small clients in business, medicine and marketing. What sets them apart is their localisation work – the translation of culture as well as language – that has seen them specialise, interestingly, in video game translations. “A sentence you see on paper can mean one or two or three things, even,” Ballekens explains from her office in Ypres. “With video games, the text has to go with the image you see.  That is what makes games that take place in a fantasy world the most difficult assignments. Characters in such games are affectionately endowed with bafflingly complex backgrounds and set forth on never-ending quests. The plots of these games, with their intricate casts, mirror Dostoyevesky novels, and oftentimes it is renaming the characters that is hardest. “Robbie” in America becomes “Jaap” in the Netherlands, “Vanya” in Russia, and, say, “Christophe” in France.

It is the sort of work that Ballekens relishes. “My father spoke French, my mom Dutch, and I always had a passion for languages,” she says. “Originally I wanted to be a journalist. But in Belgium there is no specific programme for journalism, so people study languages or communications.”

After graduating university, she moved to Bath, England, and started her career in translation. It is a field, she says, driven by personality. “Some people I know can translate five or six languages fluently. They must have strong personalities. You can understand that in the context of having to interpret for people who are talking in front of big audiences. And there is a hell of a lot of traveling.” Not to mention the rigor of becoming an interpreter. “To become a fully licensed interpreter, you have to take exams, of which only five or so people a year pass in Belgium.” But, she admits, “it pays well – between €500 and €800 a day.”

Loving language(s)

Translation fees attest to the high demand but also to the difficulties of language learning. Academic linguistics has traditionally split between nature versus nurture in terms of how people learn languages. Nature suggests it is learned by biological processes, potentially through not-completely-understood mechanisms in regions of the brain that facilitate language learning. Nurture conversely suggests that it is learned by one’s environment – one reason why people speak in regional accents.

There is plentiful research on general language learning predisposition. Most interesting among them is the idea that people with powerful shortterm memory and skill at repeating sounds fare better than others. Musical talent is also often a sign of how well one can learn another language since repeating sounds is akin to repeating notes. Indeed, Ballekens has observed that most of her friends in translation are avidly interested in music, and many play in bands.

Undocumented, though, is how some people learn languages for sheer pleasure. A colourful example is a Star Trek fan learning Klingon, the language of one of its principal characters. (Though even here there is the stake of competition for the rightful honor of best Star Trek fan that possibly drives such learning. One supposes that only they know.)

Why Flemings in particular demonstrate strong language learning ability is not completely understood, either. There are, of course, some theories. One is that it is common among Northern Europeans. Another is that it’s because Flanders is bordered by several languages. And another, as Ballekens proposes, stems from a motivation to compete with more economically powerful countries.

Tintin in America

Meanwhile, Tintin prepares himself for his big cinema outing this autumn, courtesy of Steven Spielberg. American audiences have largely shrugged their shoulders so far. They are used to polymath heroes, rippling with muscle and sexuality. Royal Translations was asked to take a casual look at how Tintin could be localised for America. But Ballekens takes no assignment casually. “We would have had to have done a case study,” she says, “to find out what American youngsters are thinking about and ways to incorporate American culture into the story.”

The request itself illustrates the reputation of her company, and Ballekens admits Royal Translations is growing at a steady pace “It is true that it feels like everyone in the world speaks English,” she says, “but even if everyone did, it does not mean they want to speak it instead of their own language.”

www.royaltranslations.be

Lawrence De Geest

(August 9, 2011)